This is one of my most (heartbreaking) videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yjAFMNkCDo I cannot watch it without a lump in my throat. I wonder the lives of how many couples end up this way. Anytime you have an argument with your spouse, watch this.
Month: November 2018
Guest Lectures
I am very passionate about teaching. With my US Master’s degree and over 30 years industry experience. I thought colleges would compete with each other to sign me up for guest lectures. BIG MISTAKE ! The apathy I have been experiencing from colleges in India is appalling, to say the least. To be fair, it is not just one college. Over the last 2 years, I have written to over 30 colleges. The only college that (enthusiastically) responded was VIT. Not only did they give me an opportunity to deliver a lecture, they offered me the post of an adjunct lecturer right after my lecture, asking me to come back to deliver 2-week workshops to their students (offering to pay me round-trip airfare, accommodation and attractive remuneration) ! No wonder they are the No.1 private university in India. My experience is not isolated either. My good friend ( a product of IIT-Madras, with a PhD in EE from Georgia Tech !) had the same experience. This guy has several patents and has published papers in reputed international journals. Last fall, he taught a course in Embedded Systems for an entire semester at the Univ of Houston. Yet, colleges in India did not even respond to his offer to deliver a guest lecture. It would be easy for us to simply give up, since our livelihood does not depend on this (fortunately). We just feel sorry for the students in our country, who are deprived of these good opportunities to learn from industry experts. Sad.
My experience with colleges in the Middle-East was a little different. They mentioned that they absolutely loved my lectures and wanted me back. However, when I raised the topic of some form of compensation, their silence was deafening ! For the life of me, I don’t understand why colleges where students arrive in Porsches and Bentleys cannot afford to pay me a token honorarium and reimburse my travel expenses.
Electronic Voting Machines (EVM)
My comment about EVMs were published in the online edition of THE HINDU*
“I am an electronics engineer with over 30 years of experience in microcontrollers, the same type of chip that controls the EVMs and I know what I am talking. It is hilarious that many people who cannot even spell the word E-L-E-C-T-R-O-N-I-C-S are coming up with downright stupid and outlandish conspiracy theories. I think their strategy is very simple: If BJP wins, then the EVMs are rigged. If any party opposed to BJP wins, then those EVMs are pristine ! What kind of idiotic logic is this ! The EVMs are far more immune to any kind of tampering than paper ballots. The Election Commision threw an open challenge to all political parties to prove that the EVM could be hacked. Not one party took up the challenge. The next time any stupid politician comes up with wild conspiracy theories, the Election commission should take him to court and see to it that he is put in jail, for needlessly undermining democracy”.
Ramblings
Life as an algebraic equation
We humans have a tendency to forget the 99 good deeds someone would have done for us but hold on to that one bad deed that person would have done. Often I have wondered why life cannot be like an algebraic equation. Meaning “cancel out all bad deeds with good one”, so that only memories of good deeds remain. 99.9% of human beings are “good” by nature and mean well and do well most of the time. How wonderful life would be when we only retain positive memories of people around us?!
Communication
We now have sophisticated communication gadgets at our disposal that enable us to livestream what we are doing at any given time to a loved one on the other side of the world. After 4G, we now have 5G; may be 6G tomorrow. However, I wonder how many of us are able to “communicate” to someone living under the same roof? How many of us are able to open our hearts to near (not necessarily dear) ones?
A Plastic Free World 