I’ve had several discussions with my friends about the death penalty. I found a site on the death penalty and its statistics. It seems that lethal injection is the execution method of choice, with alternatives if the death row inmate so chooses (Methods of Execution). Nebraska only executes by electrocution. Ouch. Burnt flesh. I remember watching Green Mile, and it was pretty horrific. There have been botched execution attempts as the prisoners needed multiple jolts to be killed. From the website, I noticed that lethal injection didn’t have a 100% quick kill rate either. Here is a site with Botched Executions since 1982. Scroll down to the recent ones. You would have thought they would have a fool-proof execution method by now. That’s not even the point.

For a forgiving religion, Christianity certainly makes a lot of exceptions. I’ve been given Genesis 9:6 (Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man) as an example. The current reasoning goes as “Eye for an Eye”. What the hell?! Are we freaking barbarians? I don’t know how “civilized” executions are. The same people who raise a storm about public executions in countries like Saudi Arabia, still condone executions in the US. What a friggin’ double standard.

People who support the death penalty use economics to counter life with no parole. They don’t want their tax payer’s money to be funding the survival of a murderer. It’s free food, free room, and free room to exercise. The prisoners are akin to animals in the zoo minus spectators. I guess it’s a valid argument, and it would seem economically favorable to execute the prisoners versus keeping him alive till they die a natural death. However, I have also been informed that it takes a decent amount of money for the process of execution. I need to verify that. Here is the website about the costs of death penalty.

Would starvation be a method of execution? Slow, painful. So, solitary confinement, without food. That’s inhumane, right? Inhumane compared to a quick death? How much of money would be spent in that chain of events?

Now to realistic alternative that would be developed eventually for maximal efficiency: Brainwashing, cognitive reprogramming, psychological reconditioning. I don’t think we have technology to achieve that now, but couldn’t a brutal person be made docile and useful by reprogramming? So, instead of execution, just change the person and put them to constructive use. Who knows, the diabolical genius could be a genius in other fronts too.. What’s future?

Anyway, what do you guys think?

Technorati Tags: Death, Executions, USA, Policy, Religion, Opinion, Crime, Prisons, Justice, Morality, Life, Death Penalty, Life Imprisonment

Congress targets social-networking sites | CNET News.com

Most of this news piece deals with Congress deliberating about mandating records being stored about users by social networking sites and ISPs. The activity logs are supposed to help counter child pornography/abuse, and terrorism.

A couple of suggestions to counter the child abuse on social networking sites such as Myspace has been offered. However, I do not think that restricting access to such sites in libraries and schools are the answer. It’s is not a solution, it’s a work around that is bound to fail. If people in China can circumvent their national firewall (Golden Shield aka Great Firewall of China), what makes you think that can’t happen in the US? Computer technology enthusiasts hate road blocks like this, and are bound to retaliate.

I see one advantage of logging IP addresses of users during registration, and usage. It can be used to isolate addresses and then cross-reference those addresses to the sexual predators list of addresses. One kink I see in this, is the use of public internet access points, to circumvent this type of snooping.

It is practically impossible to know if the person is lying during registration. If I am mistaken, correct me with a detailed rebuke. It’s as easy for sexual predators to lie about their ages, as it is for a minor to lie about their age. Right now, short of loss of absolute privacy, there is no way to combat this problem comprehensively.

It is not the fault of the social networking sites that some of the users are depraved. One analogy to this issue I can think of are guns and people. Just because there is a massive illegal market for guns doesn’t stop the gun manufactures from selling guns. This is because people with licenses and right to own guns, create the demand. It’s the same case here. People who use the social networking site judiciously and ethically should not be penalized for the actions of depraved individuals. I would be mad if I was blocked from Facebook or Myspace due to the actions of someone else.

Technorati Tags: information, internet, Opinion, Policy, privacy, USA, social networking, myspace, facebook, china

I came across a fascinating article about the usage of eye contact in every day life. The author starts off with a childhood tale about his father’s ability to sift through to detect lies using the voice of God. Soon, he realizes that his father uses his eyes to see if the child is lying or not. Actually, this isn’t very hard to do. If the person is unable to make eye contact when you ask something, they are usually not giving the complete truth. I’ve used this myself.

I think my fascination with eyes come from its amazing clarity and volumes it can speak. They come in so many shades of brown, green and blue. My eye fetish began with seeing the National Geographic’s image of the Afghan Girl. Those brilliant emerald eyes captivated an entire generation, and showed a peaceful innocence through the turmoil of the region during the Soviet occupation. Every public figure must have eyes that are clear and brilliant. People watch eyes to discern facts and what’s going on in their heads. There are people who can effectively neutralize their eyes and those are who succeed in professions requiring secrecy.

Over the years, I have learnt to make eye contact while speaking. There is a difference between eye contact and staring. Staring is indiscriminate constant eye contact with singular portion of the face. While the right kind of eye contact is one where they are fluid and moving within a small frame of the region of the eye. This is of course good in cultures where such eye contact is not deemed disrespectful. For example, in India, eye contact is never made for too long with older people as a sign of respect. Same goes for most patriarchal societies.

The way people can use their eyes to acheive their purposes is endless. Most people are intimidated by constant eye contact, and are more likely to respect you and do what you want. Women can use their eye contact to get out of practically any situation. I’m not being sexist but the female sex has a rather good hold over the male sex (most of them anyway). You can also use it to hide a lie because most people watch for shifty eyes to detect dishonesty. Good eye contact is a sign of confidence, and it shows people that you are still actively participating in the conversation. You would think that people in the teaching profession would understand this. I remember a professor at University at Maryland that never made eye contact even once during a 25 minute conversation about his research, and what I am interested in. It was surreal experience, and a very weird one. I figured he was an introverted person because I’ve seen that behavior in people who are socially awkward and shy.

To end this post, I want to say how miraculous the eye is. I still can’t believe the complexity nature has produced with evolution. It’s one of the most sophisticated body parts. Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?

In contrast to the hustle and bustle of the city, people end up waiting for all sorts of stuff. People wait for elevators, transportation, bank clerks, seating and the list goes on. The reason why people have to wait for services is because there aren’t enough resources to accommodate everyone’s needs at once. Another reason why people need patience when it comes to waiting is due to the inherent fact that people take time to make decisions. Everyone has different needs, so they take differing amounts of time to get things done which either increases or reduces the period of waiting. Waiting slows down the pace of life because everyone needs a reprieve from the craziness of everyday life.

I am going to concentrate on the issue of waiting in the cafeteria. The main reason why I wanted to observe and write about this was that I have had to wait in a line plenty of times and there were a lot of subjects to observe right here at Coe. This falls into an urban practice due to the fact that we are in an urban campus very close to the downtown of a major city. Coe’s cafeteria serves about 300-400 students every meal and that’s a big number for a single cafeteria on a college campus. So, waiting is an eventuality at our cafeteria. We wait to get into the cafeteria which could either be instantaneous or delayed depending on how long the line is which could extend all the way to the bookstore. And then we wait in the food lines which snakes its way around the front of the cafeteria. And then there are lines for salads, deli meats, and liquid refreshments. Some people say that we spend a small yet significant chunk of our time at school waiting for food.

Human nature dictates our restlessness while standing still, so it is interesting to note the different ways that we entertain ourselves while we linger to get food. I interviewed some friends and asked them to tell me what they did or observed people doing at the cafeteria lines. I summarized their answers and my observations and I shall proceed to describe them.

If students go to eat in a group, and are held up, they usually talk among themselves. It could be a conversation that they were having on the way to the cafeteria or something that came up while standing around. But generally speaking in this situation, they tend to ignore people around them as I have observed that many of the conservations get very boisterous and loud and tend to irritate others nearby. While on the other hand, if someone is by themselves, they could be doing or thinking about a multitude of things. Usually they would look around for familiar faces or someone they can stand next to so that they don’t feel lonely. That usually leads to further conversation and an imminent sense of belonging and purpose. However, that doesn’t happen all the time as people can end up being alone. So at times like this, I have observed them to be uncomfortable and shifty as they look around to see if anyone is looking at them. Sometimes in the solitude, you could reflect on classes or events in life. When I was alone, I would think about my pending work and formulate a plan to finish it. Another possible thought that could be running through our mind could be to eat the right amount because it’s a good thing to strive for. Since the cafeteria allows us eat as much as possible, over-eating is a regular occurrence. Humming seems to be a popular option because it’s a sign of letting your mind wander. It’s usually a tune that’s stuck in your head and you don’t know why. It’s funny to see the person next to them start humming the same tune unconsciously which means that we influence our surroundings to a large extent.

The cafeteria is where a lot of the social interaction between students occurs during school days. While standing in line, students check each other out and notice what they are wearing or doing. This is perhaps one of the most popular actions while waiting. If someone in a group notices something different about someone, it sparks instant talk. Something else that comes up in a group is gossip. Waiting in lines allows time for people to catch up on gossip as well. We also scope out the area for seating which either could be finding an empty table to accommodate the group or find an existing table with people you would like to eat with. We also greet each other when we see one another and we also tend to greet the people working there and strike up a conversation with perhaps a chef.

I know a lot of people who either read a newspaper, mail or start homework while the line inches forward. That is a judicious use of time, for time stops for no one and time is money. We also try to look at the food set out and pray the food is good. If the food is good, some people visibly start salivating or tapping their foot in impatience. We must like observing other people because one of the people I interviewed said that she likes to look at the food that people choose to eat.

In conclusion, I think that there are three main things people do while waiting for food. They are socializing, observing, or something self-absorbing. We also need things to entertain us while we are held up. This is however not a complete list of things people do while waiting but rather the observations of an international college student who has never had the opportunity to experience a cafeteria in school.

This show started with a scene where Dr. Louis Guillette is riding a boat looking for alligators in the night. He started on his research on effects of endocrine disruptors when he saw changes in reproductive system of alligators. He thinks that we could extrapolate the effects of endocrine disruptors on humans by studying wildlife. At a certain level I agree with Dr. Guillette about studying wildlife regarding effects since animal testing is an integral tool of experimentation on the effects of chemicals on our physiology. He found a visible sign of endocrine disruption in affected alligators as the penis length was shorter than those which have not be affected.

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Isn’t that the million dollar question? I have no idea how to decisively prove to any global warming critic, that green house gases build-up in the atmosphere is bad. Both sides have compelling data disputing claims of each other. Science has not been able to ascertain positively the effects of the gases on world climate. To assert this dichotomy, here is an op-ed by Dr. Lindzen (prof, MIT Atmospheric Science) disputing global warming, and a summary by Dr. Hansen (NASA) claiming that the case on global warming has been closed, and green house gases are the culprits.

Here is my question: Has anyone ever run climate prediction simulations with elevated and normal green house gas levels in the atmosphere?

The reason for this inquiry is that climate modeling has become very sophisticated, and I know for a fact that several projects are running on super computing grids all over the world. The most famous of the climate predication projects is happening in Japan, with NEC’s Earth Simulator. So far, I am yet to find an answer to my query..

Technorati Tags: Science, Global Warming, Green House Gases, Climate

Slashdot | Is Distributed Computing Being Distributed Badly?

Before I start, I want to impress upon you, that what you run on your computer, is your choice. You can choose to run a certain program versus another. That being said, why are people getting agitated about the SETI@Home using idle CPU cycles? If you don’t like it, run something else. We know what the chances of isolating an alien signal are. We know that the odds are low. However, this is data that has to be processed somewhere. I know that the funding for this project is not sufficient to buy high computing power. Why would tax payers want to pay for SETI if the returns are practically non-existent? I know I wouldn’t want to pay for such a programme. Although, I would gladly donate idle cycles on my CPU for that because it doesn’t cost me as much.

Let me also remind you, that this program brought on the concept of mainstream distributed computing. It is a trend setter which surprisingly is still popular. Since then, there have been other distributed computing projects which more altruistic purposes such as drug molecular modeling for diseases like cancer, and AIDS, run by academic institutions. Now, I might be more likely to run such programs over SETI’s as it has an impact in medicine. These projects are firmly placed on the ground, and we can see useful instantaneous results.

Speaking about funding projects which are expensive and potentially wasteful, are we forgetting DoD’s black hole? Can you imagine how much of our tax-payers’ money goes to projects that are classified, and if it fails, how would be know that it failed? There have been so many reports of billions of dollars going wasted on failed projects. I know it is part of science, but science is about streamlining. If we don’t know something has failed, how would we learn from the mistakes?

Before most of you start spouting increased global warming from used idle cycle, I bet that it pales before any other source. I’m saying that the effect is insignificant. Air-conditioning, and heat from housing probably absorbs majority of the electricity rather than computers. People who say computers running all the time is a waste, look at the cost figures, it’s not a substantial waste.

Distributed computing is ushering in a new era for crunching data. There are bound to be more and more project which use this means, and the projects may get more esoteric as well. For example, astrophysics enthusiasts may rather donate computer cycles to model supernovae, rather than cancer drug model ling. People concerned with national security could donate idle cycles to social network analysis (Wikipedia) of data pooled by intelligence agencies, if there was such a program. The possibilities are endless, and in the end, is totally up to you to choose which one to promote. If there are multiple ones you are interested in, then BOINC is for you.

Technorati Tags: computers, information, Opinion, Research, Science, distributed computing, SETI@Home, BOINC

A Boston Legal episode dealt with the issue of personal privacy and it’s entanglement at the workplace. This is one of the few times that I have disagreed with the direction of the case. In this particular case, an employee was given 6 weeks to quit her smoking habit, or she would be fired. The boss was a health nut, and felt that he shouldn’t have to sustain increase in worker health insurance if the reason for that is a personal habit detrimental to health. I agree with the boss, and I would have made the same decision except for one situation, where the employee’s productivity was exceeding any costs incurred by the habit.

Allen’s argument was however that anything we do at home should be our choice. What he neglected was that the effect of the smoking carried over to the workplace. She would smell of smoke for one, and be prone to more health concerns. As a customer who couldn’t stand smoke, I would be bothered if she was my agent. Yeah, I could be assigned another agent who didn’t smoke, but what if that agent was not as good as the first one?

As for the client’s options, she can seek employment elsewhere where her smoking is not an issue.

What you do at home is your private business unless it has an external effect. For example, it’s against the law to drink and drive. Just because you have the right to drink at home in privacy, doesn’t give you the right to drive and be a liability on road. I view smoking in the same light with a lighter intensity. Smoking affects beyond the first person as second-hand smoke has been proven to be carcinogenic, and harmful as well. The disgusting odor is extremely annoying as well. Yes, before you go crazy, this is personal opinion, and so far don’t have the legal right to enforce it. But, it’s coming, sooner or later.

Here is a post about the inspiration for this Boston Legal episode and the issues of legality of the case. ACLU also has a blurb about lifestyle discrimination laws passed in 21 US states.

Technorati Tags: Boston Legal, Policy, privacy, Jobs, employment, ACLU, television, Law, Health

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Soccer is perhaps, the most popular sport in the world. The several billion people tuning in to watch the World Cup is a testament to it’s popularity, and worldwide appeal. I would watch soccer over American football any day. Soccer is a constantly flowing game, with occasional stoppages due to fouls, injuries and substitutions. It usually takes at most 105 minutes to finish a 90-min game versus 2-3 hours staccato game of American football.

Most of you know about this sport, so I won’t try to explain it. I wonder if the World Cup is being shown on any of the free sports channels in the US. I am watching it live on a dedicated channel in Nigeria. Nigeria is a serious soccer crazy nation with a good team, which unfortunately didn’t qualify for the World Cup. However, 5 African nations did qualify with a lot of new nations, but they haven’t won a single game. I don’t think any of them are going to cross Round 1. I’m surprised that some of the previous teams from Africa who did well in prior World Cups didn’t make the cut. I mean, teams like Cameroon, and Nigeria.

The games so far, have been decent with a few fast-paced ones. The opening game between Germany and Costa Rica was very exciting. Goals in the first 5 minutes set the pace for the rest of the game. Another one of Germany’s games versus Poland was a nail biter because Germany scored during the last 2 minutes of play. I felt so bad for Poland, having held off the German attack for 90 minutes, faltered at the very end. Actually, Germany had several goal scoring opportunities which should have resulted in goals at this level of the game, but I guess I would attribute that to bad luck. Their shots kept ricocheting off the top or side bars. I saw a few other games where teams with first goals got beat in the second half, by an invigorated attack by the opposing team. There haven’t been very many high scoring games except for one game that was 3-0 in favor of Ecuador that decimated the Spanish team.

One of the reasons that the World Cup is in public cynosure is due to the soccer ball. This innovation in sport technology makes the current ball much lighter than the previous balls, and most players and goal keepers dislike it for it’s erratic movements in the air. There would have been more goals, and goals saved since the old ball afforded more control. The new ball is more aerodynamic and rounder, with fewer panels making up the ball. Here is a LiveScience article about this very issue.

I must say that the soccer stadiums are simply amazing! The architecture, and design is breathtaking and elegant. I wish I could have watched the games like in those stadium with the giant displays, and lush green turfs..

A personal gripe I have about this game is the annoying show put on by the players. They make this sport look like it’s played by a bunch of pansies. They keep diving, and feigning pain and injury to get fouls, free kicks, and penalties. They dive, and then clutch some part of their leg while rolling around on the turf. After receiving or not receiving the foul, they get back up like nothing happened. They have gotten tough on play acting by penalizing those players by yellow cards. That’s the one aspect of the game that I, and I bet a lot of other soccer fans dislike.

Here is the flickr search results for “world cup” +germany. There are a lot of cool images from the World Cup event!

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Technorati Tags: Sports, World Cup, Soccer

In my family, we hardly ever watch TV during dinner. We converse. It’s something that is becoming rarer in our world. Anyway, today while talking, we hit the topic of our old home in Hyderabad. The locality, stores, adventures. In this first entry, I’ll just talk about what my home looked like.

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