GOAN FOOD
My tastebuds have triggered my imagination on a goan fish blog. What is it so unique of Goan seafood? If you are a great fan of mackerel, then go for the Bangda fry (Mackerel stuffed with a hot and spicy reacheado masala and shallow fried). Never ever use North Indian Masalas or packaged masalas. You can make the paste at home. Soak red chillies, cinnamon, pepper, cummin seeds, garlic pods in some vinegar. Grind the ingredients into a paste. Add salt and sugar to give that sweet, hot and sour taste. Slit the fish from the side and generously stuff the masala and marinate overnight. Shallow fry in oil on low flame. Voila!... Banda fry
I recommend you have the wide variety of Goan seafood dishes at Star Bar and restaurant near Old Goa. The joint might look shady and lacklusture but if you want to be in a riverside rural bar setting with the sky as the roof, then this is the right place. Enjoy crab soups, mussel fry, Kingfish fry, and Chicken Cafreal as you watch the waves lapping the shores of Mandovi river.
Thursday, September 30, 2004
Monday, September 27, 2004
IT is ethical - Issue dtd : 23th August 2004 By Madan
Software Engineers are bound by a professional code of conduct [IEEE-CS/ACM Software Engineering Ethics]. A software engineer is equally responsible to the society as a doctor or a lawyer. Software professionals have a social responsibility while developong life critical systems designed in medical, transportation, and banking domains.
Sky Bus Mishap: A case in point is the Failure of the Sky Bus technology during its trial run [ ]. A 26 year old software engineer is held responsible for the mishap during the trial run, which resulted in the death of two engineers [The Navhind Times, Goa 27 September 2004]. The engineer had programmed the auto-driving device that failed to control the speed limit of the sky bus coach at a crucial turn. The software engineer is charged with a criminal case for "negligent and rash driving causing accidental death and injury". Unfortunately, the software engineer is battling for his life as he was in the coach during the trial run. Sky Bus Metro project is touted as a big revolution in urban transport.
There are some questions regarding the feasibility and usage of Sky bus technology. Are the officials trying to find a scapegoat in the software engineer? The whole technology defies the logic that anything that is left dangling is not safe. How can it be stable when a strong force of gravity is acting on it? Why is it not possible to ply the coaches on top of the elevated sky way? It can be safely operated like an elevated railway. Kochi and Goa are the two cities that have given consent for deploying Sky bus metro system. This mishap will definitely pose more questions than answers to Konkan railway corporation.
Software Engineers are bound by a professional code of conduct [IEEE-CS/ACM Software Engineering Ethics]. A software engineer is equally responsible to the society as a doctor or a lawyer. Software professionals have a social responsibility while developong life critical systems designed in medical, transportation, and banking domains.
Sky Bus Mishap: A case in point is the Failure of the Sky Bus technology during its trial run [ ]. A 26 year old software engineer is held responsible for the mishap during the trial run, which resulted in the death of two engineers [The Navhind Times, Goa 27 September 2004]. The engineer had programmed the auto-driving device that failed to control the speed limit of the sky bus coach at a crucial turn. The software engineer is charged with a criminal case for "negligent and rash driving causing accidental death and injury". Unfortunately, the software engineer is battling for his life as he was in the coach during the trial run. Sky Bus Metro project is touted as a big revolution in urban transport.
There are some questions regarding the feasibility and usage of Sky bus technology. Are the officials trying to find a scapegoat in the software engineer? The whole technology defies the logic that anything that is left dangling is not safe. How can it be stable when a strong force of gravity is acting on it? Why is it not possible to ply the coaches on top of the elevated sky way? It can be safely operated like an elevated railway. Kochi and Goa are the two cities that have given consent for deploying Sky bus metro system. This mishap will definitely pose more questions than answers to Konkan railway corporation.
The 2004 Ig Nobel Prize Winners
Well, more than the Nobel prize (genuine!), I like the IgNOBEL prize (here the prize is for humour in science. The prize goes to a cranky idea that has a laughing gas effect. Definitely, there is more originality and creativity in IgNOBEL than NOBEL. The 2004 IgNobel has been announced and of particular mention are the following:
PUBLIC HEALTH: A Five second rule for eating food dropped on the floor
Research questions: How long is it safe for the food dropped on the floor to remain on the floor before you pick it up again to eat it? Answer: 5 seconds (according to High-school student Jillian Clarke)
Other findings: Women are more likely than men to eat food thats been floored.
Cookies and Candy are the most picked up floored food items.
ENGINEERING:Baldness concealer: How to hide baldness using a series of methodological steps to cover the bald areas with exsting hair. A new Hair styling technique to conceal partial baldness. The explanation is given in wonderful detail with diagrams. My description will be of no consequence before this detail.
LITERATURE: Preserving the Nude Pictures and Heritage (American Nudist Research Library [ANRL] ): This is my pick..http://www.anrl.org/ does an enviable job in preserving nudist literature, photographs, and archives for future generations. Imagine year 2500, If ANRL survives the alien invasion all Playboy magazines will be national treasures? See their wonderful collection in case you want to see it ;-)
ECONOMICS: Vatican Bishops and Roman Catholic Clergy for Outsourcing Church Prayer mass to India [Kerala]. The Kochi diocese gets 350 requests monthly for thanks giving and special prayer mass. A prayer that costs $20 in the US costs roughly $0.45 in India. Even before that, Insourcing is done by Non-resident Indians in USA for doing a pooja for Lord Venkateshwara in Tirupathi, Andhra Pradesh India. talk about reverse sourcing! They can perform the pooja virtually through Internet and collaborative technologies. The time is not far when your mouse will sprinkle some vibhuthi (sacred ash) in your hand, and you can smell the camphor, flowers, and incense fumes through the virtual reality system. All for $1 sitting in your studio apartment in California.This was predicted...finally the Indian Outsourcing boom is getting recognised.
PEACE: [This is a Nobel contender]KAROAKE [Invented by Daisuke Inoue]: The invention of Karoake is a break through considering the fact that it maintains the peaceful equilibrium in a community because people become tolerant by listening to their own singing. This is a wonderful mental tolerance building method. So if you are intolerant and short tempered start a daily exercise...switch on the most difficult song to sing in Karoake mode and then sing...You will have to tolerate the most intollerable audio ever heard.
BIOLOGY: Well..the Nobel prize for Medicine went for "Odor recognition" [see my previos blog]. what about the finding that the Herring fish that makes mysterious sounds in the night is actually communicating with its fellow Herrings. The "hearing" of the Herring is sharp...but the discovery is that the mysterious sounds are emanated when they fart. farting communication skills anyone?? Humans too have distinct fart sounds..I donot know whether they actually use it for communication?
CHEMISTRY: COCA COLA COMPANY, UK for claimed that they used high technology NASA spacecraft water purification process to come out with a new bottled mineral water "Dasani", which was nothing but tap water from Thames river that underwent the basic reverse Osmosis treatment. It became a great marketing and PR disaster when, chemical tests revealed that it was contaminated with bromate- a carcinogen. In case you bought a bottle of "Dasani" water call freephone 0800 227711, Coke will refund you. To Malayalees, a question..Does "Dasani" ring a bell? "Dahasamini" is a great thirst quenching ayurvedic additive that Malayalees add to their drinking water. Nothing can beat this ayurvedic sophisticated technology from India.
Well, more than the Nobel prize (genuine!), I like the IgNOBEL prize (here the prize is for humour in science. The prize goes to a cranky idea that has a laughing gas effect. Definitely, there is more originality and creativity in IgNOBEL than NOBEL. The 2004 IgNobel has been announced and of particular mention are the following:
PUBLIC HEALTH: A Five second rule for eating food dropped on the floor
Research questions: How long is it safe for the food dropped on the floor to remain on the floor before you pick it up again to eat it? Answer: 5 seconds (according to High-school student Jillian Clarke)
Other findings: Women are more likely than men to eat food thats been floored.
Cookies and Candy are the most picked up floored food items.
ENGINEERING:Baldness concealer: How to hide baldness using a series of methodological steps to cover the bald areas with exsting hair. A new Hair styling technique to conceal partial baldness. The explanation is given in wonderful detail with diagrams. My description will be of no consequence before this detail.
LITERATURE: Preserving the Nude Pictures and Heritage (American Nudist Research Library [ANRL] ): This is my pick..http://www.anrl.org/ does an enviable job in preserving nudist literature, photographs, and archives for future generations. Imagine year 2500, If ANRL survives the alien invasion all Playboy magazines will be national treasures? See their wonderful collection in case you want to see it ;-)
ECONOMICS: Vatican Bishops and Roman Catholic Clergy for Outsourcing Church Prayer mass to India [Kerala]. The Kochi diocese gets 350 requests monthly for thanks giving and special prayer mass. A prayer that costs $20 in the US costs roughly $0.45 in India. Even before that, Insourcing is done by Non-resident Indians in USA for doing a pooja for Lord Venkateshwara in Tirupathi, Andhra Pradesh India. talk about reverse sourcing! They can perform the pooja virtually through Internet and collaborative technologies. The time is not far when your mouse will sprinkle some vibhuthi (sacred ash) in your hand, and you can smell the camphor, flowers, and incense fumes through the virtual reality system. All for $1 sitting in your studio apartment in California.This was predicted...finally the Indian Outsourcing boom is getting recognised.
PEACE: [This is a Nobel contender]KAROAKE [Invented by Daisuke Inoue]: The invention of Karoake is a break through considering the fact that it maintains the peaceful equilibrium in a community because people become tolerant by listening to their own singing. This is a wonderful mental tolerance building method. So if you are intolerant and short tempered start a daily exercise...switch on the most difficult song to sing in Karoake mode and then sing...You will have to tolerate the most intollerable audio ever heard.
BIOLOGY: Well..the Nobel prize for Medicine went for "Odor recognition" [see my previos blog]. what about the finding that the Herring fish that makes mysterious sounds in the night is actually communicating with its fellow Herrings. The "hearing" of the Herring is sharp...but the discovery is that the mysterious sounds are emanated when they fart. farting communication skills anyone?? Humans too have distinct fart sounds..I donot know whether they actually use it for communication?
CHEMISTRY: COCA COLA COMPANY, UK for claimed that they used high technology NASA spacecraft water purification process to come out with a new bottled mineral water "Dasani", which was nothing but tap water from Thames river that underwent the basic reverse Osmosis treatment. It became a great marketing and PR disaster when, chemical tests revealed that it was contaminated with bromate- a carcinogen. In case you bought a bottle of "Dasani" water call freephone 0800 227711, Coke will refund you. To Malayalees, a question..Does "Dasani" ring a bell? "Dahasamini" is a great thirst quenching ayurvedic additive that Malayalees add to their drinking water. Nothing can beat this ayurvedic sophisticated technology from India.
The 2004 Ig Nobel Prize Winners
Well, more than the Nobel prize (genuine!), I like the NOBEL. The 2004 IgNobel has been announced and of particular mention are the following:
PUBLIC HEALTH: A Five second rule for eating food dropped on the floor
Research questions: How long is it safe for the food dropped on the floor to remain on the floor before you pick it up again to eat it? Answer: 5 seconds (according to High-school student Jillian Clarke)
Other findings: Women are more likely than men to eat food thats been floored.
Cookies and Candy are the most picked up floored food items.
ENGINEERING:Baldness concealer: How to hide baldness using a series of methodological steps to cover the bald areas with exsting hair. A new Hair styling technique to conceal partial baldness. The explanation is given in wonderful detail with diagrams. My description will be of no consequence before this detail.
LITERATURE: Preserving the Nude Pictures and Heritage (American Nudist Research Library [ANRL] ): This is my pick..http://www.anrl.org/ does an enviable job in preserving nudist literature, photographs, and archives for future generations. Imagine year 2500, If ANRL survives the alien invasion all Playboy magazines will be national treasures? See their wonderful collection in case you want to see it ;-)
ECONOMICS: Vatican Bishops and Roman Catholic Clergy for Outsourcing Church Prayer mass to India [Kerala]. The Kochi diocese gets 350 requests monthly for thanks giving and special prayer mass. A prayer that costs $20 in the US costs roughly $0.45 in India. Even before that, Insourcing is done by Non-resident Indians in USA for doing a pooja for Lord Venkateshwara in Tirupathi, Andhra Pradesh India. talk about reverse sourcing! They can perform the pooja virtually through Internet and collaborative technologies. The time is not far when your mouse will sprinkle some vibhuthi (sacred ash) in your hand, and you can smell the camphor, flowers, and incense fumes through the virtual reality system. All for $1 sitting in your studio apartment in California.This was predicted...finally the Indian Outsourcing boom is getting recognised.
PEACE: [This is a Nobel contender]KAROAKE [Invented by Daisuke Inoue]: The invention of Karoake is a break through considering the fact that it maintains the peaceful equilibrium in a community because people become tolerant by listening to their own singing. This is a wonderful mental tolerance building method. So if you are intolerant and short tempered start a daily exercise...switch on the most difficult song to sing in Karoake mode and then sing...You will have to tolerate the most intollerable audio ever heard.
BIOLOGY: Well..the Nobel prize for Medicine went for "Odor recognition" [see my previos blog]. what about the finding that the Herring fish that makes mysterious sounds in the night is actually communicating with its fellow Herrings. The "hearing" of the Herring is sharp...but the discovery is that the mysterious sounds are emanated when they fart. farting communication skills anyone?? Humans too have distinct fart sounds..I donot know whether they actually use it for communication?
CHEMISTRY: COCA COLA COMPANY, UK for claimed that they used high technology NASA spacecraft water purification process to come out with a new bottled mineral water "Dasani", which was nothing but tap water from Thames river that underwent the basic reverse Osmosis treatment. It became a great marketing and PR disaster when, chemical tests revealed that it was contaminated with bromate- a carcinogen. In case you bought a bottle of "Dasani" water call freephone 0800 227711, Coke will refund you. To Malayalees, a question..Does "Dasani" ring a bell? "Dahasamini" is a great thirst quenching ayurvedic additive that Malayalees add to their drinking water. Nothing can beat this ayurvedic sophisticated technology from India.
Well, more than the Nobel prize (genuine!), I like the NOBEL. The 2004 IgNobel has been announced and of particular mention are the following:
PUBLIC HEALTH: A Five second rule for eating food dropped on the floor
Research questions: How long is it safe for the food dropped on the floor to remain on the floor before you pick it up again to eat it? Answer: 5 seconds (according to High-school student Jillian Clarke)
Other findings: Women are more likely than men to eat food thats been floored.
Cookies and Candy are the most picked up floored food items.
ENGINEERING:Baldness concealer: How to hide baldness using a series of methodological steps to cover the bald areas with exsting hair. A new Hair styling technique to conceal partial baldness. The explanation is given in wonderful detail with diagrams. My description will be of no consequence before this detail.
LITERATURE: Preserving the Nude Pictures and Heritage (American Nudist Research Library [ANRL] ): This is my pick..http://www.anrl.org/ does an enviable job in preserving nudist literature, photographs, and archives for future generations. Imagine year 2500, If ANRL survives the alien invasion all Playboy magazines will be national treasures? See their wonderful collection in case you want to see it ;-)
ECONOMICS: Vatican Bishops and Roman Catholic Clergy for Outsourcing Church Prayer mass to India [Kerala]. The Kochi diocese gets 350 requests monthly for thanks giving and special prayer mass. A prayer that costs $20 in the US costs roughly $0.45 in India. Even before that, Insourcing is done by Non-resident Indians in USA for doing a pooja for Lord Venkateshwara in Tirupathi, Andhra Pradesh India. talk about reverse sourcing! They can perform the pooja virtually through Internet and collaborative technologies. The time is not far when your mouse will sprinkle some vibhuthi (sacred ash) in your hand, and you can smell the camphor, flowers, and incense fumes through the virtual reality system. All for $1 sitting in your studio apartment in California.This was predicted...finally the Indian Outsourcing boom is getting recognised.
PEACE: [This is a Nobel contender]KAROAKE [Invented by Daisuke Inoue]: The invention of Karoake is a break through considering the fact that it maintains the peaceful equilibrium in a community because people become tolerant by listening to their own singing. This is a wonderful mental tolerance building method. So if you are intolerant and short tempered start a daily exercise...switch on the most difficult song to sing in Karoake mode and then sing...You will have to tolerate the most intollerable audio ever heard.
BIOLOGY: Well..the Nobel prize for Medicine went for "Odor recognition" [see my previos blog]. what about the finding that the Herring fish that makes mysterious sounds in the night is actually communicating with its fellow Herrings. The "hearing" of the Herring is sharp...but the discovery is that the mysterious sounds are emanated when they fart. farting communication skills anyone?? Humans too have distinct fart sounds..I donot know whether they actually use it for communication?
CHEMISTRY: COCA COLA COMPANY, UK for claimed that they used high technology NASA spacecraft water purification process to come out with a new bottled mineral water "Dasani", which was nothing but tap water from Thames river that underwent the basic reverse Osmosis treatment. It became a great marketing and PR disaster when, chemical tests revealed that it was contaminated with bromate- a carcinogen. In case you bought a bottle of "Dasani" water call freephone 0800 227711, Coke will refund you. To Malayalees, a question..Does "Dasani" ring a bell? "Dahasamini" is a great thirst quenching ayurvedic additive that Malayalees add to their drinking water. Nothing can beat this ayurvedic sophisticated technology from India.
LOGICAL FALLACIES
Logic plays a very important role in our everyday life. Our politicians are best in playing with words. You just have to read the press statements of some of India's famed political leaders in our newspapers. Even the Indo-Pak dialogue process can get affected by "logical fallcies" committed by either parties during joint statements. Our Indian foriegn minister had to make clarifications when his statements was found to have logical fallacies [The Hindu, 31 May, 2004]. Even we do commit logical fallacies. Look at the following scenarios that occured during one of my industrial visits.
Scene 1:
Visitor: What is the difference between a drilling and tooling?
Plant Chief: It is simple, A drilling is meant for drill and tooling is meant for tools.
[Definiendum appears in Definens- A case of definition circularity which defies the logic of the term definition itself [p. 193 Copi 2000]
Scene 2:
Plant Chief: All bloody politicians are corrupt
Even the No. 1 plays dirty politics
[five minutes later, His subordinate gives him a pamphlet]
Plant Chief: Ah, this is the festival brochure bought out by our Chairman's party. He is the president of the DUD party.
Scene 3:
Visitor: Chief, How ethical are you vis-a-vis your competitors?
Plant Chief: If we fault on excise payments, then we become cheaters
We donot fault on excise payments and our records are clear.Our competitors cheat
We donot cheat like others, we are ethical
[Fallacy of denying the antecedent, invalid modus tollens]
Scene 4:
Plant Chief: My salesman was out on an assignment, I asked him "Have you reached Mumbai and delivered the consignment?". The bloody salesman "bugger" replied that he was speaking from Mumbai, when in fact I saw him from my office window starting his bike. He was lying to me. These sales people are big manipulators, liars.
[A phone call comes, his HR manager attends the phone call]
HR manager: Sir, Mr. Lal on line
Plant Chief: [Nods his head in disagreement to the HR manager]
HR manager: Mr. Lal, Chief is not there, he is gone to the plant
Plant Chief: [slaps his forehead] huh, why tell him where I am? [heaves a sigh of relief]
Scene 5:
Visitor: Why did the employee not wear the head gear?
Plant chief: We have deployed the best safety standards, it is their life they have to take care of themselves
[Plaque]: Management is committed and resposnsible to its ....blah..blah..blah...
Scene 6:
Visitor: How do you do plant maintenance? Do you shut down all process?
Tour Guide: Yes, we shut down everything, but production doesnot stop
(phew..how can that be??)
It is not that we donot commit these fallacies ourselves. Everyday I commit illogical mistakes which I cannot realize. I am sure you too will have many fallacies and episodes to share.
Logic plays a very important role in our everyday life. Our politicians are best in playing with words. You just have to read the press statements of some of India's famed political leaders in our newspapers. Even the Indo-Pak dialogue process can get affected by "logical fallcies" committed by either parties during joint statements. Our Indian foriegn minister had to make clarifications when his statements was found to have logical fallacies [The Hindu, 31 May, 2004]. Even we do commit logical fallacies. Look at the following scenarios that occured during one of my industrial visits.
Scene 1:
Visitor: What is the difference between a drilling and tooling?
Plant Chief: It is simple, A drilling is meant for drill and tooling is meant for tools.
[Definiendum appears in Definens- A case of definition circularity which defies the logic of the term definition itself [p. 193 Copi 2000]
Scene 2:
Plant Chief: All bloody politicians are corrupt
Even the No. 1 plays dirty politics
[five minutes later, His subordinate gives him a pamphlet]
Plant Chief: Ah, this is the festival brochure bought out by our Chairman's party. He is the president of the DUD party.
Scene 3:
Visitor: Chief, How ethical are you vis-a-vis your competitors?
Plant Chief: If we fault on excise payments, then we become cheaters
We donot fault on excise payments and our records are clear.Our competitors cheat
We donot cheat like others, we are ethical
[Fallacy of denying the antecedent, invalid modus tollens]
Scene 4:
Plant Chief: My salesman was out on an assignment, I asked him "Have you reached Mumbai and delivered the consignment?". The bloody salesman "bugger" replied that he was speaking from Mumbai, when in fact I saw him from my office window starting his bike. He was lying to me. These sales people are big manipulators, liars.
[A phone call comes, his HR manager attends the phone call]
HR manager: Sir, Mr. Lal on line
Plant Chief: [Nods his head in disagreement to the HR manager]
HR manager: Mr. Lal, Chief is not there, he is gone to the plant
Plant Chief: [slaps his forehead] huh, why tell him where I am? [heaves a sigh of relief]
Scene 5:
Visitor: Why did the employee not wear the head gear?
Plant chief: We have deployed the best safety standards, it is their life they have to take care of themselves
[Plaque]: Management is committed and resposnsible to its ....blah..blah..blah...
Scene 6:
Visitor: How do you do plant maintenance? Do you shut down all process?
Tour Guide: Yes, we shut down everything, but production doesnot stop
(phew..how can that be??)
It is not that we donot commit these fallacies ourselves. Everyday I commit illogical mistakes which I cannot realize. I am sure you too will have many fallacies and episodes to share.
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