Bio-engineering gives hopes to people with damaged body parts

Came across a hopeful article in Pune Times of India yesterday about bio-engineering body organs in lab and successful implanting (Bio-engineered bladders successful in patients, lab grown bladders an important step in replacing diseased tissues and organs). This took me down the memory lane some 4-5 years back when I had come across a some small news article about possibility of human organs grown in lab, after which I had talked to a friend about possibility of getting a good liver in future, something that my friend had spoiled thanks to habit of drinking in youth.

Many many years before, I used to wonder if we could have some medicines or potions - potable or sprayable at affected parts, that could be used to make the cut organ grow again, something similar as it happens in plants, something similar that happens in foetus development stage - a cell starts multiplying to generate a particular organ. These kind of advancements generate the hope that it will also be possible in near future.

OpenSource is Incomplete without OpenIdeas

I think and strongly feel that opensource work is incomplete without openideas. In my past experience I have found that people in two different parts of world can face similar issues in daily life and can come up with similar or same ideas/solutions; and they might not know about each other's work for years altogether. Will, only the person who goes public first, have rights to those ideas and solutions? What sense does it make?

I don't know how to express it, but it looks some kind of demeaning-of/disrespect-to human mind and it's thinking capabilities. I am not satisfied that I have translated what-I-wanted-to-express into words here. May be over the time I will be able to express my thoughts and feellings about the same more clearly.

I feel to give completeness to OpenSource initiative, we need to have OpenIdeas as well, whereby people over the world can share their ideas with the community and let ideas breathe freely beyond the prison of patents. OpenIdeas will act as a forum for people to help in the cause.

Hoping that OpenIdeas gets to see light of the day and lives. I have conveyed above feelings regarding OpenIdeas in a mail to Richard Stallman (rms at gnu period org), let's hope something fruitful comes out of this for the people of world.

To start with I have already shared lot of my ideas (crazy-fancy-useful) with community at http://www.geocities.com/shimple0/techcorner.html .

Notion of part time working in software companies in India

I wonder if it will be a enlightment for people running software companies in USA, Western Europe and Australia, that 40-45 hours/week of work committment is considered as part-time working by software companies operating in Indian subcontinent. May be they want to do it in their respective countries as well, but their governments and labour laws are the hindrances they haven't managed to get rid of or circumvent.

A significantly large no. of companies representatives that contacted me directly or indirectly in past 15 months, get highly put off when told that I won't be able to give them more than some fixed hours of week. Couple of them mentioned that they are looking for 10-12 hours/day 6-7 days/week kind of work commitment; others have tried to act fair (in talks) about work culture and ethics at their place but later revealed the hidden agenda. Software development companies in India look for full-time workers, whose 24 hours/day of life they can control.

Fault also lies with Indian workers, who anyways have spoiled the habits of companies abroad and taken away bread and butter resources of many local people. Give them a slightly bigger piece of pie than they expect and..., well when they themselves are ready to be milked, why would corporate sharks leave any opportunity to drain even that last drop?

Sometimes I wonder if it is case only with IT workers that get more lured by the a dollor being equal to many rupees?

Fault of Chickens

Millions of chickens are being killed these days because bird flu is spreading in them and a quite high no. of them might not be infected though. I find it bit weird. Why only chickens? Just because humans eat them for satiating their stomach? If they feel that they will also get infected by bird's flu, they should restrain themselves from eating chicken.

It is bird flu, so quite likely that many more types of birds have been infected already and it doesn't bother humans as they don't eat those other birds. If killing all the birds in a region in the wake of a bird flue, is the solution that people follow, how long will it take that some more species become extint from the face of earth? Already many are on the verge of it.

As far as the nature is concerned it takes care of things, if let to work. It will help species develop resistance against disease. I have found occurences of grapes with seed in bunch of seedless black grapes, green grape in a bunch of black grapes. Though many companies have been doing their best to gain control over production of fruits/vegetable by flooding the market and psychology with more yield of seedless varieties. But it is fact that these engineered varieties don't taste as good as the natural ones. I consider it a fortune to have tasted grapes with seed in childhood. Newer generations born and brought up in seedless era won't even know what they are missing, keep aside what will they read about the vegetables and fruits.

Everything evolves, good as well as not-good and evolution of both is necessary for the evolution of each other. Nature will do it's best to do it's work anyway and humans will do their best to not let do it.

The adventure of getting Income Tax Refund

For past couple of months I am having adventure of trying to get refund for A.Y.2004-2005. Though not a big amount (a small way up in four figures) when compared to many others' whose grievances I came across via simple net search.

Pune Income Tax office records show that refund order has been sent almost one and half year back, perhaps it has got lost in post somewhere. Seems a sure possibility because when I had a chance to look at the record copy of relevant document, it indicated some issue with dot matrix printer used for printing the address (perhaps some pins not firing or bad ribbon), as the pincode was not clearly printed in the record copy and address was bit mauled - state happened to have got changed there. No wonder I didn't receive the refund order sent by post.

I am looking forward to the day when refunding of income tax directly to taxpayer's account gets actually implemented all over India. It is not much of hassles to an account alive for an year or so for collecting the refund from IT department, than taking rounds of ITO in vain. Moreever it will reduce some fuelling to corruption. Often people have to part with 10-15% (even more in some cases) as commission normally to receive the refunds.

The current procedure for asking for a refund that has got missed out for whatsoever reasons, involved a process of indemnity bond on Rs. 100 stamp paper and xerox of some documents. Since stamp papers are out these days, one has to go for franking and then paying 100-150 Rs. to notary for doing his bit. Not many banks provide franking services and that too is limited to certain branch(es) in city.

I wish if procedure for claiming refund against missed-in-post/lost/expired-date refund orders could be made simpler. Just an application on plain paper or filling up an online form with relevant details.

Atleast income tax department could put information on it's site about - what should a person do in each case, the documents required to be submitted with application, franking/stamp-paper value for indemnity bond, whom should the application be addressed to, better still if formats of these applications also put on site that people can use by filling in the the factual information as per their case. As my experience has been, it takes quite some energy to figure out what, how etc. related to such kind of issues from local income tax office, especially when you are not conversant with the local language.

In case someone related with income tax department or responsible for information on their site, is reading this. Can you look into above request?

Feet tell as much as your face does

Ever had a feeling that your feet tell much more about you than your face does. We are trained to manipulate our face expressions but that's it. Last month I had gone for Annual day function at R.I.M.Y.I.. At the end of function there was a lunch programme. There unknowingly I started observing the feet of people standing in the queue and found something strange. These feet were telling quite a lot about the shape of person's face and the general frame as well. Looking closely it felt as if they are telling about the psyche of the person as well. For around half and hour or so, I had been in this observation state that kept on puzzling me. In between I also looked at my feet and I saw them the way I had never seen them and yes it did tell me something about myself, something registered that I can't express.

I had these feet related observations later as well, but not as intense as on that day. Later on I was talking to one of my teachers at P.U.C.S.D. who told me that somewhere Gurdjieff also mentioned about similar things and that everyone has a specific combination, in which even if you change only the nose of person, it will result in a different person. I think I understand to some extent what Gurdjieff might have meant or wanted to express, when I see in the light of my other past years' experiences and observations as well.