SDLC

Two hilarious version of the software development life cycle (SDLC) - the first one looking at software development as it has evolved through the years, and the next looking at the state of the affairs now. I suppose you should now start to club techies writing software along with the Poles, the Irish, the Canadians, and the Sikhs as peoples capable in their infinite wisdom of poking fun and making witticisms at themselves...I mean, with the state of software today, humor is easily their best friend!!!
(Image courtesy Lost Garden Dot Com)

(via anonymous email forward)

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | How babies do maths at 7 months

How babies do maths at 7 months?

Apparently, babies are not afraid of Math like we adults are, what with our predisposition to dislike even basic arithmetic and a disposition to use electronic calculators to do these rudimentary tasks.

Still it is amazing that babies can grasp an elementary sense of numbers even before gaining the ability to vocalize or verbalize or get ambulatory. To quote...

By the age of seven months infants have an abstract sense of numbers and are able to match the number of voices they hear with the number of faces they see.

No wonder they seem to realize/know when one or both of their parents leave the room and they begin to wail...I wonder if this is further proof of babies being relatively more intelligent than all grown-ups!

Perpetual Error Correction

A swinging pendulum is going about its lively, frolicking and music-filled way from this way left to that way right, on and on and on for perpetuity. If it were to have intelligence, would it wonder at its fate? Would it think of itself as a device thats not just swinging to-and-fro in a merry never-ending dance, but rather as a contraption that is ensnared in its own fight against the spirits of nature - its own version of perpetual error correction?

Many times, when I notice people falling into traps and troubles of their own making, again and again, with no flicker of recognition of the recurring issues in their memories, no sign of hope of resolution in their desultory faces, and I am put at deep wonder - are we just the human version of pendulums, stuck in perpetual error correction mode?

The coconut temple courier

BBC NEWS | South Asia | The coconut temple courier service

15,000 coconuts on regular days, 100,000 on festival days. Batons in an infinite relay race - until the coconuts reach the Maa Tarini Temple in Ghatgaon of Orissa state in eastern India.

Religiousity to an extreme? Probably. But, what matters the most is that people are happy doing it. And there are ancillary industries - candy and coconut oil that have sprung up around the area. More power to the people.

Its NOT the game, stupid

Disclaimer: Like ESPN takes pain to point out, the poll is unscientific, and hence unreliable to draw "scientific" conclusions. I am not a court of law, and I don't split hairs in establishing what is the truth and what is right. So this poll is a good enough trend indicator for me!

The Best Part of Super Bowl sunday? To over half the people in this country, its the sideshows that accompany the game itself, and not the game. I am sure everyone must have heard of the story of not killing the goose that laid the golden egg, but then I cannot be so sure.

But one interesting trend showed up - about one in four loved their Superbowl parties and if people want to use this Sunday as a pretext to get-together with friends and family, so be it. Another interesting trend that showed up in the poll was the fact that other than in the states of Washington (home of one of the teams playing the game) (and in the Pacific NW states of Oregon and Idaho) and Pennsylvania (home of the other team), and regional states of West Virginia, Delaware and Maryland, no where else, as of the time of this post, did the game register atleast a 50%. By a simple majority, the hype and hoopla around the game is whats preferred by the people over the game itself. Chalk up a big win for the NFL Hype/Marketing Machine. Vince Lombardi must be fuming in his grave.