Archive for October, 2006


Gai Jatra & Halloween

Filed Under: Randomization of randomness by Prajwol — 3 Comments
October 31, 2006

My first Halloween experience gave me an impression of ‘Gai Jatra’. Although I had absolutely no idea what Halloween was, I assumed that it must have similar concepts to that of Gai Jatra. After researching about Halloween, three years after my first Halloween, I found that I was fairly correct.

According to the folklores that I have heard Gai Jatra was started by King Pratap Malla to bring back smile to his wife who was grief stricken by their son’s death. The king ordered everyone whose beloved have died in recent past to appear in a procession so the queen can see there is suffering elsewhere too. Since then it became a tradition, every family who has lost a relative during the past year participate in a parade escorting a cow; cow being holy in Hindu culture and believed to ensure the deceased path to heaven. With time, there was humor added to the tradition.

Halloween dates back to 5th centaury Celtic Ireland where three days celebration of New Year, known as Samhain, on October 31 when it was believed that the souls of the dead walked among the living in search of a person or animal to inhabit during the next year. So people tried dressing up as dead to fool the spirit. Halloween came to North America in the 1840s via Irish immigrants. The tradition continued with the addition of humor. So I guess we could say Halloween and Gai Jatra are similar if not the same, both involve dead as well as humor.

Last Saturday I had to attend a Halloween party where costume was a must. Although I don’t necessarily had to be scary, I was told to dress up something that I am not. Well, there could be many things that I am not, like a Superman, Spiderman etcetera but I did not feel like spending money for a costume which I am going to wear once a year. So I decided to be someone with what I have. I had a pathan dress, a camouflaged jacket, so I thought if I could get my self a turban and a gun I could look like a Afghan warrior. So I went to the Wal-Mart purchased a meter of cheap cloth for $1 and a toy gun for $6. After I dressed up, then I realized I looked like “guess who”. When I drove to the party place, I found the street but was not sure about the house and those party people inside were in no mood to pick up my call. I didn’t have the guts to walk up to the possible houses to inquire with that sort of dress. Then I saw a colleague of mine park to a house and then I followed him in. I was late to the party because I couldn’t tie up my turban, so all the invitees were already present. As soon as I walked in there was a hush, after brief silence the party was on again. As suspected I was presented as “guess who”.

After the party was over, I was quick to take off the turban and my camouflaged jacket. Even though I prepared myself a creative costume for less money, I will never forget the unease I went through when locating the party house. I promised myself that next year I will be wearing a less sensitive costume despite its cost. Posted by Picasa

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Living Planet

Filed Under: They call it science by Prajwol — 3 Comments
October 26, 2006

Recent ‘Living Planet’ report published by World Wildlife Fund (WWF) has stated that the current natural resources depletion is the worst in human history. Many species have extinct in past two decades at an alarming rate. The demand for resources had never been greater before. It cautioned that if the need continued at the current scale, two planets would be needed to meet global demand by 2050. Another interesting fact is if the world populations live the UK’s lifestyle, three planets would be needed to support their needs.

This report was created based on ‘Ecological Footprint’, an indicator based on measure of human demand on the natural world. Living Planet Index, assesses the health of the planet’s ecosystems, was another indicator.

For sustainability, the planet is only able to meet consumption levels of 1.8 global hectares per person. Due to the consumption rate, mostly by developed countries, the global footprint exceeded the earth’s biocapacity by 25% in 2003, which meant that the Earth could no longer carry on with the demands being placed upon it.

Looking at the trend of consumption and depletion, if Nepal ever gets her problem sorted and proceeds towards development, there won’t be any resources left to fuel it. Third world countries would never get an opportunity to live a life that people in developed countries are living. It’s hard to imagine the world in that condition; we will see more bloodsheds than ever.

Majority of reports published alarming the ecosystem depletion is generally blamed to be too pessimistic. It is said that they don’t consider the fact that with technological advancements some of these issues can be sorted.

Although, there might be a hope for technological advancements, but no one can debate that we definitely are exerting more pressure on the ecosystem affecting its sustainability. Posted by Picasa

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Beer Guff

Filed Under: I love to drink by Prajwol — 1 Comment
October 21, 2006

Recently a team of American and British scientists successfully hid a small copper cylinder from microwaves. The basic principle behind this is deflecting the microwaves around the object and restoring them on the other side, giving an impression that they had passed through empty space. Human vision works on visible range of electromagnetic spectrum, if in someway the waves from the visible range can be deflected similar to the experiment done by American and British scientists, then we definitely can have an invisible man. I don’t want to talk about the pros and cons of developing a mechanism that can stealth visible spectrum, but I just want to point out that with the way thousands of scientist working around the globe a breakthrough in this area is utterly possible.

Scientists around the world are working on many projects that we might not even fantasize about, as only the success stories are brought up in the media; however, I would like to draw attention of scientific communities in couple of areas that I am interested in. Although they might already be working on those, but if not then I am talking chances by writing them in my blog and hoping someone would read it and give it a shot.

I was always precise about the food that I eat. I want the food to be very flavorsome but at the same time I don’t want to be spending much time eating. I am also a very bad cook to make the food of my choice. So I always dreamt if there was a capsule that can substitute your food. A capsule for every occasion: breakfast, lunch, dinner as well as for late night parties. Each capsule comes with different taste sensation, for example, it can give you sensation of MOMO or CHATAMARI and at the same time fill your stomach. These capsules can be bought online or in your nearest grocery store. You can even purchase a stock for a whole year. Just imagine if these capsules can be made how much it would revolutionize the world. People can get right amount of ingredients in the food; there would be no problem of overweight or malnutrition. If someone is over weight he/she can purchase capsule that has less carbohydrate content and if someone is suffering from malnutrition that person can purchase capsule containing more proteins, vitamins and minerals. Since these capsules will be mass produced, it will be very inexpensive. Due to less storage space and inexpensiveness, people in Africa can be reprieved of hunger. Time saved on groceries, cooking and eating can be used to better our lives, more time for families, more time on creative work, and the advantages of it goes on and on.

After solving the eating problem for the world there is another issue that I would like to draw attention of the scientific communities; that is to create a peaceful sleep. I am suffering from this problem and my friend Jewel Shrestha had come up with this idea, to purchase a sleep. I need to be at work at 7:30 am everyday, but I don’t fall asleep till 1 or 2 am and waking up every morning is like hell. One might say there are sleeping pills to solve this problem but sleeping pills must be taken everyday and are said to have side effects, and I am looking for a more sophisticated stuff than just a sleeping pill. How about a system of purchasing a month of sleep for certain time period where the person goes immediately to sleep in that period? I would purchase a period of 10 pm to 6 am. This period can be purchased online and the account must be renewed periodically after the allocated time, similar to pre paid sim card of a cell phone. There can be variety of sleep purchased like pleasant sleep, romantic sleep, sexy sleep, horror sleep etc. While sleeping one can have different sleep vibrations based on one’s desire. There can be also a pay per view sleep which will of course be more expensive but different than the regular sleeps. Once in a while, it will be a good option to purchase a pay per view sleep, especially during the weekends.

Though all these ideas are resultants of beer guff, but if achieved can be a great blessing to mankind.

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I Love MOMO

Filed Under: My kitchen by Prajwol — Leave a comment
October 18, 2006

What do I have for lunch is one of the niggling problems abroad? I guess it’s even harder for me as I came abroad after spending quarter of my life in Nepal. I simply couldn’t adjust to the foods here. While in Nepal having a burger, pizza or taco for a change was a good experience for the taste buds but having those foods as lunch, or sometimes even dinner, everyday can’t be pleasant. In my early days abroad, noodles used to be my best friend due to different taste variety, inexpensive as well as convenience and ease to cook. But now I get sick even with the thoughts of noodles, just imagine how much noodles I must have eaten already. When I looked around I saw similar, if not the same, problems with many Nepalese abroad; glad to know that I am not alone.

I remember when in Nepal selecting a lunch was quite easy, ‘SAMOSA’, ‘PAKODA’, ‘ALU TARKARI’, ‘DOSA’, ‘CHOWMEIN’ etc; but ‘MOMO’ was the king of all. My taste senses never got bored even after having momo for lunch for seven days, and I could repeat that for the next week too. Not only the Bakery Cafe, even the small restaurants, where shopkeepers can be seen applying pressure to stove using bicycle air pump, were my favorite lunch hangouts. I bet it won’t be unfair to say that one of the major developments after democracy was the “MOMO Boom”. People in Nepal take momo for granted and can never imagine how big a problem is solved by it. I have done that and seen many people do that; that is to go to a restaurant, ask for a menu and review it from top to bottom, but always ask for momo. One of my friend (Sabin Ninglekhu) had termed that as a compulsive behavior of Nepalese. We tend to review the whole menu even if we already know from the first that we will ultimately be having momo. I am having a hard time to distinguish either if it’s a compulsive behavior or it’s a power of momo. Such is the power and dominance of momo in Nepal that I believe one with momo as their election symbol can do very well in political campaigning.

Life is full of compromises and momo happened to be one for me. I still can have momo in weekends when I am with friends, but nothing beats momo in Nepal. After moving to Lafayette, LA I was somewhat excited with the prospect of ‘Cajun’ food. Cajun food is very different to conventional American food and is largely regarded for its good taste. Yesterday I had gone with my colleagues for a lunch to a Cajun type restaurant where they served plate lunch. The daily special was rabbit meat so I decided to have a smothered rabbit. When I started eating I couldn’t stop visualizing a beautiful white rabbit that I saw in the zoo when I was a kid. May be it was the guilt of eating a “beautiful white rabbit” I didn’t enjoy my food at all while all other people were admiring the food. I will give a shot to a different Cajun variety, perhaps alligator meat or widely acclaimed gumbo, but never a rabbit meat again.

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Book Lust

Filed Under: News/information and opinion by Prajwol — 2 Comments
October 17, 2006

Recently I was introduced to a book called “Book Lust” written by Nancy Pearl in 2003. Nancy Pearl is the current director of library programming and the Washington center for the book at the Seattle public library. She has also worked as a librarian in numerous places and was a keen book reader from a young age. In her book she has classified published books into more than 175 different categories. One category of her, “I love mystery” is my favorite subject especially when the main character is not a spy, detective or related authority but someone ordinary and has to go through the ordeals of resolving the situation, unraveling the truths and avoiding deaths. These sort of charecters have to show the courage and intelligence to stand out and the writer has to put in extra effort to potray them as the lead character. Following are some of the suggested reading by Nancy in this category, the profession of the lead character is shown in the brackets.

Sarah Caudwell’s Thus Was Adonis Murdered (Lawyers)
Edmund Crispin’s Gervase Fen Series, especially The Moving toyshop; The Case of Gilded Fly; and The Glimpses of Moon (Oxford Don)
Agatha Chrisite’s Nemesis (little old lady)
Dorothy Sayer’s Gaudy nights (Wealthy dilettante and writer)
Nevada Barr’s Blind Descent; Flashback; and Hunting Season (park ranger)
M.C. Beaton’s Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death (first in the series featuring a public relations flak)
Ayelet Waldman’s The Big Nap (stay at home mom, ex-public defender)
Susan Conant’s Bloodlines (dog fanatic)
Earlene Flower’s Mariner’s Compass (museum curator)
Joan Hess’s Out on a Limb (bookstore owner)
Jonathan Kellerman’s When the Bough Breaks (psychologist)
Sharyn McCrumb’s Paying the Piper (anthropologist)
Barbara Neely’s Blanche on the Lam (cleaning women)
Rich Boyer’s Billingsgate Shoal (doctor)
Michael Nava’s Rag and Bone (lawyer)
Lia Matera’s Face Value (lawyer)
John Mortimer’s Rumpole of the Bailey (British Lawyer)
Veronica Black’s A Vow of Compassion (nun)
G.K. Chesterton’s The Best of Father Brown (priest)
Harry Kemelman’s Friday the Rabbi Slept Late (rabbi)
Ellis Peter’s A Morbid Taste for Bones (medieval monk)
Amanda Cross’s The Theban Mysteries (college professor)
Carolyn Hart’s The Christie Caper (bookstore owner)
Elizabeth Peter’s Crocodile on the Sandbank (Victorian explorer and fan of all things Egyptian)

I believe if someone wants to start reading books and doesn’t know where and what to start from, then this book is really worth seeing.

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prajwol@prajwol.prajwol

Filed Under: Randomization of randomness by Prajwol — 1 Comment
October 16, 2006

Couple of months back, there was a lot of talk in my work about two of my colleagues (married couple) as they were expecting their baby in January. I had been to their home one time and I saw a long list of hand written names clipped on the refrigerator. I was cheerfully explained that those were the possible names for their expected baby. At that moment they absolutely did not have any consensus on the names whatsoever. I was very interested in this topic and so was majority of the people at work. Then finally one day I was told that they finally have agreed over a name if it’s a girl. I am not in their shoes but still I felt they were making an unnecessary fuss, what so difficult about naming your child. Maybe, in similar situation I might think otherwise but at this moment I felt this was a needless commotion. As dates started to draw closer, ultra sound test confirmed that it was a boy, all that brainstorming was a waste. After much uproar again, the expected baby boy finally got a name. Thank god naming a kid isn’t that difficult compared to naming your email address. Just imagine what would have happened to that couple, if a message pops up “sorry this name is already taken”.

I don’t know about you, but I always had problems getting a first choice name for my email. The first ever email account that I opened was hotmail and naturally I wanted my name followed by hotmail and then dot com. As you would expect, I did not get it. After using different permutations and combinations I finally settled for my name followed by number 02. When I was in school, I always had 2 as my class roll number, so I thought that was a very logical choice for my email address. I am sure everyone tries to be logical and give meaning to their email add if they don’t get the name of their first choice. And then there was trend of having multiple email accounts through different service providers, even if you don’t need them all. Adding 02 suffixes were working well to all my email addresses but yahoo, so I had to use suffix 002. Coming up with impromptu name and also try being logical can be very difficult. For a moment forget the email issues where you need to have a unique ID, one time I was in San Antonio and two of my friends (Lalit and Binaya) were trying to figure out their wireless network; and to complete the setup they had to name their wireless profile. Both guys pondered for while looking at each other and finally roosted with a name “birbahadur” which means nothing to them.

I am not digging up the graves by mentioning my failures to achieve email address of my desire, this identity crisis occurred to me once more while trying to name this blog site. I was trying to get names that could relate to the contents of the blog. I literally tried every dictionary word but it wouldn’t be unique enough. I also tried my name, it doesn’t work either. So like everyone else I tried to put logic behind the name that I would eventually use, how about the name of place you grew up?

Well, I don’t have the skills to support me but I am really craving for an email address that looks like: prajwol@prajwol.prajwol.

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I’m Online

Filed Under: Randomization of randomness by Prajwol — Leave a comment
October 14, 2006

After giving a lot of thoughts I finally decided to go online. Though I was never a computer geek, I always felt that I was quite updated with all the technologies and advancements that we incur in our daily chores. So I decided to create a website, more like a forum, especially for people in science like me.

When I was in Nepal, there was a huge buzz about Information Technology (IT). For me, and I bet some of you too, IT was just a CAN INFOTECH, organized by computer professionals once every year at BICC. At that time I found it pretty cool, I could get a pass from my dad’s office and it was the best damn place for Eve watching. Frankly speaking, I never understood what IT really was. Majority of vendors in the INFOTECH were there for selling their machine, may be having a PC was the first step towards the IT revolution.

Long after moving abroad for my higher studies, I started to feel and understand the power of IT and web. Now, I can’t imagine a single day without the use of web either for my work or for my personal purpose. Last time I created a website, it was my personal website hosted by my grad school’s server. All I had to do was create some templates using FrontPage and put it in the folders assigned by the school. That website had my information, my resume, classes I was taking, and links to other relevant websites. Well that was nice and easy and I felt very happy about it. Hurray, I finally had my own website though I never felt compelled to update it again. After graduating from the school I lost my privileges to host that site. Now I am among few people who don’t have a website. Do I really need to have a website or does anyone really need a website? The answer depends on what you want to serve your website for; one thing is for sure, I don’t need to have a website showing just my resume, pictures, and personal information. Then suddenly from nowhere, why did even a thought of creating a website came to me? What do I want to have in my website? Whom will this website serve? I am still seeking for answers.

My life has changed since graduating and resuming work. After the scheduled hours at work, I have tons of time remaining where I have basically nothing to do besides watching TV or roaming around. One of my colleagues at work suggested me to pick up a hobby to kill time, so I started reading books, lazily sometime go for a workout, and even so I still have a lot of time to kill. I really wanted to use my time for something meaningful, and my desire for creating a website might be a result of it.

So what do I want in my website? I narrowed down some possibilities: it will be similar to a blog, a forum to be precise; it will contain views based on the real life facts on science professionals (not only big guns but lower tier professional like me too), information on relevant discoveries and resources, information on job opportunities and grant/funding for schoolwork etc. The ideas seem vague but I believe I can definitely deduce them to more specifics later as I start working.

Who will be browsing through my website? Personally, I work in a prestigious agency and some of my other friends too, and some are undertaking schoolwork in good universities. If I can have them all communicating then I can build a strong resource for a good job networking, higher abroad studies opportunities, and vital information’s on excelling in your current jobs. I may have missed much more advantages out of it, like one of my cousin mentioned to me that guy’s who eventually made Napster, in their college days had developed a sharing tool for themselves and had never imagined how big the sharing of resources will ultimately be. Well I definitely don’t have high hopes comparing my site to Napster, but that is certainly a good story to draw your inspiration from.

Like I mentioned earlier about how and where I created my last website, now for me to create a new one I unquestionably have to purchase a domain name as well as the web hosting. Although, I have made some advancement since my last CAN INFOTECH, I still found my self lacking. So I called my cousin, who now has a pretty accomplished website, for a help. The information and resources that I obtained from him was very overwhelming for a first day. So after a long tinkering with him I finally settled for a blogsite instead of a website to start with. Thinking of something and putting it to words are completely different facets. So this blog, at first, will serve as a test for me whether or not I can do justice to my penmanship. That will lay a foundation for me to migrate to the website that I am dreaming of in the future. I am not sure if I will ever be able to make that leap but one thing is for sure, I have come a long way from CAN INFOTECH.

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