Blissful Life

Author: akshay

  • What if the PM directly orders the District Collectors? (and technology assists them)

    I just found a solution for corrupt politics. If I can get one great Prime Minister, I have made a plan to rescue India. Consider:
    There are only around 600 districts in India. Assuming that all of them have one and only district collector we will have around 600 district collectors. All of them are highly educated, highly qualified IAS officers and therefore most probably sincere to their professions too. A district is quite a manageable area for a single person to administer efficiently. So, District Collectors can efficiently look after their respective districts. But what they lack is sometimes the power to make laws and sometimes the support of a minister concerned with what he’s trying to do (that is what we mean by a corrupted government)
    Now assume that we have one great Prime Minister. And around 50 % good collectors (i.e. 300 of them). Let all others be corrupted. All the ministers, all other executives. We just need 301 people on our side.

    The PM after being elected conducts a grand conference. On day 1 he talks to district collectors from one state, about the problems the state is facing and about what they can do. He asks them about the hurdles they are facing in nation development. He lends them complete support for anything that they are undertaking (provided all the collectors from that state agree). He promises to help them out of any complications that are being imposed on them by state ministers or other central ministers. He gives them high class security.
    And he gives them an email id and a phone number. Any collector can at any moment contact him directly and talk to him and ask his permission and if needed ask his help in dealing with a troublesome minister or such.

    This is done with every other state. And within a month every collector in the country is connected to the Prime Minister. And the collectors can do reforms that were previously impossible due to interventions by others.

    What I mean is virtually a parallel government. But this one is legal.
    Instead of the Members of Parliament (We do have MPs, but they are not acting in between the PM and Collectors), we have District Collectors. It is not true democracy, but it seems like it is better than democracy as it is in India now. The PM acts directly through the Collectors. So there is no time lag. There is no efficiency drain. Corrupt politicians are no more a problem.

    One great Prime Minister and India will never be the same again.

  • Gandhiji Best Expressed

    I am really really busy today, but I have to make a post to mark this very special day too. So I thought rather than telling about Gandhi, I will tell what Gandhi told. Here are my favourites among His quotes:

    • A coward is incapable of exhibiting love; it is the prerogative of the brave.
    • A ‘No’ uttered from the deepest conviction is better than a ‘Yes’ merely uttered to please, or worse, to avoid trouble.
    • Whenever you are confronted with an opponent, conquer him with love. 
    • Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.  
    • A man is but the product of his thoughts. What he thinks, he becomes.
    • Be the change you want to see in the world.
    • First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
    • God is conscience. He is even the atheism of the atheist.
    • Honest disagreement is often a good sign of progress.
    • An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind.
    • An ounce of practice is worth more than tons of preaching. 
    •  Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony. 
    • Constant development is the law of life, and a man who always tries to maintain his dogmas in order to appear consistent drives himself into a false position.  
    • Faith… must be enforced by reason… when faith becomes blind it dies. 
    • Gentleness, self-sacrifice and generosity are the exclusive possession of no one race or religion. 
    • I have nothing new to teach the world. Truth and Non-violence are as old as the hills. All I have done is to try experiments in both on as vast a scale as I could.  
    • It is any day better to stand erect with a broken and bandaged head then to crawl on one’s belly, in order to be able to save one’s head. 
    • It is easy enough to be friendly to one’s friends. But to befriend the one who regards himself as your enemy is the quintessence of true religion. The other is mere business.  
    • My life is my message.
    • Power is of two kinds. One is obtained by the fear of punishment and the other by acts of love. Power based on love is a thousand times more effective and permanent then the one derived from fear of punishment. 
    • The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others. 
    • The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.
    • Fear has its use but cowardice has none. 
    • You can chain me, you can torture me, you can even destroy this body, but you will never imprison my mind.
    • True brahmacharya is this: one who, by constant-attendance upon God, has become capable of lying naked with naked women, however beautiful they may be, without being in any manner whatsoever sexually excited.
    • Nobody can hurt me without my permission.

    I was thinking about how easy life becomes when we practice truth. How we are justified no matter what we tell or do. How people start believing you. How people hear you. How you can talk anything without any preparation. How you don’t need to remember what you told. How you can finish conversations very quickly. How people understand your behaviour. How you can explain things easily.
    Its a whole lot easier than when you dwell on false prepositions.

    Try it. Tell the truth. And feel the difference.

  • Pale Blue Dot

    Can you see a tiny little dot in the above picture. That is our good old earth. Just that it was photographed 3.7 billion miles away from the home of anyone reading this. And the famous Carl Sagan gave the following words relating to that little speck:

    “Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
    The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.
    Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
    The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

    It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.”

    There’s nothing more I can add to what Sagan said. Just see that picture once again and take a few breaths.

  • Dare to Think Beyond just Google, Gmail, Facebook, Youtube and Wikipedia

    The internet is the best thing that human beings have invented (at least until 8 pm tonight). But still, millions of internet users all over the world do not visit more than 5 websites on an average day. (Those being google, gmail, facebook/orkut, youtube and rarely wikipedia too). Considering the fact that there is probably more than 182,226,259 sites out there, this is a pretty small number though certainly not negligible, because most people get whatever they need from those few sites.
    If you are someone who love to break out of the pack and venture into the internet, here’s what to do.
    First of all you must know that google is the answer to all your questions. If it hadn’t been for google or similar search engines, internet would have been a grand failure. And we should be grateful that google does exist because it is such a huge thing (the god of internet). Just think it without google. How would life in internet be? No mail, no scraps, no videos, no news, no search, not even me… Horrible life.

    So, google

    It’s analogous to human life. People are born into the internet knowing about a single site – google, then they learn everything about the web.

    With google there is gmail, orkut, youtube, blogger,  (and since you are reading this blog I know that you know about these already)
    But these are not the only services that google provides:
    There is even more
    News : An automatically updating database of news. Finds the latest news matching your query. Can even substitute your newspaper.
    Translate : You know what it is. Does an excellent work, you can even put in url and it does the rest. It can even detect language (so you needn’t know the language you don’t know in order to know what is being told)
    Groups : The best and easiest way to do something together with your friends, colleagues. Share files. Anything.
    Docs : Though I don’t use it for creating documents, it is great help for viewing attachments in my mails.
    Reader  : The best and easiest way to read and subscribe to feeds online. What are feeds?

    Now I shall start about sites that are meant to be read, and not used. And before that I must tell you what feeds are. Feeds are also called RSS feeds or Atom feeds (RSS and Atom are different types of feeds. But either can be used without much problems). They are usually seen as links under the title RSS or subscribe or Feed or in websites.  Now, what you must do is to copy the link and paste it in your feed reader (by the way feed reader is a software used to read feeds) But since there is google reader, you just need to go to google reader and add a new subscription. But nowadays, you needn’t do even that. There is feedburner that adds extra functionality to feeds. The feedburner feed links takes you to a page where you can select which online feedreader to use and you will be automatically subscribed to that feed. Just click on this link to test it

    So now that you are familiar with feeds, you can go to the sites I’m going to tell and subsribe to them one by one, or alternatively subsribe to a bundle of all those feeds in just one click, which is available at the end of this post.

    Now some personality development websites.
    zenhabits : my personal favourite. The biggest guide to simplicity available on net. Leo Babuta is bound to simplify your thoughts, likes and life after you start reading. (start here)
    PluginID : Another nice one from this niche. Written by Gen Allsopp who have firsthand experience in dropping out and freelancing and so on. (start from this post)

    Dumb Little Man: Tips about productivity, simplicity, etc and the real reason why it’s a cracker? The articles in it are submitted by great bloggers around the world trying to gain a bit more publicity, and therefore are bound to be top-notch.

    Now, a bit about technology:
    Lifehacker is a site that gives you tips, tricks and links to various great things out there. It’s written by a group of people and at least 20 posts are made a day. (start with these)

    After all, there are some sites you’ve heard of but haven’t started using.
    Twitter : From Barack Obama to Shashi Tharoor there is everyone in twitter tweeting about what they are doing.
    Entrecard : If you are a blogger you’ll find this a handy tool to gain traffic to your blog by advertising on other blogs in the network without money, but with credits that you can gain by displaying others’ ads on your blog.

    And wait a minute, did I tell you about stumbleupon? The basis of stumbleupon is simply a firefox toolbar. It has a few buttons called stumble, I like this, I don’t like this, etc. When you click stumble, after creating an account at stumbleupon, you will get to a website you haven’t heard of but you must hear of, based on the areas of interest you chose while signing up for an account. And if you like that site, you can click I like it. Then stumbleupon will see what other websites people who liked this website liked and brings you another website you may like on the next click of stumble. It’s fun when you start using it.

    If you are a google reader user, you can just subscribe to this bundle and subscribe to many sites I’m subscribed to in a single click.

  • The Golden Rule in Social Life

    The best thing about being a kid is that you can be frank in your opinions, blurt anything out to anyone and live a carefree life. But the moment you break out of the childhood shell, you gather a lot of cobwebs.
    Then you can no longer talk like you talked when you were a kid. You will have to consider and reconsider every word before you let it out. You will have to think twice before you talk.

    And since I learned it the hard way, I believe I’m experienced enough to share that golden rule of social life and communication.

    And that most unwelcome, most painful, most disgusting rule of life which everyone should remember before even thinking about talking is… [with bated breath]
    …that “No two persons think exactly alike“

    A bit familiar?
    Ever thought something and heard the exact opposite thought from someone else? Ever had a debate where people never seem to understand your way of thinking? Ever tried to appreciate someone and ended up gaining hatred? Ever tried to convince somebody and failed miserably?

    Yeah, you know what I’m speaking about.
    The reason why there are more debates in the world than constructive criticism, the reason why people are always in two sides on every topic of discussion, the reason heaven is not situated on earth, the reason for every extra word spoken…

    For if everyone were thinking alike there would be no doubt, no question, no answer, no debate, no question of who is right, no conflict, no war. Completely calm, quiet.

    No. The world has been designed for mutations and differences. Evolution is entirely dependent on differences. Should there be the fittest, there will also be the feeblest. And so, biologically, we are designed to think different, so that even if some of us do things that may be dangerous for the survival of life, others think different.

    Of course our parents or friends may think like us (though not exactly alike in all cases), but we must remember that our parents are the ones who define most of our thoughts, and that we find similar minded people first and friends next.

    Now leave that aside. Let us concentrate on how knowing this fact can save you out of a lot of trouble.

    I have had many occasions in life which I would very fondly like to undo, but alas! there is no Ctrl+Z shortcut for that in real life. I had made a controversial speech in my school about my life there, which I intended to be a joke packed thriller. But when it was delivered it slapped many people blunt on their faces. What happened here? What I thought to be harmless, where actually venom packed fangs (according to people who thought thus)

    Then there is a whole bunch of marriages where I tried to crack jokes to people whom I scarcely know (supposedly my relatives) and most of them backfired as insults and stupidity because some people think giving respect is the only way somebody younger than them can acknowledge their presence. (You know me, I just don’t like these adults being serious, life is supposed to be enjoyed)

    And what did I learn?
    Nobody thinks alike. So, though you are absolutely right when you talk with yourself, you range everything from exactly true to pure blasphemy. And what does that mean? If you don’t want yourself to be misheard, you’d either speak nothing, or don’t be frank in front of people whom you don’t know.

    When your honest opinion is sought, most probably your positive comments are what is being expected. So, if you don’t have something good to tell, you’d rather not let it out, unless you know the other person very well and are sure that they won’t take it personally.
    And when you are speaking to a crowd, never talk about a person. If at all you are, don’t talk anything (i said anything) about negatives.

    Come on, now tell me your frankest opinions about this post.

  • It is not about your age, it is about your inclination

    Fun and Fun Only sent me a thought provoking mail yesterday.

    3 stupid stages of life
    We have 3 stupid stages of life………..
    Teen age: Have Time + Energy …but No Money
    Working Age: Have Money + Energy …but No Time
    Old age: Have Time + Money …but no Energy

    This is an accurate description of the lives of the billions of people who took birth on this earth and left it without disturbing a leaf. They pass their childhood thinking about things they would do when they grow up. And when they grow up they have their jobs and family to take care of and they even forget what their dreams were. And after they have grown old, they remember their childhood dreams but they declare themselves unfit to pursue them and retire to a solitary life waiting death.

    While we could be just doing it (like Nike says), we waste time finding excuses for why we can’t be doing it. Is there nothing on this earth that a kid can do without money? Can’t time be bought and used if you have money and energy? Does the fact that you are weak prove a handicap?

    It is all about whether you want to do it or not? Whether you can do it or not is not a meaningful question, because you can do anything, but only if you will.

    So, some practical ways to make things happen, at all ages.

    If you are a kid:
    You know how to dream. You like to do things.
    But you don’t know where or how or what to do?
    This is where organisations come to your help.
    You can sign up for NCC, JCI, Scouting, etc. in your city.
    You can be a help for the librarian in the public library (and he will probably let you know about things that is happening)
    You can join the activities of organisations for elders like Rotary club or Lion’s club, (and inspire adults)
    You can form a group with your friends as members and collect money and donate it.

    Whatever you do there is one big advantage of being a kid. People don’t expect you to do these things, so when they see you do these, they will shower their blessings and cooperate seamlessly.

    If you are working:
    You’ve got a job. You’ve got a family to take care of. You’ve got just one holiday per week which you would rather spend relaxing. Where the hell do you have time?
    But think carefully. The childhood lasts only for about 25 years and of it 10 years you’re in absolute bliss.
    If you’re lucky you may live up to 80 years but your body will last only for about 65 years, i.e. 10 years after retirement.
    Your working age is the widest phase in your life. When you think week by week you might be having little or no time. But think of it as a whole. It’s the best part of your life. Where seconds can be hours.
    Why don’t you take leave for a week and do some social service? You might need to meet the same organisations I mentioned before.
    Why don’t you donate to somebody.
    Sponsor a child’s education, an athlete, someone’s eye surgery.
    Donate blood.

    If your vision has started blurring
    If you are old and if you do nothing, you will end up neglected in your home as if you were the dull picture hanging on the wall. If there’s something that can bring value to your existence it is only activity. Do something.
    Learn to use computer.
    SMS your grandson.
    Help your son in share market.
    Go for a morning walk with your walking stick.
    Teach children whatever you know. Share your experience.
    And why not write a book?

    The mind :
    Decide whether you want to do it. You probably would want to.
    Then think of yourself, in your death bed. Or after your death. How would you like people to remember you? Would you have them love you because you were a human or would you have them love and adore you because you were an extra-ordinary human?
    Do you want to live the ordinary life or the extra-ordinary.
    It’s easy to be ordinary. But at the same time it is not going to do anything for you.

    But when you are unlike others, when you are a kid who does what none of your friends dares to, when you are an officer who does what none of your colleagues never think of, when you are an old man with more energy and enthusiasm than anyone else, then you will really shine, and your light will last for ever.

    Do what no one else has done

  • A Glimpse Into What’s Been Keeping Me Busy

    This post comes after a really long break (almost 17 days. That’s huge!). And during these days blogger rolled out many new features, Onam was celebrated by Malayalis all over the world, and Federer reached the semi-final of US Open. Still I couldn’t make any post. Why?
    I had decided that I wouldn’t post until
    I create a new layout for my blog myself (of course using resources which I’m going to mention very soon)
    And now I’m glad to announce to you that I’ve succeeded in creating a brand new template that not only pleases my eyes but also proves to be extremely effective.

    And along with that there is another major change. Change has become ASD of INDIA. [update on next night: ASD of INDIA has become Blissful Life which means much more about this blog]
    Yeah, I do know Change is a much better name but due to many reasons I don’t want it to be my blog’s name. (Those reasons will make another post)

    All these changes and this particular post is dedicated to all of my friends and schoolmates at Chinmaya Kannur, who visited this blog, liked it and made it a point to tell me that they liked it. I can’t find words to thank Nishan, who not only found this blog but also spread the word inside his large circle. My sincere thanks also to Mithun, Anoop, Akash, Abhishek, Waqas, Fathima, Raysa, Ratan, Arjun, Thushar, two brothers in +2 (whose names I don’t remember) and all those whose names I’ve (unknowingly) omitted, for their unyielding support. I wish I could live upto their expectations.

    Now tell me your comments on the new look of my blog.

  • Have A Rocking Browsing Experience (for Firefox users)

    If you are a firefox user, which most probably you are (and if you’re not you should download and install it before reading the rest of this post) you already have a rocking browser. And after you read this post you will know how to make the impossible happen out of it.

    See the screenshots below to get an idea of what I’m talking about.

    This is my orkut home page. (The theme for which once I was ready to switch to live)

    This is my facebook page

    And finally these are my google pages.

    Want to make your browser too so attractive or why not even better?

    Here are some useful addons you will certainly need.

    1. heaven.cube theme: Just so attractive. Though this simple, dark theme is full of cubes (starting from the back – forward buttons to the scroll bars) it is certainly the best theme I’ve used until now.
      Installing: Go to heaven.cube, select add to firefox, click install again, sit back and relax.
      If you ever feel like going back to the default theme (which you probably won’t, OK for trying personas or so) just go to Tools –> Addons –> Themes –> Default –> Use theme

    2. Personas: If you are not for themes, personas has it for you. It is a nice extension that adds colour to your firefox toolbars by using specially designed persona wares. But I am not using it right now because as I’m going to reveal by this post how, I don’t have status bar or menu bar so personas won’t work so well, and also personas won’t feed my appetite for an overall great appearance.
      Installing: Install personas from mozilla addons, then wear grabs by using the personas menu, or going to the personas gallery and selecting wear this on any ware.

      If you are deciding to use personas, here are some skins you should check out

    3. Stylish: This is the real reason why I’m making this post. Stylish is a great extension that allows stylising the websites that you visit (you heard it right, not just the browser, even the sites that you visit). And that is how I got that wonderful theme for orkut and a dark background for google and facebook.
      The way stylish works is a little complicated. Still if you are for the technicalities here’s how. Every website depends upon CSS for their styles. What Stylish does is load a preset CSS for your websites. Now the default CSS won’t work and stylish begins the work.
      Installing: Stylish is like personas. You should first install stylish extension. Then install separate codes from the stylish resource site. This is very simple just go to the page of any stylish style and select install to stylish
      If you’ve finished installing stylish here are the styles you should try out

    4. Hide Menubar: Can be skipped if necessary. Hides the Menubar (File, Edit, View, and all) until you press ALT.
    5. Fission: Progress bar in your address bar.

    Done. These little tools can make your day.

    P.S. Don’t forget to comment if you find better styles.

  • ClearType Tuner : If You Are Using Windows XP and an LCD monitor

    The above pic is a comparison between text as it is seen on most computers, and text as it could be seen on those same computers.

    ClearType is a technology by which microsoft has made it possible to view texts more clearly in LCD monitors. But by default it is turned off in all computers. So, most people do not get the best out of their LCD monitors (which I understood when I went to my cousin’s home last week and found it extremely hard to read a thing)

    It gets more interesting when you know that it is very simple to turn it on if you have cleartype in your system,

    1. Right Click on your desktop
    2. Select Properties. Now the Display properties window opens up. Yeah, the one you use to change screen saver, wallpaper, etc.
    3. Go to Appearance tab. This is where we don’t go
    4. Click Effects… button
    5. Tick “Use the following method to smooth edges of screen fonts:” and select ClearType from the drop down menu.

    (And if you don’t have that option, don’t worry. You can download it and install from microsoft itself. ClearType Tuner PowerToy setup.exe (2 MB 5 min @ 28.8 Kbps))

    Happy reading

  • If by Rudyard Kipling – A Poem that Tells It All

    This poem by Rudyard Kipling has all the secrets to a wonderful life. Just read it and get inspired.
    I also have included this poem as a wallpaper. Feel free to download it and set it as your wallpaper.

    If
    If you can keep your head when all about you
    Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
    If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
    But make allowance for their doubting too;
    If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
    Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
    Or, being hated, don’t give way to hating,
    And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;

    If you can dream – and not make dreams your master;
    If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;
    If you can meet with triumph and disaster
    And treat those two imposters just the same;
    If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
    Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
    Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
    And stoop and build ’em up with wornout tools;

    If you can make one heap of all your winnings
    And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
    And lose, and start again at your beginnings
    And never breath a word about your loss;
    If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
    To serve your turn long after they are gone,
    And so hold on when there is nothing in you
    Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on”;

    If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
    Or walk with kings – nor lose the common touch;
    If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
    If all men count with you, but none too much;
    If you can fill the unforgiving minute
    With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run –
    Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
    And – which is more – you’ll be a Man my son!

    – Rudyard Kipling
    (content courtesy: everypoet.com)

     (Click on the thumbnail to see a larger image)
    Then, right click and save the picture or set it as wallpaper.
    If you liked this post, you may also like

    Gandhiji Best Expressed

    The Don’t Quit Poem

    Martin Luther King Junior – I Have a Dream speech