The Unexpected Hanging Paradox is an interesting paradox which is essentially described as follows: “A judge tells a condemned prisoner that he will be hanged at noon on one weekday in the following week but that the execution will be a surprise to the prisoner. He will not know the day of the hanging until the […]
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Atheism as a Religion
These days, atheism is quite the fad. Many young people take to atheism because they are fed up with the dogma and fanatism that is usually associated with traditional religions. They turn to atheism which is generally associated with Science, which in turn has an aura of being fair, rational, open, progressive, reliable and useful. […]
Role of Religion
Religion, it seems to me, came into existence as a result of man’s search for an inner meaning and purpose of life. The beginning was, presumably, man’s inability to understand many natural processes and hence ascribing them to a higher power – to be feared and to be venerated. Over centuries (or millenniums), this fear […]
Why the Loss in Karnataka is Good for BJP
I think that the electoral loss in Karnataka will do more good than harm for BJP in the long term, and here are 4 reasons why BJP’s government in Karnataka was the party’s Achilles heel – the only weak spot that prevented it from launching a full-fledged attack on UPA government’s unbeatable record on corruption. […]
Counsel to Girls
(One of my favourite poems and one that I show to people who act like it is a sin for parents to get their daughters married as soon as they are of marriageable age) Counsel to Girls by Robert Herrick (1591-1674) Gather ye rose-buds while ye may, Old time is still a-flying: And this same […]
What Is True Freedom?
Previously on avalokanam, we saw what is not true freedom, which also provided some insight into what constitutes true freedom. To build further on this discussion, let’s start by defining freedom to be the ability to make choices and follow those choices. For an alcoholic, the decision to drink is not a choice, but a […]
Risks With Investing in Bitcoin
I was doing some reading about Bitcoin and considering whether it would be wise to invest in it. From what I could see, I don’t think it would be a good idea yet, and this post explains why. Before we get into the risks associated with Bitcoin, a quick primer on the concept of this […]
Orkut – A Window to the Past
More than 3 years ago, I was as avid a user of Orkut as I am today of Facebook. From there the decline of Orkut usage has been so drastic that I hadn’t even cared to log in to Orkut in the past many months. Today, on a whim, I logged into Orkut to see […]
A trick with Java’s Increment Operator
Almost every Java programmer knows how and when to use the unary increment operator (++) on an integer. If we have an integer i, both i++ and ++i increment the value of i by 1 (though in slightly different ways). However, if you have an integer array arr, and there is a value at its […]
Dispelling the Delusion of Freedom
In a previous post, an attempt was made to hint at the subjective nature of freedom, and how it is often a trade-off between freedom and stability or security. I hope it also brought out the point that often there is no direct relation between freedom (as meant in common usage) and happiness. Having said […]