Is it possible to learn something about the people by knowing the kind of music they listen to? I got this doubt after realizing that most rock/ heavy metal singers have either committed suicide or are drug addicts while most classical singers seem to have a very happy and very satisfactory life. Thats quite a difference to oversee. I started noting what my friends listen to and what their qualities are. Interesting finds:
- most friends who love heavy metal/ rock love to go to clubs and get drunk
- most friends who love classical music like to spend quiet evenings at home and with laughs and food
- very few friends seem to enjoy all types of music, most do like classic rock, soft rock
I feel that most people who are depressed listen to heavy metal if they dont want to get out of it and soothing music when they are trying to get out of it. A soothing music definitely has impact on one's mind. It is no coincidence that kids sleep to a lullaby. I really doubt if anyone can sleep in a heavy metal concert.
It could be the urge to be different that drives people to these extreme music tastes, some to the extreme classical and some to the extreme noisy, banging sounds with no apparent harmony in the sound. I for one just like to listen to music to calm my mind and to lift my spirits. I listen to someone of the sweetest sad songs and cant believe how one can put those feelings into such moving words and compose music that just melts my heart. Even though I can feel the pain, it is such a sweet pain that I dont mind having it again and again. One such song is here:
One of the reasons I was interested in knowing whether we can profile people by knowing their music habits is to find and help potential people who could end up with depression. In the past two months I have read at least three shootings involving innocent people. Lets say there was a way to find these people out, we could've stopped these shooting. Agreed that what I quoted is an extreme example, but what about people who are mentally eaten by their emotional distress and have problem expressing it? You never want people who are like ducks, calm on the surface and kicking their legs inside having problems.
I wonder now if music is used as part of therapy. I am pretty sure they do. Music helped me calm down when I find myself feeling out of control. Very fascinating that people studied music as early as the start of civilizations. May be they realized the importance of sound on human mind :)
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Sunday, January 16, 2011
10 minute exercise - 2
Whenever I need to calm myself down and regroup my thoughts, I find writing whatever I feel out lets me do that. Here is the second such exercise.
I am currently watching a movie called "Chariots of Fire." Its a very well made movie. I always feel people need to play games and sports since that develops competitive spirit, builds character, builds team play mentality, teaches us to work with the team members. Understanding the game is just one small part of the equation (I am talking about the games played at a semi-professional and lower levels). What is more important is the chemistry between players and the ability to come up with a plan to surprise your opponents and outwit them.
How often have you seen someone trying to bend the rules to win? How often have you seen someone not taking a loose in a good sportive spirit? Play for winning, I agree. But better yet, play for fun! Play the game, try to win and if you loose, be proud that you gave a hell of a fight for opponents. Your attitude should humble the opponents. Thats what I call a true win.
I often have trouble facing people who bend the rules and say, oh come on its just a friendly match, why are you following rules to the extreme? For example, if you shoot a pool ball so close to the pocket and it didnt go in, people will say, damn, please please let me have another shot. I go laughing and say , nah. you lost your chance. There was one of my friends who picked up a fight for this. Lol! Anyway, my take is play the game and play within the rules. True enough, this friend tries to bend rules even at work, in personal life. He tries to push things on others and when the other person refuses, he gets angry. What else is a better exhibitor of character than sports? :)
I feel my mind has already calmed to certain extent. And its already more than 10 mins since I started writing this. So I rest!
I am currently watching a movie called "Chariots of Fire." Its a very well made movie. I always feel people need to play games and sports since that develops competitive spirit, builds character, builds team play mentality, teaches us to work with the team members. Understanding the game is just one small part of the equation (I am talking about the games played at a semi-professional and lower levels). What is more important is the chemistry between players and the ability to come up with a plan to surprise your opponents and outwit them.
How often have you seen someone trying to bend the rules to win? How often have you seen someone not taking a loose in a good sportive spirit? Play for winning, I agree. But better yet, play for fun! Play the game, try to win and if you loose, be proud that you gave a hell of a fight for opponents. Your attitude should humble the opponents. Thats what I call a true win.
I often have trouble facing people who bend the rules and say, oh come on its just a friendly match, why are you following rules to the extreme? For example, if you shoot a pool ball so close to the pocket and it didnt go in, people will say, damn, please please let me have another shot. I go laughing and say , nah. you lost your chance. There was one of my friends who picked up a fight for this. Lol! Anyway, my take is play the game and play within the rules. True enough, this friend tries to bend rules even at work, in personal life. He tries to push things on others and when the other person refuses, he gets angry. What else is a better exhibitor of character than sports? :)
I feel my mind has already calmed to certain extent. And its already more than 10 mins since I started writing this. So I rest!
Friday, January 14, 2011
Stupid Driver - Funny!
Imagine this. You are standing at the courthouse, and you see this idiot in his car take a left turn, almost cutting in front of another car and that car happens to be a cop car. What do you think happens? Cop pulled him over and handed him a ticket, so that he can walk in and pay the fine in the court :) This is exactly what happened just a few minutes ago. Some idiot, tried to be smart and cut cops car. I am sure he was not paying attention, probably was on phone or something. I couldnt help but burst out laughing. I mean is there anything else that needs to go wrong? First, you are near courthouse. Second, you make an illegal turn. Third, the car ahead of you when you tried that turn happens to be cop's car. Lol!
I think the driver should be double fined just for being that stupid! :)
I think the driver should be double fined just for being that stupid! :)
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Ubuntu experience
The more I work on Ubuntu, the more I love it. So many free tools and the stability is great! Today I have tested and tried three different journal softwares on Ubuntu. First of all I was surprised that they have these free journal softwares on Ubuntu. The software itself is not mindblowing. just a text area with the calendar on one side and taggable portion on the other. Good enough to log my ideas, search for them later on. The journal softwares I tested are Lifeograph, rednotebook and activitylog. I dont like activitylog though.
I develop a lot in C++. they have an IDE called Code:::Blocks. I am going to test it soon.
I develop a lot in C++. they have an IDE called Code:::Blocks. I am going to test it soon.
10 minute exercise - 1
Here is the exercise. You have 10 mins to write whatever you feel like writing. Dont think, just write. The time now is 5:19pm. Start...
I just thought of writing this because I was feeling damn bored at home. I am just gonna type whatever comes to my mind first, without thinking about the sentence formation or the grammar or spelling mistakes either. One of the first things taught for a writer is : Write drunk edit sober. Lets see what happens to do.
I am sitting on the island in my kitchen, with the cold travertine stone taking the heat away from my hands. I hear the humming noise of the fan from my 4 year old laptop. I see Keerti cooking sambar, hmm, yummy, she makes one of the best sambhars i ever had. of couse my mom's the best. worst is kumbhakonam sambhar in trichy. Damn its only 2 mins since I started. Need to write for another 8 minutes.
Are green beans good for health? people say green vegetables are good to eat. they do have nutrients. i hope to put on good weight and be fit. yesterday i was playing soccer with a few people, and omg, after 5 mins, i was so damn exhausted. the only saving grace is that almost all the folks were exhaused equally.
i am crackling my knuckles. i have tendonitis that takes toll on my hands and i feel weird when it happens. not ever a single person i know is in full health, everyone has some problem. i have tendonitis, geddi has some back problem, pretty serious one, sunny has problem with hishands, pg has problem with his legs. daman when did we become so fragile. from hanging on trees as monkey to almost bed ridden people, this is not good. someone told me thta running bare foot is good. it will never cause injuries, but iu wd get hurt. no wonder early man used to run like anomad and still have good health.
we did come a long way to overcome diseases that early man used to face, we raised the living age, and brought some interesting challenges with it. what do u think, is it better to live 100 yrs and have the last 30 yrs sad, bad health, but still living, or live 70 rs of good life and poof u go? i prefer second. great kodak's inventor, eastman apparently committed suicide saying "why wait!" very interesting. you think thats a good way of leaving this world.
there is a song by pink floyd, where the lyrics end with "good bye! good bye!" very touching song, cant remember the title now or the title of the album.
i hear the dal boiling on stove and keerti cutting sorakaya. my mind goes blank once in a while and moreover it seems to wander a lot as is evident from this post. i offered to help to keerti but she declined, she never lets me cook anything, says my food taste bad. its good in some sense that i dont have to do anything, but i do feel i cud help her make her life easier. hope she realizes someday.
on my right there are two flower boquets, one by me and the other sent by my dad to keerti on her bday. very pretty roses in a lovely vase. my dad always sends flowers to her on every occasion. i need to visit him soon in indonesia. i love to travel, i dont need luxuries when i travel, it would be fun to explore a new country. coming to think of it, i plan to visit spain sometime, so i m learning spanish.
hola, que tal, quien es, usted es el senoir suresh, hehe, some of the words.
phew... its already 10 mins, alright so i rest. will edit this later.
I just thought of writing this because I was feeling damn bored at home. I am just gonna type whatever comes to my mind first, without thinking about the sentence formation or the grammar or spelling mistakes either. One of the first things taught for a writer is : Write drunk edit sober. Lets see what happens to do.
I am sitting on the island in my kitchen, with the cold travertine stone taking the heat away from my hands. I hear the humming noise of the fan from my 4 year old laptop. I see Keerti cooking sambar, hmm, yummy, she makes one of the best sambhars i ever had. of couse my mom's the best. worst is kumbhakonam sambhar in trichy. Damn its only 2 mins since I started. Need to write for another 8 minutes.
Are green beans good for health? people say green vegetables are good to eat. they do have nutrients. i hope to put on good weight and be fit. yesterday i was playing soccer with a few people, and omg, after 5 mins, i was so damn exhausted. the only saving grace is that almost all the folks were exhaused equally.
i am crackling my knuckles. i have tendonitis that takes toll on my hands and i feel weird when it happens. not ever a single person i know is in full health, everyone has some problem. i have tendonitis, geddi has some back problem, pretty serious one, sunny has problem with hishands, pg has problem with his legs. daman when did we become so fragile. from hanging on trees as monkey to almost bed ridden people, this is not good. someone told me thta running bare foot is good. it will never cause injuries, but iu wd get hurt. no wonder early man used to run like anomad and still have good health.
we did come a long way to overcome diseases that early man used to face, we raised the living age, and brought some interesting challenges with it. what do u think, is it better to live 100 yrs and have the last 30 yrs sad, bad health, but still living, or live 70 rs of good life and poof u go? i prefer second. great kodak's inventor, eastman apparently committed suicide saying "why wait!" very interesting. you think thats a good way of leaving this world.
there is a song by pink floyd, where the lyrics end with "good bye! good bye!" very touching song, cant remember the title now or the title of the album.
i hear the dal boiling on stove and keerti cutting sorakaya. my mind goes blank once in a while and moreover it seems to wander a lot as is evident from this post. i offered to help to keerti but she declined, she never lets me cook anything, says my food taste bad. its good in some sense that i dont have to do anything, but i do feel i cud help her make her life easier. hope she realizes someday.
on my right there are two flower boquets, one by me and the other sent by my dad to keerti on her bday. very pretty roses in a lovely vase. my dad always sends flowers to her on every occasion. i need to visit him soon in indonesia. i love to travel, i dont need luxuries when i travel, it would be fun to explore a new country. coming to think of it, i plan to visit spain sometime, so i m learning spanish.
hola, que tal, quien es, usted es el senoir suresh, hehe, some of the words.
phew... its already 10 mins, alright so i rest. will edit this later.
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Reality Check on previous years resolutions.
At the beginning of year 2010, I took resolutions which were summarized here. Now that a new year has begun, I thought this is a good time to get a reality check on them. Lets take one by one.
Get in touch with my old friends and keep in touch - even though I did get in touch with couple of old friends who I thought I lost connection, it doesnt feel any different no in having friends than I did before last year. So, pretty much didnt do this.
Start a blog and pose questions soliciting ideas from others on how to solve them - I did write blogs/facebook status messages posing questions, but very few took it seriously. People gave irrelevant comments. I should learn how to expose the blog to people who are external to my friends circle.
Go to gym at least 3 times a week - haha, are you kidding me? I probably went to gym 3 times the entire year. This is where I need to work a bit this year. May be go atleast once a week. Work out and play on the weekends.
Read news at least twice a week - realized quickly that reading news is not for me. fortunately we have NPR that delivers awesome news. I started listening to NPR more and more. They have a full range of programs from the latest news to out of the normal discussions. I would keep doing the same.
Read a book a month - even though I didnt read a book a month, I did read about 10 books the past year. Thats good enough for me. I would of course try to continue doing the same.
Help at least couple of friends/family members achieve their goals - I have two folks here in San Diego who are trying to do something on their own. I have been consulting for them, and consulting them, learning from each other and bouncing ideas off each other.
So here I am writing this blog about what I did last year. Overall the year has been pretty good one. I did;
- buy a home
- get 9 patents
- become staff engineer
- sell 2 cars
- helping couple of people
Need to concentrate on
- health & fitness
- better time management
- better relations with friends and family
Get in touch with my old friends and keep in touch - even though I did get in touch with couple of old friends who I thought I lost connection, it doesnt feel any different no in having friends than I did before last year. So, pretty much didnt do this.
Start a blog and pose questions soliciting ideas from others on how to solve them - I did write blogs/facebook status messages posing questions, but very few took it seriously. People gave irrelevant comments. I should learn how to expose the blog to people who are external to my friends circle.
Go to gym at least 3 times a week - haha, are you kidding me? I probably went to gym 3 times the entire year. This is where I need to work a bit this year. May be go atleast once a week. Work out and play on the weekends.
Read news at least twice a week - realized quickly that reading news is not for me. fortunately we have NPR that delivers awesome news. I started listening to NPR more and more. They have a full range of programs from the latest news to out of the normal discussions. I would keep doing the same.
Read a book a month - even though I didnt read a book a month, I did read about 10 books the past year. Thats good enough for me. I would of course try to continue doing the same.
Help at least couple of friends/family members achieve their goals - I have two folks here in San Diego who are trying to do something on their own. I have been consulting for them, and consulting them, learning from each other and bouncing ideas off each other.
So here I am writing this blog about what I did last year. Overall the year has been pretty good one. I did;
- buy a home
- get 9 patents
- become staff engineer
- sell 2 cars
- helping couple of people
Need to concentrate on
- health & fitness
- better time management
- better relations with friends and family
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