Sharad's Personal Blog

Hmmm. I know this is a topic of debate,yet here I am with my own opinion. I have a habit of explaining why I start a topic, may be because to promote my own post on Randomness Anyway, I Started this post on seeing the debate on “Is there a God?” on VlexoForums.com. Instead of posting the reply there, I thought, Why not make a blog post since it’d been a long time. And here I am

Let me make it clear before I make this post, Its just my personal opinion that I am expressing here.

“We are what we believe we are ” -  C.S.Lewis

I believe that God Exist. Isn’t belief required for everything you do? Can you walk if you don’t believe you can? But again, just believing may not make it the existence as a truth(Just because you believe you can fly, you cannot actually fly). The point here is you’ve to believe in something to make it a reality. People believed they can fly, that’s why they invented planes. When you believe in something, it shows you the path to achieve or follow something.

Second important thing  is, people may have to be afraid of something in order to avoid wrong things. In exams, will everyone write sincerely are there any invigilators? No isnt it ? What about the exam called life? We face new challenges everyday, take decision on own. The decision we take may harm others sometimes. But when people believe there is someone(God) to watch our actions, they fear the consequences of their wrong doings. They often tend to do what their heart says rather than what their greediness says.

The concept of heaven and hell is more like free world and prison. There is a law which guides us on what is right an what is wrong. The one which sends people who commit sin to prison and punish them and let them to free world. The thought of going to prison(hell) generally prevents people doing bad things even if they are tempted to.   May be the religious texts are similar to law, which helps us know what is right and what isn’t in case we are unable to judge on our own. It may be the experience of someone that tells actions and consequences.

We worship god in many forms.How can we know god surely exists in that form? We may never know!  But we need a form for us to believe in something easily. I’ll take an example of water. Do you believe that air around us contains water droplets? Its because we cannot see, we cannot say it doesn’t exists, but we cannot say it exists too until we can prove it. The water droplets are everywhere in atmosphere but we cannot see it. In sea, we can see it, but it does not have any form. Like Ice, you can give it any form you want. May be its the same with god. Present everywhere, has no form but you can worship in any form you want. You may worship in form given my our religious texts, as nature, or any form you wish to see god in. I think my friend’s blog can explain it better.

I have written my thoughts on Existence Of God. I still wanted to say about Science and Religion but it has to wait for another day. Feel free to post your opinion

The Woodcutter’s Wisdom by Max Lucado

Once there was an old man who lived in a tiny village. Although poor, he was envied by all, for he owned a beautiful white horse. Even the king coveted his treasure. A horse like this had never been seen before—such was its splendor, its majesty, its strength. People offered fabulous prices for the steed, but the old man always refused. “This horse is not a horse to me,” he would tell them. “It is a person. How could you sell a person? He is a friend, not a possession. How could you sell a friend?” The man was poor and the temptation was great. But he never sold the horse.

One morning he found that the horse was not in the stable. All the village came to see him. “You old fool,” they scoffed, “we told you that someone would steal your horse. We warned you that you would be robbed. You are so poor. How could you ever hope to protect such a valuable animal? It would have been better to have sold him. You could have gotten whatever price you wanted. No amount would have been too high. Now the horse is gone, and you’ve been cursed with misfortune.”

The old man responded, “Don’t speak too quickly. Say only that the horse is not in the stable. That is all we know; the rest is judgment. If I’ve been cursed or not, how can you know? How can you judge?” The people contested, “Don’t make us out to be fools! We may not be philosophers, but great philosophy is not needed. The simple fact that your horse is gone is a curse.”

The old man spoke again. “All I know is that the stable is empty, and the horse is gone. The rest I don’t know. Whether it be a curse or a blessing, I can’t say. All we can see is a fragment. Who can say what will come next?” The people of the village laughed. They thought that the man was crazy. They had always thought he was a fool; if he wasn’t, he would have sold the horse and lived off the money. But instead, he was a poor woodcutter, an old man still cutting firewood and dragging it out of the forest and selling it. He lived hand to mouth in the misery of poverty. Now he had proven that he was, indeed, a fool.

After fifteen days, the horse returned. He hadn’t been stolen; he had run away into the forest. Not only had he returned, he had brought a dozen wild horses with him. Once again the village people gathered around the woodcutter and spoke. “Old man, you were right and we were wrong. What we thought was a curse was a blessing. Please forgive us.”

The man responded, “Once again, you go too far. Say only that the horse is back. State only that a dozen horses returned with him, but don’t judge. How do you know if this is a blessing or not? You see only a fragment. Unless you know the whole story, how can you judge? You read only one page of a book. Can you judge the whole book? You read only one word of a phrase. Can you understand the entire phrase? “Life is so vast, yet you judge all of life with one page or one word. All you have is a fragment! Don’t say that this is a blessing. No one knows. I am content with what I know. I am not perturbed by what I don’t.” “Maybe the old man is right,” they said to one another. So they said little. But down deep, they knew he was wrong. They knew it was a blessing. Twelve wild horses had returned with one horse. With a little bit of work, the animals could be broken and trained and sold for much money.

The old man had a son, an only son. The young man began to break the wild horses. After a few days, he fell from one of the horses and broke both legs. Once again the villagers gathered around the old man and cast their judgments.”You were right,” they said. “You proved you were right. The dozen horses were not a blessing. They were a curse. Your only son has broken his legs, and now in your old age you have no one to help you. Now you are poorer than ever.” The old man spoke again. “You people are obsessed with judging. Don’t go so far. Say only that my son broke his legs. Who knows if it is a blessing or a curse? No one knows. We only have a fragment. Life comes in fragments.”

It so happened that a few weeks later the country engaged in war against a neighboring country. All the young men of the village were required to join the army. Only the son of the old man was excluded, because he was injured. Once again the people gathered around the old man, crying and screaming because their sons had been taken. There was little chance that they would return. The enemy was strong, and the war would be a losing struggle. They would never see their sons again.

“You were right, old man,” they wept. “God knows you were right. This proves it. Your son’s accident was a blessing. His legs may be broken, but at least he is with you. Our sons are gone forever.”

The old man spoke again. “It is impossible to talk with you. You always draw conclusions. No one knows. Say only this: Your sons had to go to war, and mine did not. No one knows if it is a blessing or a curse. No one is wise enough to know. Only God knows.”

The old man was right. We only have a fragment. Life’s mishaps and horrors are only a page out of a grand book. We must be slow about drawing conclusions. We must reserve judgment on life’s storms until we know the whole story.

I don’t know where the woodcutter learned his patience. Perhaps from another woodcutter in Galilee. For it was the Carpenter who said it best:

“Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.”

Since I was kinda bored, I was thinking of some interesting topic to post in my Blog! I couldn’t find any that would be of interest. Finally decided why not share the little knowledge I have with my Friends!

This article is about computer security(One of my fav subjects). Its about hacking! I know you are excited, I am not teaching you how to hack! Infact I don’t know much about it too. What I want to say is about the most basic and common way of  hacking that is done in present days! Its called as phishing! Ya, victims are the Phish those get caught into the Hook laid by the hackers with the bait on it. If you don’t look out for the trap, you’ll walk right into it.

You might be wondering what Phishing is all about! I think its better to redirect you to Wikipedia for the details. Now I don’t think there is need for explaining what phishing is, I’ll skip to how it is done! Lets start with how fishing is done

1. You need right tools (fishing pole,reel etc)
2. Bait :- Something the fish is attracted to
3. Leave the Bait in water
   
4. Wait for fish to bite
   
5. Pull the fish Out

Phishing is Done in similar way

1. Tools(Am not telling them here)
2. Bait :- Something people are attracted to may on FB to know visitors to their Page
3. Leave the page on Internet and spread the link
4. Wait for users to login using FAKE PAGE you uploaded
5. Fetch the passwords just phished!

If you are not careful, you may be a victim for the phishing above. We generally are curious and hackers try to exploit it. Its all about bait we care about and hardly notice that its bait! The most basic step to avoid Phishing is

1. When you are logging into gmail,orkut, check if the address bar starts with https://www.google.com/ and For Facebook, it has to be http://facebook.com/ or http://www.facebook.com/ or https://facebook.com/ or https://www.facebook.com/
2. If you are concerned about your email Account, Enable two step Verification on your Google Account and Facebook Login Notification.
3. If you find something else, it may be a phishing page.

Here are the few phishing I have come across

1. Orkut :- A link is provided that just Looks like orkut Login but is on different server! (Check the Address Bar). I think everyone knows it.
2. A mail saying some pics are uploaded and a Link to Google Forms. The stupidest people fall for this and enter email ID and password. The hacker then logs into their accout using password provided above and send mails to his friends!

Here are few steps you can take when you find a phishing page

• Report it to Google :-Report Phishing Now. Google team will check the page and once confirmed warn  Firefox and Googlechrome users when they try to visit that page
• Spread the word through your friends, If you got the link via one of your friends, its likely that other friends got the same link and they may fall into the trap.

I hope you help make internet a bit more safer by spreading the word about phishing and how to avoid it

If you are thinking,that I chose a topic at random and started this article, you couldn’t be more wrong! Yeah, this is not a random topic at all, rather its a topic on randomness.

Let me try to explain, what random was according to me few days ago. Random was something that was unpredictable. It had no rules, was independent of anything else. The best example anyone can give is random thoughts of mind! Its so unpredictable. Anyway, randomness is so obvious that it  hardly needs explanation. There are many theories where we actually use randomness even knowing its unpredictable!

Recently after talking to my friend Raghavendra, I just realized that nothing in this world is random! Do not believe me? Take any random object(I’ll come to it later). Now lets start with why did you pick up that object! Don’t tell its random. You picked it up may be  because it was near you. If that’s the case, how did the object end up in that place? Its not random again. Some event has made it appear at that place. If an event is responsible or the object to be present there, how did that event happen? Again if you keep tracing back, you just keep finding reasons until you  quit or don’t remember hat happened.
Again if the object was not near you, you might have thought of some object. Next question is why did you think of that object? Random? No it isn’t. It may be because that object is associated to the word random in your mind. It may be because of some event in your past.

The most recent example that proves random is not truly random
was our Simulation subject. I was always wondering how can a computer which can’t even think could generate a random number until we found it in our text! The random numbers are not truly random. Its just an algorithm with few variables whose output depends on previous outputs. But for an user who’s unaware of internal mechanism, it seems random. The same is true with this world. Everything is based on some input variables which may are just the previous outputs. But there are so many things happening in the world at a time that we can’t interpret them and just call it random! The algorithm used by the universe is hidden from us and we think its truly a random event.

Conclusion: Its left to the readers of the blog who randomly visited this blog(Friend suggested, Google Search on some related topic or anything random   )

Hmmm. Wondering what this post is all about? Well, since this is my first post , thought to start with telling you guys why I started to write this blog.

I wanted to write a blog from a long time, but never found that inspiration to do it. Yesterday, while googling the words “Tin tin ti Din”, I came across a random blog with the above title. It was all about enjoying the life without worrying about the life. I’d some similar ideas but never thought these would inspire someone. I thought to start blogging from then on and when my friends asked about the above blog, my desire to start blogging was even more.

The Result : This Blog

I am planning to publish some random crazy thoughts that come to my mind, ranging from the Sci-fi movie to computers to the spirituality. Hope you won’t find this blog boring!