Picassa 3 - Face recognition

The face recognition technology in Picassa 3 is amazing

Zen Joke

A Zen master was always advising his pupils to do only one thing at a time. One day one of his disciples found him drinking tea and reading the newspaper. The disciple asked his Master to explain the contradiction between the Master's teaching and his actions. The Master said " When you are drinking tea and reading the newspaper then only drink tea and read the newspaper"

Coming Out

All my life I have been a bit suspicious of religious teachers. However Prasad ( photo below) introduced me to Rajnish and of all the various thinkers, Rajnish made the most impact on me.

From Prasad's Farm

Rajnish impressed me , because he asks us to question very deeply our motives for action and not take anything for granted. He also speaks in a very conversational style, introduces many jokes in his discourse .

Since I will be quoting some of his sayings , I should first start with what he he says about the power of context and he illustrates it in a wonderful way in his talk.

" A young man was drowning, he starts crying for help and shouts - Help, help, I can't swim. An old man is sitting on the bank of the river and says, - Neither can I , but I am not making a fuss about it.

Another interesting thing he says is about giving up bad habits and specifically mentions smoking . He says don't be unnecessarily proud about giving up smoking or any other bad habit , yes you will live for a few more years but you will do the same nonsense things for the extra 3-4 years extra that you will live.

( Update of 28/2/2012 - Since my father died of Lung Cancer, I have strong views on Smoking, Smoking kills you but screws your loved ones. They will suffer more than you by taking you for chemo and all that)

In another talk , some one asks him "Osho what is my purpose in life" He says " No purpose, you are not an object, a chair has a purpose, a human being has no purpose". The talk is quite long and he explains this point very well. 

Osho or Rajnish has been very prolific and many of his talks are available as CD's , DVD's , MP3's . Also many of his talks have been transcribed into books. Both these CD's, books are available in most book stores and the uninitiated can read / hear a few to decide for themselves.  The Itunes store has a osho talk in their podcast library and www.osho.com has a few sample talks which can be downloaded for free.

Friends from Kuppam

For the record I worked from 2003 May to September 2005 in the Kuppam HP i-community Project. The project employed many young people who belonged to Kuppam to work in the various projects of Kuppam. Even after the closure of the project many them kept in touch with me. I followed their careers over the past 4 years and I am impressed  by the success all of them have achieved.

Of the Kuppam Young brigade one of the most noteworthy has been Venkatachalapathi. Venkatachalapathi started his career in Bangalore selling Reliance post paid connections door to door to shop keepers in Bangalore. Soon he got a job with the HP service centre in Indra Nagar. His next job was with a partner to Wipro and he was responsible for tech support to one of Wipro's customers. Now he works directly with HP and manages MS Exchange Server for one of HP's overseas customers. 

Some of the others like Amar and Karuna whose photographs are included in the blog have also done well.

Amar was passionate about computers and after BASIX took over the Kuppam project, he was given the responsibility of supporting the entire IT equipment comprising of Computers, Servers, Wifi radio equipment of the Project. Amar now works for a BPO initiative of BASIX a leading microfinance organisation

Karuna after the closure of the project moved to n-Logue and thereafter to COMAT. In COMAT he was part of the team that established the  Nemmadi Project( setting up of 800 telecentres in Karnataka).

While it is a sad commentary that the Kuppam HP i-community initiative was not sustainable, it made a positive impact on the young people who were employed in the program and later moved on to better things in life

These photographs were taken on August 30th 2008. . The photograph on the top is of the Neelamma the Village Photographer. The photo below Neelamma is of Karuna and his bride lavanya . Karuna got married on 20th August. The photo in the bottom is of Amar and his wife Krishnaveni, Amar and Krishnaveni got married in February . 

For more information on Kuppam Kuppam Factoids

For information on the Kuppam HP i-community program Kuppam HP i-community