Confiscating free software :)

I have been a big fan of everything copylefted, and I have tried to switch over to free software as far as possible (firefox, linux, openoffice, etc.). But more intersting is how people react to all this. The thought that software, something that someone spends time, effort, and presumable money making is being given away for free... What kind of a capitalistic concept is that.

An amusing and interesting article on something similar was published in the Times. What I find really revealing about the incident is how incredulous some people are about any potentially commercial process being non-profit.

To give you another example, my dad's friend could not believe that Skype, which enables you to talk with video to anyone anywhere in thw world, was free. His disbelief was so complete, that my dad actually called me up to make sure that there wasnt something he was supposed to be paying for.

I mean why have telephones if you can do all this for free? I agree, maybe telephones are on their way out, maybe not soon but sometime in the near future.

thats the great thing about the internet, you can do pretty much everything off it, and very often you can do it for free. But the best I think is yet to come. Hopefully sometime in the future, all communication will be seamless. Whether its an image, data, music, video or voice, it will all be carried by the same network and displayed by the same small handheld device. And I can stop buying all these devices (TV, computer, cell phone, IPod dont have that yet, PDA and a camera).

I love free software, after all who doesnt love a freebie...

An electrode in your brain anyone??

Slashdot is running a story about an eminent neuroscientist who wants to stick electrodes into his brain to learn more about how the mind works, especially consciousness. I think most folks who record from the brain have thought about this at some point in time, some more seriously than other. In any case, he makes some interesting points about what we know about the brain and the "big" questions like consciousness that we have no clue about.

Btw, brain recordings from conscious "reporting" humans has been done for many decades and there are many references to that work in the interview.

ps. any volunteers for this kind of work??

technorati tags: neuroscience

The new addition

The new One
Originally uploaded by sharathbs.

I also wanted to announce the arrival of our second baby, a healthy 2.8Kg baby boy. We still havent decided on a name, will keep folks posted.

Both baby and mama are doing well, he looks a lot like T is what I'm told. I personally dont think so, T was much more like a gargoyle when we was born, this one's a bit better :)

UPenn

I have finally made it to UPenn, after all the trials and tribulations, I feel like its an accomplishment in itself. Though, it really isn't.... The real work is starting now :) Hopefully I will have some more time for blogging, as R & T are still in India. But then again, maybe not.