Some snaps...

Why I write this blog???

"Why i write this blog"? This is one thought that has crossed my mind many number of times. Sometimes i feel all these blog is such a big waste of time.There should be really good thinking, a central idea or a thought process to write good blog. Or else I have to write about all the crap things i am doing to pass my life.But most of my blogs lack all of these. But still I cant help it. I cant stay away from writing this. Sorry i end up wasting both my time as well as others.

For all these waste of time first of all i have to blame deepu for inspiring me indirectly to write blogs. First time i felt about writing my own blog is when i read his blogs. I have read many other blogs, but his were very different and more interesting.

Then I started writing my own blog and I really enjoyed it. There are few good reasons behind me liking this blog very much. Blogs are like human beings. You can talk with your blog( Only thing is, its one way communication). I can tell any thing to this blog and he will never question me back. He listens very quitely to all the stuffs that I have to say. He will never come back to me giving suggestions and advices. You will verey rarely find a human being with a tendency to sit and listen to your words without asking any questions . So i like this thing.

Then response I got from outside world about my blog was bit disappointing. Then slowly I felt that there is no point in writing this thing as other people are too busy in their own lives. Then i decided that i will quit. I can remember a small talk given by my hostel mate Dr. Nagu some years back.

He told me that Identity Crisis is a very dangerous thing. Each and everyone will try their best to get identified and appreciated by others. Why Cant a singer listen to his own song and feel happy about it. Why he always expect others to come to him and appreciate his singing. And if he does not find enough people to appreciate his singing. He will be disappointed. Thats Identity crisis. Life would have been better for him if he can listen to his own songs and decide whether he is a good singer or bad singer. No point in listening to other's input.

So here I am, back again, writing for myself and not for others. And i really love talking to this blog, cause he never questions me back.

Nitin

Human Body is just a Embedded System..

This article is written by a embedded engineer who was pathetic in biology, all his student life. Even today I get nightmares when i hear terms like zoology, homo sapiens and killing cockroaches just to check whats there inside. I dont understand the need to call it "Rosa bracteata" when we can do with a simple four lettered word Rose.

I was always amazed to see so many similarities between human body and embedded systems. The more i know about embedded systems, the more they resemble to a human body. Now the whole idea is to see a human body in a embedded engineer's perception.

Let me introduce you to the engineer who designed this system ( When I say "system" here, I always mean human body..). People call him GOD. I like this word "GOD". It sounds so secular. He can be either Rama, Krishna, Allah or Jesus.God can be anything and he can be anyone. ಸರ್ವಶಕ್ತ and ಸರ್ವವ್ಯಾಪಿ ( Omnipotent and OmniPresent). Here i prefer to take nature as God, or i should say the rules and laws that define the working of nature as God. Lets go back to main topic.

Human body is a embedded system with a very fast computing single processor and nine input/output peripherals. Now this single processor called as brain is tightly connected with all parts of system with super fast cables called as nerves for data communication. Out of Nine I/O interfaces, Two are used only for output ( Actually one of this output interface is used in dual function mode. I may call it as SLEEP mode and STAND mode ... ;) ). Remaining seven interfaces are tied to four different types of sensors (I can see, smell, taste and hear cause of that).

Sleep condition : Usually this is a state where system activity will be very less. So system will disable its inputs and outputs, reduce clock frequency and reduce power consumption. In this system it almost disables all four sensors and definitely reduces our thinking capacity. If i am not wrong, then sleep state will also be used to mange our memory segments (I read this information somewhere...). So its like mandatory to go into sleep mode for atleast 6 hours everyday. Someone without sleep will die sooner than somone else without food.

The whole system will be enclosed inside a protective layer called skin which will be covered with a layer of sensors. These sensors will give information about outside world and saves system from any external threat. If their is any attack on system ( like cold, fire, cut, some insect bite etc..) then these sensors will pass that information to processor. Thus this protects system from outside world. But these sensors will have low priority interrupts ( It always takes some time to feel something.. If i put my hand inside fire just for a fraction of second, then i will not feel heat.. so i guess these sensors have low priority interrupts.)

Now lets talk about power. We need uninterrupted energy to run this system. This is a must as we dont'a have concept of RESET or RESTART ( How about someone telling, " Hey, I cant see things properly, My Vision drivers have crashed,Let me Restart myself".. We cant do that. This is not some Windows machine..) We don't have batteries which can run for 70-100 years and changing batteries is very impractical. So we will not be able to use batteries ( Thank god there are no batteries. What if someone comes and removes my battery and i will be dead in no time..). I cant even imagine plugging human body to a external power supply for couple of hours everyday ( Imagine someone saying " My body battery is very low... can you charge me a bit :)"). So god came up with this wonderful idea of having a power generation unit. Yes we have one of finest power generation unit inside us ( Power generation unit that does not pollute nature...) . So now we can run this system for any amount of time by just giving fuel in form of food everyday. This food will be burnt inside us to convert into energy which will be supplied to all parts of body and we have provision to store excess fuel in form of fats. I have lot of excess fuel stored in my belly :). I think no engineer ever thought of having a power generation unit inside embedded system with only purpose of supplying uninterrupted energy to embedded system. What An Idea SirJi ?

In this system all energy or fuel will be passed to various body parts through a liquid medium called blood.He has a very complicated internal pipe network to take this liquid to every part of system and to get it back ( Arteries and Veins..). There is a central pumping unit called heart which makes this liquid to travel everywhere. There will be a system collapse when this pumping unit fails. According to Indian law, " A person's Death should only be confirmed by making sure that his heart has stopped working..".

We have a fantastic memory management unit which runs garbage collect utility every second ( garbage collect utility deletes data and frees all memory which we might not use in future..). Thus it deletes thousands of memory cells and makes us to forget things which we might not use. ( For Aamir Khan in Ghajni it was deleting useful data as well...). As the system is expected to run on an average for 70 years (Some times 100 years as well.. ) nature has made sure that this memory management works properly. Its good that we forget few things. But problem is we forget good things and end up remembering bad things. It is said that we use only 5% of our memory, Remaining 95% will always be free. May be its just because memory management unit and processor can handle only 5 % of memory usage. So this MMU keeps deleting all information to make sure that memory usage is less than 5%. I can always explain about my first meeting with her, almost two years ago, in minute details, but cant remember much about things that i did two weeks back. This is because, My Memory management Unit knows very well about things which it is supposed to delete and other important things which it has to conserve in permanent storage for a very long time.

Interesting thing is god has created two different versions of this system Male and Female. ( Now don't ask me which is version 1.0? because in embedded whenever system fails, we call it version 1.0 and then move on.. :) ). I should say Male as version 1.0. Because in Version 2.0 God has included one more important module, Reproduction module ( Though version 1.0 has activation code for reproduction module.. God is such a Genius..Best hardware and firmware engineer) . Version 1.0 is very strong, designed to do hard work and take tough decisions . Version 2.0 is very delicate and breaks down emotionally quite often. Both are similar systems designed to do two different sort of things. Things will work out only when both versions stay and work together helping each other. That's the foundation base of our society structure.

Usually we will have a large manufacturing firm to build millions of similar embedded systems. Again this is very impractial. Imagine having something like " Reliance human body manufacturers" ( I believe reliance is in to all sectors except this..). So god gave system this power to copy itself or in exact terms "to produce a similar system". A system which has power to produce a similar system with some initial cooperation from another system. Again What an Idea SirJi.

After writing all these things i am getting a feeling that we can apply all laws of embedded systems with human body. But we cannot explain a human body only w.r.t embedded system. Its much more complicated than that. Actually we need lot more other things to explain it, and there are few things which we may never be able to explain. We can never explain how a child in his mother's womb suddenly starts moving by getting so called life.( For Initial 8 weeks child in womb will be still, but after that suddenly it starts moving to show the whole world that it has got life..I was really thrilled when i read this information..).

Human body is just a material hardware with sufficient provision to enclose a life in it. We can do a lot of research on this human body as a material. But we cant explain what brings life in that and what makes it to die. Life and Death are the two things that we might not be able to explain.So lets not bother much about that. Feel good to be enclosed inside one of the best designs of nature - HUMAN BODY.

Nitin