On Motherhood

I first thought I'd give this a fancy title, something that would appropriately reflect what I felt (and still do) on becoming a mother. I quickly gave up.

Labour is the most painful thing in the world. Period. But the result is worth it. Period.

The image of the first glimpse of my baby will be etched in my mind forever. I could conjure a corporeal patronus just by thinking about it.

Having a baby is the perfect example of disruptive change I can think of. Imagine, suddenly one day there is this new person, who is with you 24/7. Its like a whole new world that opens up. Your priorities come crashing down with a 2-tonne anvil attached. I have trouble waking up to an alarm clock clanging next to my ear, but if my son lets out as much as a whimper, I'm up and out of bed in a shot. Having newbie jitters? Of course I am!

I've noticed another thing. Motherhood is universally uniting, in a sense that now women - complete strangers but moms, presumably- come up to me and we talk about mommyhood like there's nothing else in this world. There probably isnt.

What happens when black holes collide?

In a recent study, astronomers have discovered 2 supermassive black holes heading towards each other, and could merge to create a force that can pull in several stars.

Ever wonder what happens when one black hole gets in the way of another? Easy answer- the one with a higher gravitational force will "swallow" the other. But thats not all. As they merge, they emit gravitational waves that can travel through space at the speed of light.

NASA has simulated this event and has discovered the pattern in which these gravitational waves travel, using concepts from Einstein's Theory of Relativity. Some out of the world (almost literally :) ) images from the simulation here.
Now that a pattern has been discovered, scientists can detect those in space. While at one level it will provide some proof to Einstein's theories, it could provide important insights into the way we think about the universe.

It apparently took NASA a lot of computing horsepower to complete the simulation:

Earlier trials failed since the equations based on Einstein's general relativity theory were so complicated that they made supercomputers crash; the enormous gravity of black holes cause disturbances in time and space, making time stop and space shrink and expand.

NASA researchers have managed to transform the theory into mathematical algorithms and run through it through Columbia, the fourth most powerful supercomputer in the world. Its 2,032 interconnected 512 Intel Itanium 2 processors ran for 80 hours, in an operation that would have taken 18 years for a single processor to perform.

Something like what it took to find the answer to Life, the Universe and Everything?

The Live Web

Web 2.0 is on the cover of this edition of Newsweek. Nothing in it that if you are quite familiar with the concept of what's called Web 2.0, but if you are just wondering what all the fuss is about, then its a good read.

I still wonder about where the money is, though, but I'll reserve that for a later posting. :)

Acquicor: Money for Nothing?

3 ex-Apple execs raised $150 million bucks for their company, Acquicor Technology. What does Acquicor do? Well, um... nothing much. Just scout around for the right company to acquire. In the meantime, the money sits in a trust account, gets invested in US Govt. bonds and maybe some money market instruments.
Acquicor is a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) or, more commonly a 'blank check' company.

The company has only 3 employees - its founders: Steve Wozniak (ex-Apple founder), Gilbert Amelio (ex-Apple CEO) and Ellen Hancock (ex-Apple CTO) - None of them are full time.
Why didnt they just start a VC fund, one may ask. A simple calculation of shareholders equity shows why: The founders invested at $0.004/share, and other (public) investors are paying $6/share. Which means that the founders have netted a cool $30 million each. Getting a $90 million performance fee on a $150 million fund, would have been much, much harder - even if you were Steve Wozniak :) Actually, the only way to pull off an Acquicor is by being a Steve Wozniak. The company is based on the premise that the reputation of its founders (or employees, if you like) and their network of contacts can get them funds and investment opportunities. It says so in their SEC filings.

Look at the business as a whole: It is a 3 person company with no full time employees, no products or sales, guaranteed ROI to shareholders is just about the Govt. securities rate. The founders also promise to return any funds that remain unused for 18 months back to the shareholders - they dont have enough skin in the game. What did the investors see in this company? I think it is the opportunity to gain VC-like returns by investing smaller amounts by riding on the reputations of the founders. It remains to be seen what course this ride takes.

6 Months Later

i drove from chennai to mahabalipuram in may. for those who haven't been on it, its a beautiful stretch of road along the south indian coastline. just look to your left and you see the beach lazily stretching out into the calm ocean.
the same ocean that erupted last december. as i stared at it as far as i could: just some small waves breaking onto the sandy shore. clean sandy shore. i whiz past a swank looking beach resort. 'nice new coat of paint', i think. 'funny, itsnt tourist season yet' . a minute later i see a huge signboard saying "sunshine beach resort". a 4 foot compound wall. a sick feeling hits the bottom of my stomach as i realise that the compound wall is all thats left of the resort. the other resort i passed by earlier must have been reconstructed/repaired. i'm dazed as i pass by more compound walls.. some old, some newly constructed. names written on some of them, proclaiming who their owner is. on one such wall, "pothuraman" has been crossed out in favour of a "a.selvaraj" in a larger font size: feud. a toddy shop has new asbestos sheets for a roof, and a newly painted signboard. then there are the rehabilitation centers. thatched, single room huts. closely uniformly laid out like lego blocks. right on the beach. right on the beach? the same people probably lived here before. 'why dont they go live somewhere else' , i think. i know. the beach's been their home and means of livelihood forever. so they stay. people stay.
the fear of the unknown is greater than the fear of the unpredictable. or it is the indomitable thing called human spirit that wills one to rise up to a crisis. whatever the reason, people stay. a huge signboard stands erect at a corner, proudly announcing the sponsors of that rehab center. publicity stunt. although i suppose, it does act as an address of sorts. photographs of politicians with boats and fishing nets. earning votes. celebrities doing their bit. i pass by 4 such centers, and they all look the same, save the signboards and the pictures on them. i see colourful sarees fluttering in the breeze, hung to dry on the billboards. very useful. i see a man walking towards the shore. i look at him and a hundred questions run through my mind. is his family still intact? has his grief subsided? has be watched a movie in 6 months? is he angry, bitter, or grieving for what he has lost? or is he thankful that he has survived. fact remains, he has survived, and from the looks of it, life goes on. thats the stark truth and irony of it all.
life goes on.