On Threads

Alrighty, today's (tonight's?) post is about threads, both of the digital and sacred kind. First, the important type:

In Hindu tradition, there's something called a "poonal," which is a thin cotton thread. It's worn around the left should and right waist (much like a sash). It's never taken off, and unless I'm mistaken, you're cremated with it. Sounds like a hassle, right? Well, it is. That's the whole point. It's meant to gently remind you of your inner qualities. It's there to remind you of your dharma, your morals, and basically of everything good. (There are other rituals and routines that go along with it, but I'm not going to go into them.) They also serve as a marker for when you begin to study the Vedas and really digging deep into the philosophy of Sanatana Dharma. Long story short: poonals are good.

However, society's corrupted the poonal. While it still carries the same significance as it did in ancient times, it's been morphed into a mindless ritual. A privilege reserved almost exclusively for born-brahmin boys. By some screwy logic, it's just assumed that any boy-child born into a Brahmin household deserves one. Doesn't matter what their real caste is, their expressed aptitude or want or understanding of such an important item. Nope, just tell them it's an honor to wear it, and slap it on them. No questions asked, no second thoughts. Anybody else who deserves to earn one faces an uphill battle. I don't know what kind of challenges I'll be facing, mostly because google's been unhelpful and I don't have ready access to a priest. However, I'm told that there are legitimate work-arounds for myself.

The ones who are denied the most are women. The big kahunas have said, flat out, that women shouldn't receive a poonal. Ever. They shouldn't even be reading scripture, or chanting. In addition to flying in the face of basic, common sense, it also rails against ancient customs. Way back when, people had the right idea: Everybody who deserves a poonal gets one. Doesn't matter your caste, race, creed, gender, or income. If you felt you deserved one, you'd receive one. Unfortunately, this wonderful mind-set's only found in revolutionaries like myself and my dear friend (We'll call her Ms. Iyer) and Buddhists. Sadly, it seems the only "legitimate" way of receiving a poonal is to either do it ourselves, pay a visit to our philosophical cousins, or move the Himalayas.

Well, enough about the twisted world of society. Now, onto pure logic!

Normally, computers operate in a linear fashion. They execute commands A B C D E F G in order, one right after another. While that's dandy for simple programs, it isn't so dandy for fancy ones. Case in point: a gambling game. Let's say you're simulating dice. You constantly generate random numbers between 1 and 6, and wait for the user to "roll" them. If you used a sequential approach, you'd essentially lock a person into a single number. All they'd determine is how long they waited until the knew what that number was. So, how is this remedied? With threads, of course!

Threads are, basically, concurrent processes. What does that mean? They execute commands ALONGSIDE other commands, instead of one after the other. This lets you do multiple things at once, which can lead to some wild results. Using our dice example, you'd have two threads: one constantly generating numbers, and one waiting for the user to give the OK to stop the numbers. Both are running along-side eachother, so it's closer to how a dice roll really is.

Since Ms. Iyer is practically DYING to see my post, I'll end it at the 4,000 ft view. I'll go more in-depth, and hopefully have some example code, in tomorrow's post.

Naa Varain!