The world of no good

Dogs and their war activities.

2011-10-08T12:41:00.000-07:00

During World War II, over 10,000 U.S. dogs were recruited and trained for military service as part of a program known as “Dogs for Defense.” The military believed it would be able to put a few hundred well-trained dogs to use. Their estimates proved very low as thousands would eventually be trained and served.

A patriotic public donated dogs to be trained for military functions. In all, the military received nearly 20,000 dogs but made use of only approximately half of those available. The others were found, for a variety of reasons, to be unsuitable for their purposes and were returned to their owners.

The Quartermaster Remount Branch of the army administered the program and supplied service dogs to all branches of the military over the course of the war. Even the Navy and Coast Guard eventually made use of service dogs supplied by Dogs for Defense.

Dogs were subjected to their own version of army boot camp, a training program that lasted eight to twelve weeks. The program involved general obedience training and military-specific training. Dogs learned specific tasks that would help them in their army careers and even were trained to function while wearing gas masks. Training duties were handled by Quartermaster staff who followed a training regimen established by the army and codified in an army technical manual. Service dogs were trained at a variety of military installations across the U.S.

Dogs were trained for a variety of tasks. Sentry dogs were the most commonly needed of the Dogs for Defense. In fact, over nine thousand of the dogs trained by the military were used for this function. Sentry dogs worked as guard dogs at military installations and military-protected sensitive civilian locations. They were to provide warning to soldiers of intruders. Scout dogs filled a similar need, but were trained to operate silently to help “sniff out” snipers and other dangers. Messenger dogs were taught to courier materials between soldiers in both combat and non-combat situations. The army even commanded specific teams of sled dogs for possible use during the war.

One of the most interesting functions performed by the Dogs for Defense was to serve as mine dogs. The dogs were specifically trained to search out mines and booby traps. There were two units of mine dogs. Both were deployed in the North African campaign. However, the experiment did not work out as planned. The dogs failed to successfully perform the functions for which they were trained and the mine dog project was discontinued.

The unsuccessful experiment of using dogs to find mines was one of the only aspects of the Dogs for Defense program that fell short of expectations. Overall, the program was a tremendous success and the well-trained dogs served their country admirably.

Of particular note was a war dog named Chips. Chips had been trained for sentry duty but was observed breaking away from his trainer during a combat situation in Sicily. According to those who observed the happenings, Chips attacked an enemy machine gun nest and seized one of the soldiers. His heroics were legendary and Chips’ story was eventually made into a feature film. Although Chips is certainly the most famous of the so-called war dogs, many other trained dogs made important contributions to the allied war effort.

Following the war, the Dogs for Defense were returned to their original owners. This required another training session to re-acclimate the war veteran dogs to civilian life. By all accounts the dogs reacted well to returning to their pre-war lifestyles. The return of the first war dogs, however, did not mark an end to using dogs in the military.

Subsequent to World War II dogs served the U.S. military in multiple theaters. Many dogs saw combat duty in the Viet Nam (in fact there were twenty eight dog casualties during the war) and in the Persian Gulf War. To this day the U.S. army continues to train dogs for service. These dogs demonstrate not only the potential for good training techniques to teach complicated skills but also the capacity for dogs to help their owners and country in a variety of ways.

More Orangutan magic!

2011-09-03T23:18:00.001-07:00

As if, I needed to be any more impressed than I already was!

Drug Laws...hmm

2011-08-29T15:07:00.000-07:00

There is only one tenet I strongly adhere to when thinking about laws - they should be evidence-based, i.e., based on rational reasons not on ethical ones.

It's time we realised our sense of ethics is just something we have been given thru an evolutionary process - a process that is remarkable in and of itself, but none-the-less susceptible to stark imperfections. The oft quoted reference of the human eye should suffice as an example - it works decently within its limits, but no self-respecting engineer would have designed it as it. Furthermore, we know we can't trust it always (visual illusions), and that it is not good enough for modern visual pursuits, astronomers and biologists depend on more sophisticated equipment than human eyes. Similarly, there is simply no reason to expect that our sense of ethics can reliably guide us thru life living in a modern society as interconnected and heterogeneous as ours, especially because, at best, the evolutionary process that helped shape or ethics was targeting our ancestors who lived in very small and reasonably homogenous societies, with very different societal concerns than our own.

The fight on drugs through laws banning use/distribution have been, by all the actual evidence available, very damaging to societies. Maybe, it is time to leave our ethics behind and ask the real question, what is the end goal? Is it to say that drugs are "bad"? Or is it to decrease actual drug use or drug-related crime? If the end goal is the former, a law serves the purpose. If the end goal is the latter, drug laws have not only failed, they have actually worsened the scene.

Here's a nice discussion from Ed Brayton, from the Dispatches from the Culture Wars, on the issue:

This report from the Washington City Paper could have been written about any large city in the country.

But even with a high arrest rate, some people in D.C. can probably safely get high without worrying that the cops are coming. Those people are white people. In 2007, 91 percent of those arrested for marijuana were black. In a city whose population demographics are steadily evening out, that’s odd. In fact, adjusting for population, African Americans are eight times as likely to be arrested for weed as white smokers are.

This is true nationwide, and not just with marijuana but with other illegal drugs as well. Black people use drugs in about the same proportion as their percentage of the population yet they are a staggeringly high percentage of the arrests made for possession and use. This graphic says it all:

Just one more reason, on top of all the others, to end the drug war. And this is important too — it simply doesn’t stop drug use.

Still, D.C. isn’t exactly Amsterdam: More per capita marijuana arrests are made in the District than in any other jurisdiction in the country, according to a recent analysis of MPD and FBI data by Shenandoah University criminal justice professor Jon Gettman, the former director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. Pot arrests have been rising steadily every year since at least 2003, mirroring a national trend that began in the 1990s. And they didn’t really work. “We doubled marijuana arrests and it had no effect on the number of users,” Gettman says.

And that’s just pot. Such laws are even less effective in preventing use of drugs that are truly addictive.

Learning from Finland

2011-08-28T07:27:00.000-07:00

(From Smithsonian.com)

It was the end of term at Kirkkojarvi Comprehensive School in Espoo, a sprawling suburb west of Helsinki, when Kari Louhivuori, a veteran teacher and the school’s principal, decided to try something extreme—by Finnish standards. One of his sixth-grade students, a Kosovo-Albanian boy, had drifted far off the learning grid, resisting his teacher’s best efforts. The school’s team of special educators—including a social worker, a nurse and a psychologist—convinced Louhivuori that laziness was not to blame. So he decided to hold the boy back a year, a measure so rare in Finland it’s practically obsolete.

Finland has vastly improved in reading, math and science literacy over the past decade in large part because its teachers are trusted to do whatever it takes to turn young lives around. This 13-year-old, Besart Kabashi, received something akin to royal tutoring.

“I took Besart on that year as my private student,” Louhivuori told me in his office, which boasted a Beatles “Yellow Submarine” poster on the wall and an electric guitar in the closet. When Besart was not studying science, geography and math, he was parked next to Louhivuori’s desk at the front of his class of 9- and 10-year- olds, cracking open books from a tall stack, slowly reading one, then another, then devouring them by the dozens. By the end of the year, the son of Kosovo war refugees had conquered his adopted country’s vowel-rich language and arrived at the realization that he could, in fact, learn.

Years later, a 20-year-old Besart showed up at Kirkkojarvi’s Christmas party with a bottle of Cognac and a big grin. “You helped me,” he told his former teacher. Besart had opened his own car repair firm and a cleaning company. “No big fuss,” Louhivuori told me. “This is what we do every day, prepare kids for life.”

This tale of a single rescued child hints at some of the reasons for the tiny Nordic nation’s staggering record of education success, a phenomenon that has inspired, baffled and even irked many of America’s parents and educators. Finnish schooling became an unlikely hot topic after the 2010 documentary film Waiting for “Superman” contrasted it with America’s troubled public schools.

“Whatever it takes” is an attitude that drives not just Kirkkojarvi’s 30 teachers, but most of Finland’s 62,000 educators in 3,500 schools from Lapland to Turku—professionals selected from the top 10 percent of the nation’s graduates to earn a required master’s degree in education. Many schools are small enough so that teachers know every student. If one method fails, teachers consult with colleagues to try something else. They seem to relish the challenges. Nearly 30 percent of Finland’s children receive some kind of special help during their first nine years of school. The school where Louhivuori teaches served 240 first through ninth graders last year; and in contrast with Finland’s reputation for ethnic homogeneity, more than half of its 150 elementary-level students are immigrants—from Somalia, Iraq, Russia, Bangladesh, Estonia and Ethiopia, among other nations. “Children from wealthy families with lots of education can be taught by stupid teachers,” Louhivuori said, smiling. “We try to catch the weak students. It’s deep in our thinking.”

The transformation of the Finns’ education system began some 40 years ago as the key propellent of the country’s economic recovery plan. Educators had little idea it was so successful until 2000, when the first results from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), a standardized test given to 15-year-olds in more than 40 global venues, revealed Finnish youth to be the best young readers in the world. Three years later, they led in math. By 2006, Finland was first out of 57 countries (and a few cities) in science. In the 2009 PISA scores released last year, the nation came in second in science, third in reading and sixth in math among nearly half a million students worldwide. “I’m still surprised,” said Arjariita Heikkinen, principal of a Helsinki comprehensive school. “I didn’t realize we were that good.”

In the United States, which has muddled along in the middle for the past decade, government officials have attempted to introduce marketplace competition into public schools. In recent years, a group of Wall Street financiers and philanthropists such as Bill Gates have put money behind private-sector ideas, such as vouchers, data-driven curriculum and charter schools, which have doubled in number in the past decade. President Obama, too, has apparently bet on competition. His Race to the Top initiative invites states to compete for federal dollars using tests and other methods to measure teachers, a philosophy that would not fly in Finland. “I think, in fact, teachers would tear off their shirts,” said Timo Heikkinen, a Helsinki principal with 24 years of teaching experience. “If you only measure the statistics, you miss the human aspect.”

There are no mandated standardized tests in Finland, apart from one exam at the end of students’ senior year in high school. There are no rankings, no comparisons or competition between students, schools or regions. Finland’s schools are publicly funded. The people in the government agencies running them, from national officials to local authorities, are educators, not business people, military leaders or career politicians. Every school has the same national goals and draws from the same pool of university-trained educators. The result is that a Finnish child has a good shot at getting the same quality education no matter whether he or she lives in a rural village or a university town. The differences between weakest and strongest students are the smallest in the world, according to the most recent survey by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). “Equality is the most important word in Finnish education. All political parties on the right and left agree on this,” said Olli Luukkainen, president of Finland’s powerful teachers union.

Ninety-three percent of Finns graduate from academic or vocational high schools, 17.5 percentage points higher than the United States, and 66 percent go on to higher education, the highest rate in the European Union. Yet Finland spends about 30 percent less per student than the United States.

Still, there is a distinct absence of chest-thumping among the famously reticent Finns. They are eager to celebrate their recent world hockey championship, but PISA scores, not so much. “We prepare children to learn how to learn, not how to take a test,” said Pasi Sahlberg, a former math and physics teacher who is now in Finland’s Ministry of Education and Culture. “We are not much interested in PISA. It’s not what we are about.”

Maija Rintola stood before her chattering class of twenty-three 7- and 8-year-olds one late April day in Kirkkojarven Koulu. A tangle of multicolored threads topped her copper hair like a painted wig. The 20-year teacher was trying out her look for Vappu, the day teachers and children come to school in riotous costumes to celebrate May Day. The morning sun poured through the slate and lemon linen shades onto containers of Easter grass growing on the wooden sills. Rintola smiled and held up her open hand at a slant—her time-tested “silent giraffe,” which signaled the kids to be quiet. Little hats, coats, shoes stowed in their cubbies, the children wiggled next to their desks in their stocking feet, waiting for a turn to tell their tale from the playground. They had just returned from their regular 15 minutes of playtime outdoors between lessons. “Play is important at this age,” Rintola would later say. “We value play.”

With their wiggles unwound, the students took from their desks little bags of buttons, beans and laminated cards numbered 1 through 20. A teacher’s aide passed around yellow strips representing units of ten. At a smart board at the front of the room, Rintola ushered the class through the principles of base ten. One girl wore cat ears on her head, for no apparent reason. Another kept a stuffed mouse on her desk to remind her of home. Rintola roamed the room helping each child grasp the concepts. Those who finished early played an advanced “nut puzzle” game. After 40 minutes it was time for a hot lunch in the cathedral-like cafeteria.

Teachers in Finland spend fewer hours at school each day and spend less time in classrooms than American teachers. Teachers use the extra time to build curriculums and assess their students. Children spend far more time playing outside, even in the depths of winter. Homework is minimal. Compulsory schooling does not begin until age 7. “We have no hurry,” said Louhivuori. “Children learn better when they are ready. Why stress them out?”

It’s almost unheard of for a child to show up hungry or homeless. Finland provides three years of maternity leave and subsidized day care to parents, and preschool for all 5-year-olds, where the emphasis is on play and socializing. In addition, the state subsidizes parents, paying them around 150 euros per month for every child until he or she turns 17. Ninety-seven percent of 6-year-olds attend public preschool, where children begin some academics. Schools provide food, medical care, counseling and taxi service if needed. Student health care is free.

Even so, Rintola said her children arrived last August miles apart in reading and language levels. By April, nearly every child in the class was reading, and most were writing. Boys had been coaxed into literature with books like Kapteeni Kalsarin (“Captain Underpants”). The school’s special education teacher teamed up with Rintola to teach five children with a variety of behavioral and learning problems. The national goal for the past five years has been to mainstream all children. The only time Rintola’s children are pulled out is for Finnish as a Second Language classes, taught by a teacher with 30 years’ experience and graduate school training.

There are exceptions, though, however rare. One first-grade girl was not in Rintola’s class. The wispy 7-year-old had recently arrived from Thailand speaking not a word of Finnish. She was studying math down the hall in a special “preparing class” taught by an expert in multicultural learning. It is designed to help children keep up with their subjects while they conquer the language. Kirkkojarvi’s teachers have learned to deal with their unusually large number of immigrant students. The city of Espoo helps them out with an extra 82,000 euros a year in “positive discrimination” funds to pay for things like special resource teachers, counselors and six special needs classes.

Rintola will teach the same children next year and possibly the next five years, depending on the needs of the school. “It’s a good system. I can make strong connections with the children,” said Rintola, who was handpicked by Louhivuori 20 years ago. “I understand who they are.” Besides Finnish, math and science, the first graders take music, art, sports, religion and textile handcrafts. English begins in third grade, Swedish in fourth. By fifth grade the children have added biology, geography, history, physics and chemistry.

Not until sixth grade will kids have the option to sit for a district-wide exam, and then only if the classroom teacher agrees to participate. Most do, out of curiosity. Results are not publicized. Finnish educators have a hard time understanding the United States’ fascination with standardized tests. “Americans like all these bars and graphs and colored charts,” Louhivuori teased, as he rummaged through his closet looking for past years’ results. “Looks like we did better than average two years ago,” he said after he found the reports. “It’s nonsense. We know much more about the children than these tests can tell us.”

I had come to Kirkkojarvi to see how the Finnish approach works with students who are not stereotypically blond, blue-eyed and Lutheran. But I wondered if Kirkkojarvi’s success against the odds might be a fluke. Some of the more vocal conservative reformers in America have grown weary of the “We-Love-Finland crowd” or so-called Finnish Envy. They argue that the United States has little to learn from a country of only 5.4 million people—4 percent of them foreign born. Yet the Finns seem to be onto something. Neighboring Norway, a country of similar size, embraces education policies similar to those in the United States. It employs standardized exams and teachers without master’s degrees. And like America, Norway’s PISA scores have been stalled in the middle ranges for the better part of a decade.

To get a second sampling, I headed east from Espoo to Helsinki and a rough neighborhood called Siilitie, Finnish for “Hedgehog Road” and known for having the oldest low-income housing project in Finland. The 50-year-old boxy school building sat in a wooded area, around the corner from a subway stop flanked by gas stations and convenience stores. Half of its 200 first- through ninth-grade students have learning disabilities. All but the most severely impaired are mixed with the general education children, in keeping with Finnish policies.

A class of first graders scampered among nearby pine and birch trees, each holding a stack of the teacher’s homemade laminated “outdoor math” cards. “Find a stick as big as your foot,” one read. “Gather 50 rocks and acorns and lay them out in groups of ten,” read another. Working in teams, the 7- and 8-year-olds raced to see how quickly they could carry out their tasks. Aleksi Gustafsson, whose master’s degree is from Helsinki University, developed the exercise after attending one of the many workshops available free to teachers. “I did research on how useful this is for kids,” he said. “It’s fun for the children to work outside. They really learn with it.”

Gustafsson’s sister, Nana Germeroth, teaches a class of mostly learning-impaired children; Gustafsson’s students have no learning or behavioral issues. The two combined most of their classes this year to mix their ideas and abilities along with the children’s varying levels. “We know each other really well,” said Germeroth, who is ten years older. “I know what Aleksi is thinking.”

The school receives 47,000 euros a year in positive discrimination money to hire aides and special education teachers, who are paid slightly higher salaries than classroom teachers because of their required sixth year of university training and the demands of their jobs. There is one teacher (or assistant) in Siilitie for every seven students.

In another classroom, two special education teachers had come up with a different kind of team teaching. Last year, Kaisa Summa, a teacher with five years’ experience, was having trouble keeping a gaggle of first-grade boys under control. She had looked longingly into Paivi Kangasvieri’s quiet second-grade room next door, wondering what secrets the 25-year-veteran colleague could share. Each had students of wide-ranging abilities and special needs. Summa asked Kangasvieri if they might combine gymnastics classes in hopes good behavior might be contagious. It worked. This year, the two decided to merge for 16 hours a week. “We complement each other,” said Kangasvieri, who describes herself as a calm and firm “father” to Summa’s warm mothering. “It is cooperative teaching at its best,” she says.

Every so often, principal Arjariita Heikkinen told me, the Helsinki district tries to close the school because the surrounding area has fewer and fewer children, only to have people in the community rise up to save it. After all, nearly 100 percent of the school’s ninth graders go on to high schools. Even many of the most severely disabled will find a place in Finland’s expanded system of vocational high schools, which are attended by 43 percent of Finnish high-school students, who prepare to work in restaurants, hospitals, construction sites and offices. “We help situate them in the right high school,” said then deputy principal Anne Roselius. “We are interested in what will become of them in life.”

Finland’s schools were not always a wonder. Until the late 1960s, Finns were still emerging from the cocoon of Soviet influence. Most children left public school after six years. (The rest went to private schools, academic grammar schools or folk schools, which tended to be less rigorous.) Only the privileged or lucky got a quality education.

The landscape changed when Finland began trying to remold its bloody, fractured past into a unified future. For hundreds of years, these fiercely independent people had been wedged between two rival powers—the Swedish monarchy to the west and the Russian czar to the east. Neither Scandinavian nor Baltic, Finns were proud of their Nordic roots and a unique language only they could love (or pronounce). In 1809, Finland was ceded to Russia by the Swedes, who had ruled its people some 600 years. The czar created the Grand Duchy of Finland, a quasi-state with constitutional ties to the empire. He moved the capital from Turku, near Stockholm, to Helsinki, closer to St. Petersburg. After the czar fell to the Bolsheviks in 1917, Finland declared its independence, pitching the country into civil war. Three more wars between 1939 and 1945—two with the Soviets, one with Germany—left the country scarred by bitter divisions and a punishing debt owed to the Russians. “Still we managed to keep our freedom,” said Pasi Sahlberg, a director general in the Ministry of Education and Culture.

In 1963, the Finnish Parlia-ment made the bold decision to choose public education as its best shot at economic recovery. “I call this the Big Dream of Finnish education,” said Sahlberg, whose upcoming book, Finnish Lessons, is scheduled for release in October. “It was simply the idea that every child would have a very good public school. If we want to be competitive, we need to educate everybody. It all came out of a need to survive.”

Practically speaking—and Finns are nothing if not practical—the decision meant that goal would not be allowed to dissipate into rhetoric. Lawmakers landed on a deceptively simple plan that formed the foundation for everything to come. Public schools would be organized into one system of comprehensive schools, or peruskoulu, for ages 7 through 16. Teachers from all over the nation contributed to a national curriculum that provided guidelines, not prescriptions. Besides Finnish and Swedish (the country’s second official language), children would learn a third language (English is a favorite) usually beginning at age 9. Resources were distributed equally. As the comprehensive schools improved, so did the upper secondary schools (grades 10 through 12). The second critical decision came in 1979, when reformers required that every teacher earn a fifth-year master’s degree in theory and practice at one of eight state universities—at state expense. From then on, teachers were effectively granted equal status with doctors and lawyers. Applicants began flooding teaching programs, not because the salaries were so high but because autonomy and respect made the job attractive. In 2010, some 6,600 applicants vied for 660 primary school training slots, according to Sahlberg. By the mid-1980s, a final set of initiatives shook the classrooms free from the last vestiges of top-down regulation. Control over policies shifted to town councils. The national curriculum was distilled into broad guidelines. National math goals for grades one through nine, for example, were reduced to a neat ten pages. Sifting and sorting children into so-called ability groupings was eliminated. All children—clever or less so—were to be taught in the same classrooms, with lots of special teacher help available to make sure no child really would be left behind. The inspectorate closed its doors in the early ’90s, turning accountability and inspection over to teachers and principals. “We have our own motivation to succeed because we love the work,” said Louhivuori. “Our incentives come from inside.”

To be sure, it was only in the past decade that Finland’s international science scores rose. In fact, the country’s earliest efforts could be called somewhat Stalinistic. The first national curriculum, developed in the early ’70s, weighed in at 700 stultifying pages. Timo Heikkinen, who began teaching in Finland’s public schools in 1980 and is now principal of Kallahti Comprehensive School in eastern Helsinki, remembers when most of his high-school teachers sat at their desks dictating to the open notebooks of compliant children.

And there are still challenges. Finland’s crippling financial collapse in the early ’90s brought fresh economic challenges to this “confident and assertive Eurostate,” as David Kirby calls it in A Concise History of Finland. At the same time, immigrants poured into the country, clustering in low-income housing projects and placing added strain on schools. A recent report by the Academy of Finland warned that some schools in the country’s large cities were becoming more skewed by race and class as affluent, white Finns choose schools with fewer poor, immigrant populations.

A few years ago, Kallahti principal Timo Heikkinen began noticing that, increasingly, affluent Finnish parents, perhaps worried about the rising number of Somali children at Kallahti, began sending their children to one of two other schools nearby. In response, Heikkinen and his teachers designed new environmental science courses that take advantage of the school’s proximity to the forest. And a new biology lab with 3-D technology allows older students to observe blood flowing inside the human body.

It has yet to catch on, Heikkinen admits. Then he added: “But we are always looking for ways to improve.”

In other words, whatever it takes.

Lynnell Hancock writes about education and teaches at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism. Photographer Stuart Conway lives in East Sussex, near the south coast of England.

Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/people-places/Why-Are-Finlands-Schools-Successful.html#ixzz1WKlQlcDV

Information != knowledge

2011-08-25T08:41:00.000-07:00

(From Deric Bownd's Mindblog)

Neal Gabler does a terrific opinion piece in this past Sunday's NYTimes on how our culture increasing follows present centered and transient flashes of information at the expense of integrative ideas and metaphors. It hit me between the eyes, resonating with my own frustration over feeling that I am constantly awash in streams of information chunks that do not cohere - are not integrated into perceiving patterns and overarching ideas. It was a reaffirmation of my recent decision test the effect of going cold turkey for awhile - to shut off my daily cruising of the Huffington Post and several other aggregators and news feeds. To stop watching the Jon Stewart Daily News, Colbert Report, and evening news. Already I can feel a detoxification process settling in, a slightly more calm mind. Gabler starts by noting that The Atlantic's “14 Biggest Ideas of the Year” are not in fact ideas, they are observations (sample: “Wall Street: Same as it Ever Was”) Here are some clips from Gabler's article:

Ideas just aren’t what they used to be. Once upon a time, they could ignite fires of debate, stimulate other thoughts, incite revolutions and fundamentally change the ways we look at and think about the world…They could penetrate the general culture and make celebrities out of thinkers — notably Albert Einstein, but also Reinhold Niebuhr, Daniel Bell, Betty Friedan, Carl Sagan and Stephen Jay Gould, to name a few. The ideas themselves could even be made famous: for instance, for “the end of ideology,” “the medium is the message,” “the feminine mystique,” “the Big Bang theory,” “the end of history.”…we are living in an increasingly post-idea world — a world in which big, thought-provoking ideas that can’t instantly be monetized are of so little intrinsic value that fewer people are generating them and fewer outlets are disseminating them, the Internet notwithstanding.

…especially here in America...we live in a post-Enlightenment age in which rationality, science, evidence, logical argument and debate have lost the battle in many sectors, and perhaps even in society generally, to superstition, faith, opinion and orthodoxy. While we continue to make giant technological advances, we may be the first generation to have turned back the epochal clock — to have gone backward intellectually from advanced modes of thinking into old modes of belief. But post-Enlightenment and post-idea, while related, are not exactly the same...Post-Enlightenment refers to a style of thinking that no longer deploys the techniques of rational thought. Post-idea refers to thinking that is no longer done, regardless of the style.

We live in the much vaunted Age of Information. Courtesy of the Internet, we seem to have immediate access to anything that anyone could ever want to know…In the past, we collected information not simply to know things….We also collected information to convert it into something larger than facts and ultimately more useful — into ideas that made sense of the information..But if information was once grist for ideas, over the last decade it has become competition for them. We are like the farmer who has too much wheat to make flour. We are inundated with so much information that we wouldn’t have time to process it even if we wanted to, and most of us don’t want to…We prefer knowing to thinking because knowing has more immediate value. It keeps us in the loop, keeps us connected to our friends and our cohort. Ideas are too airy, too impractical, too much work for too little reward. Few talk ideas. Everyone talks information, usually personal information. Where are you going? What are you doing? Whom are you seeing? These are today’s big questions.

…social networking sites are the primary form of communication among young people, and they are supplanting print, which is where ideas have typically gestated. …social networking sites engender habits of mind that are inimical to the kind of deliberate discourse that gives rise to ideas. Instead of theories, hypotheses and grand arguments, we get instant 140-character tweets about eating a sandwich or watching a TV show.

…We have become information narcissists, so uninterested in anything outside ourselves and our friendship circles or in any tidbit we cannot share with those friends that if a Marx or a Nietzsche were suddenly to appear, blasting his ideas, no one would pay the slightest attention, certainly not the general media, which have learned to service our narcissism.

Orangutan Intelligence

2011-08-24T11:57:00.000-07:00

Oh! This is probably the most incredible video I have seen in a very long time! To me, the squeeze-drying is the most incredible part! Wow, they really are almost as intelligent as us!

Orangutan Cools Himself Off Like A Human - Watch more Funny Videos

Interesting video on motivation and working hard.

2011-07-24T12:50:00.000-07:00

Makes me wanna work much harder :)

First Dates!

2011-03-22T20:45:00.000-07:00

First dates are really nerve-wracking, I guess. But if you meet a truly awesome person, then they are awesome :).

Cordyceps Fungus - Incredible!

2011-03-03T21:09:00.000-08:00

This is stunning! Nature in one of its simplest incarnations, yet one of the more profound ones - parasitism. (For more on Cordyceps)

If all else is lost, there's always hope

2011-02-23T17:29:00.000-08:00

The hairy body, the giant nose
the chinese sees, and bellows
"white man come, white man take,
all destroyed, in his wake".

The tanned skin, the turbaned head,
the white man sees, and screams with dread,
"there come chaps, with bombs and guns,
to kill us all and all our sons"

The squinty eyes, the dotty snouts,
the other sees, and with anger shouts
"they've sold their goods, they've sold their souls,
all's gone, we are left with holes"

Madness and fear, left us all
with lots to despair, behind a wall.
Leave your crazy, timid stare
let's start afresh with love and care

(Inspired by John Lennon's Imagine - which says all that I could ever dream/imagine to say :) )

Three little thoughts get a voice

2011-02-23T16:22:00.000-08:00

idle minds 'n' idle view
call the devil, all the time.
mind your thoughts, all of you,
lest the devil, wreak its crime.

bored to death, bored to death!
silence screams, happily.
buoyant thoughts, take a breath
holler now, with equal glee!

silence kills, silence nips,
quiet men, wake up now!
give your words voice and lips,
to speak your thoughts, take a vow.

Lessons from experience - 1

2010-10-26T11:00:00.000-07:00

When you have piles, try not to cough or sneeze!

Childhood - distant yet clear memories

2010-09-17T13:56:00.000-07:00

Maybe the curse of growing up, if it is to be seen that way, is the loss of innocence and purity of fun. I was just browsing today and found a blog post by Krish Ashok on Phir mile sur mera tumhara - a 2009/10 version of the 1980's classic Mile sur mera tumhara.

That invariably led me down memory lane, and in particular reminiscing the classic videos of the 80's in India (Ek Chidiya...anek Chidiyan, ...).

And that led me to me reminiscing my childhood. And suddenly when I looked around, everything looked alien. I wondered how I found myself with an IPad and a Sony Ericsson X10, in MI, USA. What happened to the buffaloes, the hay stacks, the marbles, the eager anticipation for the Sunday morning Spiderman?

What happened to the mango plantations where my family and I used to steal mangoes from on our way to Hyderabad, the Friday morning drives in Muscat, the 2-3 hours of football in the evenings, the yummy meals, the wasteful extravagance of having a meal plan for the semester, yet going out to dinner everyday, and the unrelenting/aimless arguments of college, the aspiration for/delusions of grand success in the future, the innocence/madness of it all? They seem to have all become stories to tell, with no sensation of the reality they used to be.

How did life become so complicated? Is there no way to turn back time, and even stop time once its turned back?

Yet, life is what it is, I guess, Maybe, it's us adults concerned with things we weren't with as kids, that's the trouble. Maybe, innocence and simplicity are just around the corner, if you bother to walk on and look.

Dogs are carnivores!

2010-08-13T03:04:00.000-07:00

I suddenly remembered an argument that I had with a friend (P.S. Anand) in college about dogs being carnivores. P.S. maintained that dogs were omnivores.

As I recall,

My argument: I recalled my dog's vet telling me that dogs were carnivores cos "carnivore" had a technical definition, and it depended on understanding the body of the animal, and at least from the dental patterns of dogs, they were clearly carnivorous.

His argument: I am not too sure of this, perhaps P.S. should clarify, but it was that dogs can eat vegetarian food and survive, so they are omnivores.

I am talking about it today cos I remembered the argument, and suddenly decided to read up more on it. It turns out that there are quite a few arguments in favour of classifying dogs as carnivores. They are the following:

1) Their dental structure is that of a typical carnivore (i.e., no large/flat molars, for grinding plant matter).

2) Jaw muscular anatomy - it permits vertical crunching motion, but not sideways, gnawing motion.

3) The digestive system is rigged towards quick absorption, not for stored slow absorption as would be necessary with vegetable matter.

4) The enzymes and bacteria present in saliva and elsewhere are not geared for digestion of vegetable matter. Vegetable matter loads the digestive system in carnivores and ultimately leads to their early deterioration. This point is somewhat simplified, read link for more details.

Conclusion: a dog can possibly survive on vegetable matter, as can possibly any other carnivore - my guess is the same is true of herbivores, that they can live on meat. But, the body is just not meant to live on such a diet, therefore, in the long run the system will be taxed heavily and it will lead to health issues, and perhaps even (substantially) decreased life-spans.

Relevant Link: Myths about Raw Feeding

More on Abiogenesis

2009-12-01T14:29:00.000-08:00

In an earlier post ("From Chemistry to Biology"), I discussed work on Abiogenesis - the study of how life came about from pre-life chemicals on Earth. David Gallo and Bill Lange in their awesome talk about the totally unbelievable deep-sea flora/fauna touch on aspects of Abiogenesis.

If not for the science, watch the video just to enjoy the absolutely beautiful creatures that live in the depths of the ocean under such crazy pressure and temperature conditions.

Brilliant and Beautiful!

2009-12-01T13:13:00.000-08:00

I dream

2009-10-24T14:59:00.000-07:00

I dream of a world,
with no hopes unbounded.
With fearless people,
and alarms unsounded.

I dream for sincerity,
and a depth of trust.
Cruelty unthought of
and lies laid to rust.

I dream of tomorrow,
as yesterday's new kind.
With renewed vigour,
and stable mind.

(Doubt has a place,
for sure, I say.
But courage unfettered,
is better, any day.)

I dream of thought,
as the new-age tool.
Which though long-known,
was left for the fool.

I dream of passion,
with resplendent magic.
A life without it
is all but tragic.

I dream of a return,
filled with hope and fire.
Without those dreams,
life feels dire.

Poor little baby loo!

2009-10-20T00:18:00.001-07:00

It never was loved, and used like all before,
to rid the little one's fears.
Yet, it was dumped in the memory store,
after the first two years.

I won't use you till you are clean,
But, I will return favours soon.
I will treat you like you've never been.
It is promised by the moon.

The day started with a misty dawn.
It awaited the promise of a clean bill.
The closet opened, the guts did fawn,
Alas! flushed with last night's fill.

It was tired, but hopeful, all the same;
it replenished itself, as it had to.
And today ended, but tomorrow never came.
Poor little baby loo!

R(evolve)

2009-10-11T22:56:00.000-07:00

What are you thinking?
The transience of time in the crisp October air
I look out the window, I see but not feel

This town is grey, this town is sinking
You, me, us the blame unfair
Snow replaces leaves, the cold is all that's real

Count the milestones as you lay waiting
Where is my moment? How long will I be stuck on this penultimate stair?
The rain washes away the darkness, is this my sign to heal?

The year has been harsh, I've been in hiding
As the sun comes out and birds begin to chirp, I leave my lair
I gingerly step out on a cool April morning and announce "this is the moment to steal!"

To my little cocorita

2009-09-30T20:34:00.001-07:00

Cocorita, my little princess,
the petite bird in the skies.
Blithe and cute, and simply blessed,
a spirit that never dies.

Never shackled, never cringing,
one of varied hues.
Seldom ired, always singing
to pay your worldly dues.

Budgerigar, the english talk,
misses the lilt, you've had.
Now, there is the cage and lock,
it just makes me sad.

Fly free, feel the breeze,
let the wind kiss you.
Smile again, be a tease,
sing a song anew.

Tee Hee!

2009-09-30T19:54:00.000-07:00

Run away!
Run away from the fears.
Live each day!
Live each day with the cheers.

Let nothing,
let nothing put you down.
Stop each thing,
Stop each thing that makes you frown.

Get a life,
Get a life, and be happy.
Rid your strife,
Rid you strife, and feel the glee.

It's a must,
Carpe Diem, said the wise.
Life is just
full of wonder and surprise.

What goes down, must come up!

2009-09-29T21:02:00.000-07:00

When you hit the nadir, the apex called.
Said, I am sorry for being late.
You looked sad; you had surely bawled.
Ah, the twisted games of Fate!

You had dreams, but Fate caught 'em.
You lost a lot, but cheer up!
For, when you've hit rock bottom,
the only way is up!

Hope for better, dream for more,
think of that golden door;
the portal to your destiny,
and the happiness to be.

Frustrations

2009-09-29T18:47:00.000-07:00

You want light and you want dark,
Yet you get "light", you lose the shield.
You get "dark", you lose the spark.
Damn the puzzle that just won't yield!

How do you choose, between the two?
What do you use, to end the blue?

Do you trust the feeling, and take a stride,
or trust the ken, and play it safe?
Do you follow the desire deep inside,
or dog the truth, and let it chafe?

Damn the dread, damn these choices!
Damn your head, with its million voices!

Questions

2009-09-25T16:22:00.000-07:00

Mountains form, and ages pass by,
every man has questioned, out of doubt or fear,
"what's the purpose?" or just "why?"
Still unanswered; not even near.

What's right? And what's wrong?
What's fair? And what's unfair?
You may ask your whole life long,
yet, who knows! and why do you care!

The pragmatist reflects, why ask!
The dreamer rebuts, you have no heart!
Let's just live, that's the task,
is the answer of a simple lark.

The questions consume, the questions remain,
Why uncover questions, with no use?
Mother nature! such deceit, such legerdemain!
why allow men such mental abuse?

More like an onion, with every skin I peel.
Kipling and Tagore, you may stir in your graves.
But, the deeper I dig, the shallower I feel;
this world was never for the braves.

Many will come, and many will go,
but the questions stay; they never die.
The choices you make are yours to keep,
There are no answers, I won't lie.

From Chemistry to Biology

2009-08-14T17:43:00.001-07:00

Amongst the most famous debates in current pop-science groups is undoubtedly the debate of "how did life come about? Was it thru natural happenstance or thru miraculous/supernatural intervention" - the debate between unguided evolution vs. intelligent design. After following this debate for quite a few years (a lot of PZ Myers, Dawkins, Bertrand Russell for the evolutionary perspective, and the discovery institute,... for the ID point of view), I have one strong statement to make, the intelligent design community is intellectually empty. They do have a philosophical point - it is "logically possible" that some supernatural force created everything, but the community that espouses this view is rampant with miscreants and liars. In my opinion, even the "biggest" proponents (read, Ken Ham, Michael Behe, ...) of this "theory" consistently fabricate data, and misinform the clueless public. This is my biggest concern! While there might be some philosophical merit to the proposal, just the way they go about doing it shows one thing - even they themselves aren't truly convinced by the evidence, and need to resort to cheap, and ultimately unproductive, tactics like lying and making up data. (see the "Creation Museum" pictures to see how ludicrous some of this population is.)

On a related note, a subject that I have found fascinating in recent times is that of "Abiogenesis". The branch of scientific inquiry that studies the origin of biological life, i.e., how did life (in the biological sense of the word) ever come about from a point when there was no life?

Evolutionary theories (in the Darwinian mould) talk about biological evolution as a result of Natural Selection - that is Nature (and natural conditions) acts as a filter, and repeated filtering over mutations results in evolution of new species. However, what's key for biological evolution is the pre-existence of life. That is: speciation is only possible, in a Darwinian framework, when a previous more "primitive" life is already present. In short, Darwinian evolutionary theories have nothing to say about how life came to be - or how life ever started - they just account for how species evolved.

I recently saw a video lecture by Professor Robert Hazen (Carnegie Institution and George Mason University) on the topic of Abiogenesis. It was a lot of fun, and really stirred the love for physical and organic chemistry that I had in high-school.

I present below a gist of his talk. I refer you to the actual 1hr 9min talk video for a more elaborate discussion.

His talk's main point was that for biology to have developed from chemistry, there must have been at least the four steps in the pic below. Darwinian natural selection is only possible after the "biomolecules" or "building blocks of life", i.e., amino acids, sugars..., were created from the chemical conditions that existed on earth before life; followed by steps 2 and 3.

A cool experiment that showed that step one is replicable is one by Miller and colleagues in the early 1950's. They had a lab experiment where the apparatus mimicked the conditions of the "pre-life earth". The apparatus tried to recreate the presence of water, air, the right temperature and pressure, and finally, the chemicals that were there before life came about. What they found was that leaving the set-up as such for some time automatically leads to the creation of the basic building blocks (amino acids, sugars...)

So, step 1 is essentially solved. We understand it. The answer is kinda known. We know for sure that we can recreate step 1 without any "outside/supernatural" intervention, just by recreating the original conditions of the earth. This is clearly a replicable process.

Steps 2 and 3 are still being understood. We have good leads with step 2 - some important minerals might be aiding in the selection of the right building blocks. But, step 3 is still in the conception stage. There are apparently some good theoretical ideas, but there's no good experimental support for these proposal.

Again, step 4 has some excellent experimental support. And of course it has received massive support from evolutionary biological findings in the last 150 years since Darwin's days (and from some work even before that, of course).

So, to put it concisely, the work that really needs to be done and is being pursued right now in the small field of Abiogenesis is between steps 2 & 3.

And finally, why bother talking about all this when I started with the discussion of evolutionary biology vs. intelligent design. Simple, I love the conclusions of the talk. Very simple, and basic, yet the god-mongers amongst us don't necessarily see it.

In search of a new beginning!

2009-08-14T14:38:00.001-07:00

Hello everyone! It has truly been a long time since I last blogged. I was just wondering what everyone's been upto.

Shitty got married, Ashwin and Rags are soon to follow in Dec./Jan. Mayank's been trying to call me for the last week, and somehow he finds the voicemail, and the two times I tried to call him up, I found an old german lady. In short, somehow, everyone's getting screwed over. lol!

Life's been weird. Interesting, but weird. I am having to push thru my usually spirit-less existence to force myself to do things that are totally out of character. And you know what?? It ain't half bad. I am getting to know myself very well. Loneliness does that to you. haha!

But, since I last messaged, I learnt a lot about linguistics, a lot about neuroscience, and a lot about lotsa unrelated things. I think I kinda like who I am becoming. When is the last time I said that?

I'm going to Michigan State Univ. for a one year stint as a faculty member there. Should be 'interesting'. When I went there, I had a lot of fun, but kinda missed not being with close ones.

Been playing tennis (with Naveen) in the last week. Was a lot of fun. Played after many years! I was surprised that my knees didn't give in. Far from being half-decent, but I have to say it was a welcome change to my otherwise sedentary way of life.

Federer just lost to Tsonga in the Rogers Cup. Was a little sad about it. he's just not the same anymore. :(.

This was sort of a boring post I guess, but hopefully more interesting stuff will follow soon!

when the smoke clears

2008-07-23T08:20:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since anyone has penned their thoughts on this blog. Understandable given the challenges we face trying to stay grounded in this rapidly transforming world...some are married or engaged. Some are on the verge of earning doctorates...others are exploring off beat locations around the world, places they wouldn't have imagined visiting 5 years ago. Still others are diving deeper into their careers, scaling the corporate ladder. All in all it's impressive to see what's been achieved by everyone since those days in Vellore.

Next time you have a drink, raise your glass in honor of yourselves loungers. Cheers!

ramblings contd.

2006-11-26T20:45:00.000-08:00

How many people are emotional, and how many feign it?

As of now, I know at least one who feigns it...me. But, that doesn't mean, I want to be so.

Free Spirit

2006-11-20T20:01:00.000-08:00

free spirit thru free spirits
damned as some might say.
kist with karmic fortune
isn't it all just play.

tore a ligament in my knee. surgery needed. surgery date - sometime next week.

going to muscat for a couple of months. should be fun.

watched casino royale and the departed. eva green in casino rayale gets my thumbs up! the departed (in spite of the reviews) was just OK - but the accents were good.

cheap wine can be fun!

going to virginia (family get-together) for thanksgiving. should be 'interesting'.

correction on "old friendships": old friendship might be forgotten, but it's easier to start again with the same people.

winkie winkie

2006-09-18T22:46:00.000-07:00

Blink blink, shine shine,
the sun came out at half past nine.

In a good mood; wanted to spread the word - hence the post.

Things have been moving pretty smoothly in the last month or so.

Lotsa things happened. a broken heart ;), an academic light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel, a comfortable life, a huge unpayable credit-card debt, and (amongst many other things) a simple life.

And I simply loved it.

Hail, Oh giver of life. you have indeed blest me,
blue, or red, or yellow, or gold, or whatever the colour may be.

After a long slumber comes a painful awakening

2006-08-12T15:38:00.000-07:00

I feel like blogging. It's been ages since I posted anything contemplative, and it is this path that I shall walk down today - let the last few words serve as a warning to all those hoping to avoid anything more serious than a castrated bull performing a long-forgotten bovine mating dance.

The last few months have been painful because I finally realised that I have no plan, no guiding-light, and no passion to pursue. I have probably rued about this my whole life, but it is these last few months which have magnified to the right size the seriousness of the situation I am in. Following this self-realisation, I followed a path of understanding my inner soul - needless to say, it was a dead-end (what inner soul?). Then I changed tracks and thought one should plan not for what one wants to do in life, but where one wants to BE at the end of it. In short, the goal, not the means. This avenue, honestly, helped a lot more - the abstraction which such an action entails surely confuses you to the point where you think you might actually be doing all right.

So, why am I yapping this near-incomprehensible sacred bovine faeces?

Today I realised more so than ever that even old-friendships are susceptible to death. I talked to an old friend and had almost nothing to say. And, I am hurt.

Alternative fuels of energy

2006-07-11T15:22:00.000-07:00

A wonderful report on alternatives to oil-based energy sources; but, with a scary conclusion ( LINK)

There seem to be two immediate things to do to quench this ever-increasing thirt for energy:
1. find a high-return energy source (fission, fusion...).
2. improve energy-storage facilities (batteries...)

Finding a high-yield energy source is not enough without inventing/discovering a good energy storage mechanism. Fortunately, till now, oil is very transportable. With sources like solar power, fission, fusion... you need a battery or something like it to store the energy (unless ofcourse, we can manage to create micro-reactors that can be fitted into cars, planes...)

Both (1 and 2) are surely being pursued vigorously around the world - pretty obviously, we haven't gotten too far (but, the effort is still worth it).

The moral of the report and the post is simple: whether you can afford it or not, SAVE ENERGY. The question is not whether u can afford the cost of 10 lights switched on at the same time, the question is: do you want your kids to be able to watch FRIENDS?

Granted oil reserves are not infinite and us conserving energy/oil won't make it last for ever, but if we don't try to conserve energy, there is no hope of a smooth transition to the next great find in the energy sciences. As the report implies, grave times are ahead if we don't wake up. Imagine not having a job after doing an MBA, MS, MD...(not to forget, in your 40's if you belong to the 1980's and 1990's) just because you didn't always switch off the lights when you didn't need them!

Hail the holy cow!

2006-07-06T15:09:00.000-07:00

THE INSPIRATIONAL ESSAY FOR THE LOUNGERS!!!
HAIL THE COW!!! (our blog wouldnt b complete without a tribute to the cow :))

Indian Cow

HE IS THE COW. "The cow is a successful animal. Also he is 4 footed, And because he is female, he give milks, [ but will do so when he is got child.] He is same like-God, sacred to Hindus and useful to man. But he has got four legs together. Two are forward and two are afterwards. His whole body can be utilised for use. More so the milk. Milk comes from 4 taps attached to his basement. [ horses dont have any such attachment]

What can he do? Various ghee, butter, cream, curd, why and the condensed milk and so forth. Also he is useful to cobbler, watermans and mankind generally. His motion is slow only because he is of lazy species, Also his other motion.. gober] is much useful to trees, plants as well as for making flat cakes[like Pizza] , in hand and drying in the sun.

Cow is the only animal that extricates his feeding after eating. Then afterwards she chew with his teeth whom are situated in the inside of the mouth. He is incessantly in the meadows in the grass. His only attacking and defending organ is the horns, specially so when he is got child. This is done by knowing his head whereby he causes the weapons to be paralleled to the ground of the earth and instantly proceed with great velocity forwards. He has got tails also, situated in the backyard, but not like similar animals. It has hairs on the other end of the other side. This is done to frighten away the flies which alight on his cohesive body hereupon he gives hit with it.

The palms of his feet are soft unto the touch. So the grasses head is not crushed. At night time have poses by looking down on the ground and he shouts . His eyes and nose are like his other relatives. This is the cow.......

Monkeys

2006-07-01T16:15:00.000-07:00

This is a really good video/series of snapshots. funny and philosophical. a must watch:
All you wanted to know about monkeys

Insight

2006-06-04T01:30:00.000-07:00

Here is a refreshing quote from (Swami) Vivekananda:

'The Vedanta recognizes no sin it only recognizes error. And the greatest error, says the Vedanta is to say that you are weak, that you are a sinner, a miserable creature, and that you have no power and you cannot do this and that.'

It is refereshing because it doesn't say the coarse 'if u are a good boy, u will go to heaven; if u are a bad boy, u will go to hell.' which most religious teachings (including many in the Hindu tradition) teach/lecture on.

It is refereshing because his thoughts treat each individual like a higher being capable of thought - it doesn't denigrate human beings to being things running to do good for selfish motives related to the after-life.

2006-05-18T11:43:00.000-07:00

Country music is hilarious. Big hairy guys with cowboy hats singing about love for (insert name of random southern state) and how hard workin' average joes are going through hell in this tough game called life. Yet, don't you worry because America is a great nation, yay. Good way to kill productivity.

Inspiration

2006-05-03T03:37:00.000-07:00

A few hours of inspiration last night pushed me towards making a (-nother) website for meself. Here are the spoils of my hardwork:
http://udel.edu/~karthikd

Got the template going. put up a little more. but, it is mostly empty. Have fun.

Till later...

Offensive Defense

2006-05-01T10:55:00.000-07:00

Well, now I know why it's called a defense. When three foremost experts in the field that you're trying to BS about are glowering over you, you know somewhere deep inside that if they choose to, they can totally maul you. It shouldn't be called thesis defense, it should be faculty offense. Maybe they should have defensive and offensive coaches like in football for this.

Introspection

2006-04-13T11:46:00.000-07:00

There is a beautiful article in this fortnight's Frontline (LINK) about the state of affairs of 'conventional medicine' (more specifically, Ayurveda) in India. The article is written with a touch of disdain, but I think the author shows ample justification for her viewpoint. The issue she raises about the need for more research into Ayurveda is a really important one, given the blind faith (it is usually blind faith, or the opposite -absolute disbelief - sadly, neither view is based in scientific fact.) that people have shown in it. In commenting on Ayurveda, she (I feel) challenges many other traditional beliefs, and our way of thinking about things like 'old is necessarily good', 'the ancients knew a lot more than we did'. I think as a modern generation, we should rethink our view towards all these beliefs - not necessarily to conclude with 'old is bad' and 'old is stupid', but to base our judgments in scientifc fact, not in folklore.

Final word: It is a long article, but it's an excellent one.

Stairway to heaven?

2006-03-21T09:10:00.000-08:00

The Hindu (21/03/2006) has an interesting article (LINK), in the Opinion section, on how you can increase your "brain power" by making simple changes to your everyday routine. Now, it is not something totally revolutionary, nor is it something that no one's ever written about, but it still makes interesting reading.

Middle-aged madness

2006-03-15T07:41:00.000-08:00

February 25th 2006 saw me turn a decade older.

It was then that I saw (my friend did rather) perched majestically in its spot just above my left ear - 'twas a handsome silvery-white strand of my luscious scalpular keratinoid projections.

Script: Duke or London Business School?

2006-03-05T16:22:00.000-08:00

I heard from Dog that PS got into all the places that he'd applied to for his Master's degree in business. Way to go man. I read an article on JJ Redick today on the espn website, and was wondering what it must be like to go to such a good school, AND have the sporting world at your feet. Maybe PS will be the next superstar there. Keep in mind though, no feet allowed on the bed at Duke.

PS: Congratulations PS :).
PPS: We will screw up your computer's boot-up again, if given a chance. Save your hard diks (sic).

Bali Ho!!!

2006-01-27T00:58:00.001-08:00

This might be my last post from from Indonesia. Nothing much - just wanted to say that it was fun here. have to get back to reality (dela-hella-no-ware) in 4-5 days. will be sad,i guess, but I think i am ready for 1-dollar pizza again - might even say 'yummy' the first time i eat it.

By the way, me going to Bali tomorrow evening for a couple of days before I get back to Jakarta to catch my flight homebound. cry out in jealousy, suckers!!!

From me and everyone else in Indonesia, 'Sampai Jumpa....' (until later)

Of horses on wheels and insects on legs

2006-01-24T22:54:00.000-08:00

First of all, apologies my dear friends. I did not email you folks about my good fortune as I still haven't made a decision as to which company I will pillage first. I'd thought I'd make a choice, and then let the goose run amok. Thanks for all the congratulations. The cow moves on and will now reside within Fortune 100. Hail the cow.

Secondly, I'd like to blatantly express the envy that I feel towards karthik for all his traveling and experiences. We only live once, and that's how I'd like to live as well.

Lastly, my dream of the restaurant 'The Lounge' is one step closer to realization. As soon as I'm done plundering the fortunes that the cow leads me to, I shall find more concrete plans so that the foundations can actually be poured in concrete. Of course, partnership is open to all loungers.

I know this is more of an email than a blog, considering all of you are heavyweights. Still, I hope I can keep penning down the tidings of the cow as those four legs travel to unforeseen realms, as the horn blows and as the tail wags - until next time.....

Documentary 1 (or Travelogue 3)

2006-01-23T23:46:00.000-08:00

A friend of mine (Kumar Alagappan) seems to have copied my idea of incorporating words from plays (like 'prologue'.. what next kumar - 'ACT 1' ??) in his posts, so I have been forced to adopt another fashion of literary address to my ever-increasing audience - that which is 'documentary' in feel.

This post is more of a documentary (following the adopted style) of my experiences and observations in Jambi than a recountal of my adventures. Hope you all feel a sense of shameful helplessness after having read what I have done and you haven't. (also, I hope that while doing so, you realise that there is no reason to be helpless or shameful about oneself).

As Richard O'Brien said it at least a million times on Crystal Maze, LET THE GAMES BEGIN.

1. Musings, Revelations, and Egotism
The tropics are a wonderful region! Here I sit at the entrance to my friend's house and look towards the street (it is raining like mad outside - and it is an amazing sight - bustling traffic and all).

I've been postponing this latest travelogue for the last 10 days. Of course, besides simple laziness, I can think of at least one other thing that kept me from blogging - no prizes for guesses - yes, I had succumbed to the viruses of this region - my body, incapable of fighting anymore, gave up on me 10 days back, and ever since then till now, I have been a 'little' sick - won't go into the gory (yes, gory) details - but let it be known that food poisoning was one of the bigger reasons for my discomfiture:).

The last ten days, in spite of my ailments, have seen an immense amount of activity. Been visiting the villages, and also collected useful linguistics 'data' . We (me and my friend) found a 'bahasa rahasya' (literally - secret language) that is spoken by some of the villagers (should have said 'discovered' - but if some people spoke the language, then, my guess is, some portion of mankind, namely the people of Jambi, already knew about it. we were just the first from the outside world to know about it. Same goes for my feelings about Columbus 'discovering' America - wish we were taught in a less eurocentric way. too bad.), also we identified other things in the dialects that have never been identified (something called vowel harmony). So, I proclaim myself a pioneer in some sense of the word. lol.

I told you guys before that I had to cross a river and stuff to get to the villages. Below is a pic of me crossing the Batang Hari to get to village called Tanjung Raden (more on this village blow).

2. A Brief sketch of the villages
First of all, the village people usually live in wooden houses/huts which are raised on stilts! The houses are so cool (check pic out).

This was the house of my informant in the village MudungDarat. Cool village - about 200 families. lotsa fun. Highly recommend a visit there. lol.

The houses are built on stilts (very guessably so) because of the floods (every year). The typical height of the stilts is about 6 feet. What is surprising about it is that though the houses are raised to such a height, water still manages to flood their houses (by about 1 foot!!!) during the flood season. My immediate question was, why don't they just raise the height of these house - didn't ask anyone in particular. but maybe it's got something to do with the maximum height the logs can be used before the whole thing becomes unstable or something - doubt it though.

Something funny happened during my visits to the villages. Not being able to bear the physical strain of having their food anymore, I decided to tell them I was 'fasting' ('pwasa' or 'pwaso' in Indonesian) - when one of the families I was visiting invited me to lunch. And you can imagine, what happened after that. They asked me what I could have, I replied 'nothing'. They asked, till what time I was fasting, I replied, from 6 in the morning to 6 in the evening. The lies flowed. And with every lie, my belly felt safer - better couched in the soft cushions of my lies. and so, it went by - a food-less day, but I was happy, and so was my belly. Unfortunately, people have the best memories for the smallest things. So, the next time I went, the first thing they asked was, 'are u still fasting'. To which I replied shamelessly, 'Yes' (I added with a tinge of remorse), 'but, today is the last day'. Hoping that was the end of it, I let it remain. A little later while they were having lunch, and I watched, Ibu Marianna (Mrs. Marianna) said, ' you really are very religious. I admire your determination'. All this in Indonesian, and I replied 'makasi' (Thanks) feeling terrible.

Something especially praiseworthy about the village people is their tolerance for other religions. They at no time showed any sort of ill-feeling/surprise that I wasn't a muslim (about 85% of Indonesia are muslim) . Furthermore, they showed a pride in both their past and their present. They are muslims but the region had a strong hindu influence before Islam. They have muslim customs, yet they had many hindu names. Really, the village culture seemed to be more evolved to me (at many levels) than the 'culture' many modern nations exhibit.

A final note on the family of Ibu Marianna. They are the direct descendants of the Sultan of Jambi - one of the few sultans in Indonesia who actively resisted the Dutch till the very end. The dutch eventually prevailed, and the sultan and his family had to live in ignominy in a small village (which is now called TanjungRaden). The point I wanted to highlight was that this family inspite of its grand history didn't seem to show any remorse/self-pity... They just seemed to be proud of their ancestry, and that was that. I don't know if this is a natural thing or not, but when i saw it, it struck me as something that was worth a mention.

Overall, my opinion of the villages of Jambi and their culture is a very high one. The people are wonderful, the food (though primarily meat based) is fantastic - also, my professor tells me that the duck that my friend's father makes compares with the best he's ever eaten - too bad i am a vegetarian. lol. And finally, the weather is decent. rains only when you want it too. never too much, and when it does, it is such a pleasure to watch it. Gets a bit humid now-and-then, though nothing as bad as Madras.

3. Preliminary notes on modern Indonesian entertainment
The first thing I noticed when I started watching Indonesian television was the huge number of transvestites/crossdressers that were in the TV programmes. My first thoughts were, wow, these guys are really very tolerant. And then, the more TV I saw, the sharper the generalisation became, you see transvestites/... only in 'comedies' and comedy-oriented programmes. So, much for tolerance. Realised their lot fares no better in this country than anywhere else in the world. too bad for Ashwin. haha.

Moving on, I have to say modern indonesian music isn't bad at all! basically based on western pop/rock music, but really they have some good stuff. Bands worth check out are Peterpan (admittedly, a lame name:)), Garasi, ...(forgot the rest. lol).

Was lucky to hear local village music. Was cool. The guy I was working with, Eko, (around 20 years old) was really into music and could play the guitar pretty well. He and his mom (Ibu Marianna) sang a couple of folk songs for us, which I duly recorded:). Trust me, the songs are cool - lotsa fun.

4. Maternity Issues
Something disgusting (maybe, 'shocking' is a more PC word) I noticed about how mothers take care of their kids:) (disgusting, of course, because I don't belong to their culture). This has to be announced to the world.

When an infant gets a cold, and his/hers nose is leaking, and it obstructs the breathing of the kid, the mother usually sucks the goo out of the kid's nose with her mouth!! And I saw this happen, and inquired if this was normal. Only to be answered with, 'perfectly normal'. I screamed 'YUCK!!!!!'. haha. It makes complete sense, and I see that when you can suck out snake poison to save another man, u can suck out snot to help your kid. It makes perfect sense logically. BUT!! I just couldn't take it. And each time I saw it, I screamed 'YUCK!!!!!' haha.

5. Flora and Fauna
There is a special variety of banana here called 'Dragon Banana'. Cool to look at. Check out for yourself. (note the 'crowns' they have).

Another peculiarity of this island (Sumatra) are the cats!! The cats here look quite different. The tails are docked (genetically so - they are born this way). And the hind legs are longer. The length of the tail varies from about half the usual length to almost nothing. The kitten was really cute - was following me wherever I went. haha. had to take a pic.:).

While on the topic of fauna, I saw a real Sumatran white tiger in a safari in Jakarta!! (They are very very very close to extinction, and do not exist in the wild as far as I know). Thought you guys would like a look at it:).

6. Errata
A couple of linguistic errors worth mentioning are 'masaki' and '

The first day I was in Jambi City, I said 'masaki' in stead of 'makasi' (thank you) - the people around me had a good laugh.

While in Jakarta (last month) my professor told me that one of the biggest local 'myths' (note 'myths') about foreigners is that they confuse the words 'kepala' (head) and the word 'kelapa' (coconut) for one another. I, at the time, thought it was funny. A couple of weeks back, I ensured that the locals continued to have that opinion of foreigners. haha

I have to say, the above errors were completely intentional. made solely for the sake of humour. what can I say - I am a funny man. (yeah right!!!)

7. Until Later
While we were on our way to Tanjung Raden, the boatman wanted a picture of him taken. Thought it would make a great 'Until Later' picture.

A couple more picture that are worth a look are the Jambi City port on the Batang Hari, and the banks of the Batang Hari which as visible in the pictures are madly picturesque - the pictures don't do justice to the madness - it is really amazingly 'flora-nated'. When I saw Jambi from the air, it really was a green carpet. (Note, Oman usually is a lovely golden-brown from the above mentioned vantage point. haha)

Thoughts et al

2006-01-22T20:52:00.000-08:00

Just read Ashwin's poem for the 1000th time (http://opticaldillusion.blogspot.com/2005/12/orange-crow.html#comments.

I like it more each time i read it. something random about it that i really appreciate. Got me wishing - the eternal wisher that I am - why can't i write like that; why can't i be a poet? My own attempts at poetry have resulted in infantile creations. I see now, today, why I could never to be artistic. Art, as I see it, needs passion, a sense of romance (not only the love kind, but also the 'life' kind). As i sit here and realise that I don't have passion, I feel bad about it'; in fact, terrible. Yet, I know things must be what they are in such matters. One can't learn to be passionate - they either are or aren't, and I unfortunately am on the wrongside on the dividing line. Too bad for I can't do anything about it. But, there are still other things...I hope.

Important News
Rags has not emailed us, yet I hear of his great fortune, or perhaps great achievements. :).

Rags has a couple of job offers - Michelin and Caterpillar (assuming I got the spelling right).

Congrats Raghav!! Keep the Lounge banner flying high baby!

Travelogue II

2005-12-31T02:00:00.000-08:00

Have tonnes to report, but fear won't rememeber to post more than a few lines - damn my memory!!

well, lemme start at least.

the last I posted, think it was from Jakarta (it was in a hurry i remember). long story short - jakarta was cool. nothing fascinating happened there except that i bought a digicam - thought was going to the villages needed somethign to take pics with - my sketches being of the high quality they are and all.

now, Jambi. that is where i am right now baby. before we go any further. i remember reading a lot of 'expedition' stories about how those great adventurers went around to the jungles in search for societies untouched by modernisation. lemme me tell u one thing about all those stories. i clearly remember thinking about this after a day's stay in Jambi (3 days back). I wondered why none of those fantastic stories talked about shitting and cleaning up in those 'amazing places' (note, i had the world's biggest urge to shit at that time, hence the train of thought). anyhow, i can tell u now why they never mention work in the toilet in all those amazing stories - cos it just ain't pretty to talk about!! expecially rural style -desperately looking for water - squatting and lunging here and there!

always told people that i learnt nothing during my undergrad - just made good friends and 'lounged'. man, how much more wrong could i be!!! VIT taught me life skills! those first few arduous hours in the toilet taught me the delicate art of squat-balancing, those cold nights in the summers taught me how to have cold-water baths and still come out happy. those hours of washing dirty clothes have taught me how to keep my undies from turning into door mats, and how can u forget the insect-filled sambar and rasam - the 'different strata of the septic tank' theory that we so fearlessly accepted as a part of our lives. yes, dudes!! i learnt something in VIT, and now i know what!!

went to a couple of villages yesterday and today. trust me when i say i was a hit:). haha. will post lotsa pics (and maybe videos on my website) when i get back. cool houses and stuff (on stilts...). i dunno if i should thank that i am as tall as i am or not. cos many saw me and were stunned and then started laughing wheneer i did anything. i laughed back; that made them laugh more:). had fun. if i go back there 10 years later there will be legends about how a gentle indian giant once came by and talked with all of them in broken indonesian lol.

went across a river by boat to a village today (village = tanjung-raden). was fun. then travelled by a 'motorcycle-taxi' (called ojek here)from the river-port to the village. kinda cool.

overall, has been fun. just realised i am gonna spend new years eve all alone in a country i dunno. felt bad for a few minutes, then thought, what the heck, it's an experience.

planning to go to bali sometime. lemme see. not sure yet. don't think it will work out. but, more impossible things have happened before, so i am hopeful.

had a taste of cinnamon-filled tobacco made here in Jambi. weird. sweet tobacco, that is a first. but, was fun.

too all of u, Happy New Year. may the new year renew the vigour in you to be something more than just a squatter in a poophouse.

till later...

note to the blind and stupid

2005-12-26T19:09:00.000-08:00

ok, look back at the pictures below and read the 'words' Mayank typed!! please don't ogle at his pic, that wasn't the point!! (why would i use two pics then!!)

Sometimes, I worry about Mayank!

2005-12-25T03:21:00.000-08:00

First...

Then...

News, events, and stuff like that

2005-12-21T20:53:00.000-08:00

In Jakarta right now. Nice place, this. a crazy mix of Chennai and NYC. lol. the business district has the fanciest buildings ever, but the roads still remind me of chennai. really crazy place. has to be seen to be believed. oh yeah, they have a LOT of freaking traffic. Not a joke. getting around is a problem at all times of the day. the 'off-peak' hours are like the peak hours in Chennai. freaking mad-house.

Will go to the villages soon. more specifically, a place called Dusun Dalam - need to go upriver (Batanghari) in Sumatra, 20 hour river ride in a boat (If i choose to do it that way) or a 4-5 hour car drive. Think will return downstream in a boat. lessee. hehe. heard the river is as noisy as hell. don't want to hurt my ears while going to the place - after all i need to HEAR what i am 'collecting'.

might go to a (open-)museum of sorts on saturday. this place has houses form different parts of indonesia - some kind of reserve or something. lessee. might take some pics and post.

nothing else about indonesia. now, about things happening in India, Anirban got a job with IBM for 50ka month. Way to go fatty (i don't mean u ashwin). do send him ur congratulations, all of u.

till later....

Travelogue 1

2005-12-18T15:04:00.000-08:00

Hey guys...in Changi Airport (Singapore). long transit break (8 hours!!), free internet, and no Y!/MSN-messenger...enough motivation to blog!!

snippets from the last few days:

ACT 1...Indonesian Consulate in NYC, T - 2 days
Karthik: I need the visa tomorrow sir. Leaving day after (saturday). please, can i get it.
Visa officer: No. two days minimum for a visa.
....
...
...
10 mins later, friend calls visa officer form Delaware.

Friend: Calling from Univ of Delaware. we need Karthik to go to Indonesia on Saturday. Make sure you give it to him, or else we will have to tal to Washington (Emabassy).

Visa Officer misunderstands friend...thinks she is from the embassy at Washington (!!!)

Visa officer: Mr. Karthik, someone called for you from Washington and said u applied for the visa last week, and u have ur application in ur hands!!
Me: I don't know who it was sir.
Visa officer (peeing in his pants): OK, Ok. come back at 3 and collect your visa (!!)

I go back to the consulate at 2 (nothing better to do)

Visa Officer (calls me and says) : here is ur visa (!!!)
....
...
Karthik super happy...all the visa guys scared of mega-well-connected Karthik.

ACT 2...Minneapolis to Tokyo
Got down from the Phily-Minneapolis flight...ran to the Minneapolis-Tokyo counter... just made it. doors shut...Take off!!

On the flight.
The guy sitting next to me was reading a book on 'Suicide, depression...'. And was underlining every second line in that book. 2 hours later. he was taking notes/writing an essay....looked like a psycho!! Karthik squirms.

ACT 3...Tokyo to Simhapura
met a PhD in Industrial Management or something..ethnic indian from Malaysia. told me about the huge anti-indian bias in Malaysia..about how they don't get jobs, seat in univs...in short, another case of minority bullied by majority.

just before 'de-planing' (disembarking)

Announcement on the flight PA system: Someone stole a small red back-pack. will the person who stole it please meet one of the stewards/stewardesses.

Everyone on the flight starts laughing

Info: Found out later that, one of the stewards 'took' it thinking it was his!!!!

ACT 4 - In Changi, Simhapura
went to pee. saw the usual stuff....wash basins, sinks, dryers... but, to one side following four toilet cubicles was something I hadn't seen in atleast 2 and a half years - had the words 'Please place feet properly on the squatting pan' on the cubicle door!!HAHAAHAHAHAHAHAH. yes, the indian shit pot. in full glory on an elevated platform with its own cubicle. hurray to shit-pots!!

Saw a Kyocera-Yashica 3012 digicam on display in the duty free (not in the US markets yet). was love at first sight. toyed with the idea of buying it for 45 mins. did research, found nothing online!!! went back and was wondering how i could find out if the thing was worth the price (144 US $). Brain wave... checked the canon power shot A410 price on display (190 US$). went back online...checked price. was 50 dollars less in the US (thanks to Amazon!!). decided the Yahica was forbidden love. moved on. :(

a few minutes later.

lady passing by (looked indian): .....'D' nappatha naal (D-44) enga irruke?

a look of having understood exactly what she said wafts across my face(hurray Vellore!!)

Me: nappatha naal andha pakka irruke. moddala neera ponga, apparam you will see it.
(yes, my tamil broke down; yes, it was far from perfect; but too all u tamilians, she understood me perfectly well!!!)

yay!! karthik happy again. goes running to the free internet tables to start blogging.

Universal Laughter!!

The End

Epilogue
Yes, dammit, I am excited. Indonesia, HERE....I....COME!!!

Learn to be umble!!

2005-12-06T08:30:00.000-08:00

Blogging after ages. Been trying to act busy. Couldn't take it anymore; hence, the blog.

Saw this while I was browsing for junk. Found it interesting. Thought the rest of teh blogging world should know about it. Som here goes:

humble (adj.)
c.1250, from O.Fr. humble, earlier humele, from L. humilis "lowly, humble," lit. "on the ground," from humus "earth." Senses of "not self-asserting" and "of low birth or rank" were both in M.E. The verb is c.1380 in the intrans. sense of "to render oneself humble;" 1484 in the trans. sense of "to lower (someone) in dignity."
"Don't be so humble; you're not that great." [Golda Meir]
To eat humble pie (1830) is from umble pie (1648), pie made from umbles "edible inner parts of an animal" (especially deer), considered a low-class food. The similar sense of similar-sounding words (the "h" of humble was not pronounced then) converged in the pun. Umbles, meanwhile, is M.E. numbles "offal" (with loss of n- through assimilation into preceding article), from O.Fr. nombles "loin, fillet," from L. lumulus, dim. of lumbus "loin."

The bit about the 'umble pie' caught my attention. Would never have known that if not for this site:
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=humble

D-day!

2005-10-22T12:28:00.000-07:00

I always assumed D-day was derived from 'due day' or 'destruction day' or some such reasonable thing. I just found out today that the actual history of the word is far cooler (and maybe even stupider) than that. Here goes:

D-day
1918, "date set for the beginning of a military operation," with D as an abbreviation of day, cf. H-hour, also from the same military order of Sept. 7, 1918:

"The First Army will attack at H-Hour on D-Day with the object of forcing the evacuation of the St. Mihiel salient."
[Field Order No. 8, First Army, A.E.F.]

"They designate the day and hour of the operation when the day and hour have not yet been determined, or where secrecy is essential" [U.S. Army Center of Military History Web site]. Now almost exclusively of June 6, 1944.

for more, visit:
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?l=d

yeah

2005-10-19T12:13:00.000-07:00

The death toll in the state stood at 972 - substantially smaller than the 10,000 victims some feared.

You see it all over, at least nowadays. 400 Expected toll, 500 die in XYZ ... The media has hit the jackpot. Talking numbers. Simple, and always attracts ears/eyes. Sad that life has lost its meaning, it is now simply numbers.

As i see it, why on earth should it matter if one person dies or a million do? what is lost is life. we should feel bad about the life lost, not the numbers.

Are we too numb to feel the loss of life?
There are 140,000 daily on an average!! Do we care? We say, well, most are 'natural'. somewhere in those words we use, we say, we have to be practical, we can't feel bad for everyone. i think about it, and i end up laughing. what's the stupid difference!! a life's lost!! u wanna feel bad about something, that should be it.

it's special, real special - life really is. sad to see it trivialised to numbers. even sadder to see all of us accept it without a thought.

pink flamingo

2005-10-12T12:03:00.000-07:00

mayank: no its kanghi
Karthik: didn't know it was 'ghi' though
Karthik: thought it was gi
Karthik: south indian accents coming in the way,lol
mayank:blaady madrasi pfool
Karthik: u can hardly blame me in thinkin it is kangi!!
mayank: its IS your fault if ur defunkt S.I. ears cannot pick the difference
Karthik: lol
Karthik: why doesn't anyone make fun of the punjabis!!
Karthik: they are worse
Karthik: they say kar for ghar!!!
mayank: 'why doesn't anyone make fun of the punjabis?' !!! - bad question
mayank: EVERYONE makes pfun of them
Karthik: and why doesn't anyone make fun of allahabadis!!
mayank: i do
mayank: pfun
mayank: pfool
Karthik: why doesn't anyone make fun of mayank jain
mayank: because he's the won-yand-wonly
mayank: oh, this is funny
Karthik: it is funny only if ur name is pink flamingo!

Tag

2005-09-18T01:44:00.000-07:00

Now that I've figured out my user name and password for my account, and since I have to post my story and not just add a commnet, here it i, again.

You are in luck. I saw this post on a break from work. And this is the first time I even visited this blog. Trying hard to look busy at work and at the same time trying to post a comment without being noticed at work, my story comes to an end. Is it 55 words already?

Tag

2005-09-14T02:13:00.000-07:00

JAKS and Mayank, you are tagged... you've to post a story each in not more than 55 words.

whither is the logic

2005-09-09T08:04:00.000-07:00

A couple of years back, I read about how the Jews throughout history supported(/demand) equality for all whereever they went. And then later I read about how Israel has everything pro-Jews (for example, to be a land-owner in Israel, u have to be Jewish - at least as i remember it. and many such things).

As soon as I read the discrimination in present day Israel, the cried out 'hypocrites'. I was 'convinced' that they were truly cheap people.

Sadly, I proved myself wrong only a couple of days later. I just thought about my train of thought and realised it was absolutely ridiculous. They was no hypocrisy - I just imagined it.

The Jews that demanded equality weren't the same people that imposed the inequality. Simply put, you shouldn't be called a hypocrite cos ur dad's views opposed yours.

This is one of the many things that i am sure we all have erred in. This pseudo-logic. And, it is important that we stay away from it.

(yes, it is another thing entirely, that there is inequality in Israel - and about that I am still unhappy.)

It Happens Not Even In India

2005-09-04T06:09:00.000-07:00

Several arguments have been put forth against my stand that USA as a society has been degenerating, that it doesn't hold a candle to the Western European, Scandinavian and Japanese societies. I have heard that I was wrong to blame the people of USA for the doings of its government, I have heard that any superpower in its place would do the same. Now, I think I need say no more, for the Americans have made a spectacle of themselves on all the news channels across the world.

Looting, murder, rape, official apathy on such a grand scale were not witnessed even during the Tsunami and the floods in Bihar! One can no longer claim that dislike for America is a result of the foreign policy of its government or that Bush alone is resposible for all the shenanigans perpetrated in Iraq, Afghanistan and the rest of the world. The problem is that a rot has set deep in the core of the american society.

Recollections

2005-08-22T15:29:00.000-07:00

I was never a poet. A sad fact of my life. Poetry requires passion, and I never had no passion for nothin'. sad as it may sound, it has never stopped me from appreciating someone else's work. And to this 'gift', I am eternally thankful to that fateful 'roll of the dice' that created me.

For a whole 8 years (mid and high school), once a week, I would mumble/say/repeat the words that echoed thru the school PA system. The words which conveyed only one thing - If you don't utter them, you are taken to the vice-princi(pal) for a talk. I never once cared to listen, never once cared to see why people appreciated them. I just did what I had to.

And then a couple of years back, I read the same words again. But this time, it wasn't a prayer. I read it for fun, while browsing. That was the first time I actually bothered to give it a chance. What I understood from it might have been only an iota of what the poet intended, yet it was thought provoking. It led me to question many things I did. It led me to some choices that may not have been the best for my career; but I still love the fact that I made them. It led me to break the mould (the unintended pun would make even Tagore proud for it visual contrast. lol).

It is one thing to appreciate the Masters because everyone does so, and another thing to realise that they are truly so.

As for Tagore, I am glad he is one of those greats (perhaps the only one) that I realised.

What more can I say, except relish it.

*****
Where The Mind is Without Fear
by Rabindranath Tagore

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake

Just for pun!

2005-08-21T10:50:00.000-07:00

Ok, I have seen them so many times, 'no pun inteded', 'pun intended', 'it is a metaphor for..' .... But, many people use them with only a vague (or without having the slightest, in some cases) idea of what the phrases mean.

Remember grammar classes as a kid? my teachers (like everyone else's I guess) were extremely particular about my/our understanding the terms. And this was one of them.

As the definition for a pun goes,

pun
A pun is a variety of a usually humorous play on words involving
a. the multiple meanings of an expression, or
b. two expressions that sound similar.

example:

your voice is bass

here, the word bass refers to the quality of the voice (low frequency). But, the word bass sounds exactly like (base which means disgusting, ignoble..). Hence, it is a pun - a double meaning word/phrase.

hope, this shall put an end to all those who err. yeah right!

For more:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pun

Intro to Lingo

2005-08-20T21:31:00.000-07:00

Some claimed that hindi and urdu differ only in the alphabet used. The issue of writing systems is not a direct linguistic notion. Some linguists believe that the difference is really in vocabulary and (word order) - reference 2, while some others do believe there is not much of a difference. As far as i am concerned, I do not understand how any half decent linguist could say there is no vocabulary difference! One important thing to note is, no one (linguist) says that both are the exact same thing. Clearly there are population distributions that indicate against unifying the two. So, definitely they have to be called different dialects.

Once that is said, dating them with respect to each other should be possible. And in fact, as reference 1 shows there is a definite period of influence which brought about the creation of Urdu.

Now, for a little detour. Latin was spoken in mainland western europe during the Roman time. And over time the people in different countries slowly developed their own versions of Latin. These are called French, Italian, Spanish, Romanian, Portuguese.. (romance languages). What is important to note is that these languages are stil Latin, but after 2000 years!

Similarly, in India (dates are skipped - cos there is a huge controversy over it), northern India was said to be dominated (extremely roughly) by Sanskrit. Over time, different regions changed the language along different lines. So, what came out was gujarati, bengali, panjabi.. and in central and north-central India what came was the precursor to hindi (though, i would simply call it hindi).. So, basically, they became differnet dialects of Sanskrit. And after the major muslim influence during the mid 2nd millennium (2000) AD, Urdu came to life.

What is important is Sanskrit in its vedic form died (wasn't used in normal social situations) definitely before the end of the 1st millennium (1000) AD. So, if the muslim influence was in the mid 2nd millennium AD, then what was in central India and North-central India during the intervening period. It was Hindi/precursor to Hindi.

But, one important to note is that scripts aren't the important deciding factors to separate langauges (they have close to no basis). It is vocabulary, word order, pronunciations, ...

The same language/dialect can have two entirely different scripts (for example Sindhi). But, no language/dialect can have two sets of vocabulary, pronunciations (except over a very small set of words), and a single language/dialect definitely cannot have two word-orders. Such differences would force us to accept that we are dealing with two different languages/dialects.

1. http://www.esamskriti.com/html/new_inside.asp?cat_name=history&cid=452&sid=108&count1=1
2. http://www.bbc.co.uk/voices/multilingual/urdu_history.shtml

Note: towards the end, I used the words dialect and language interchangeably, because these notions are very rough even in serious linguistic work, and no clear-cut definitions of these two ideas/words is possible.

phir milenge, dost

2005-08-17T12:37:00.000-07:00

The time's come for me to leave home. I return to the land of no return with a heavy heart, and a strong desire of staying back and forgoing the 'promising career' that is said to await all those who reach her shores.

These last two months have been pretty laid back. Told myself I would sort out many of my dilemmas, was sure i would come out more secure. I retained my dilemmas, but still leave most secure. simple words of an old friend

In college u were overconfident, and now u are underconfident

made me think (a bit). i realise i don't have answers yet, nor do i have plans. but, somehow, this time, i am ready to face the truth, and perhaps do something about it.

In anticipation of my future happiness, I thank all those who have borne my sob stories the last couple of months.

With those expectations, I leave muscat, which is forever enshrined in my heart as Home.

Bye home, see you soon.

Bramble territory

2005-08-17T11:34:00.000-07:00

I am of the view that not much on recorded shows is unintended.

And recent observations of mine force me to question what's really happening in (the indian) show-business.

To more meaty matters: Last weekend, the first three of the series of KBC episodes were aired. Now, i don't care amuch about the content. But, the one thing i did notice was that Big B ended the first show with Good night, and Shubh ratri. Now, i found that surprising as soon as i heard it, cos i distinctly remembered him saying Good night, Shubh ratri, and Shabba Khair in most (if not all) of the episodes of KBC 1. What surprised me even further was the re-entry of the 'original' phrase Good night, Shubh ratri, and Shabba Khair in the second spisode of KBC 2. Now, to most people this might not seem like anything at all. But, i'd like to question the use of the urdu phrase. What is the targetted effect? Why urdu?

Some facts at this point might make good reading.
1. It couldn't have been picked cos it is the second most spoken language in india. It is the 6th most commonly spoken language (LINK1)
2. It couldn't have been cos it has a special status along with Hindi. There are a few more (21 in fact) recognised national languages! (LINK2)

Now, given the above two facts, the immediate question is, why not telugu, bengali, tamil, marathi...? (note all the listed languages have more speakers than urdu!!) The whole of india watches the show, so what warrants the selection of languages?

There is only one other logical possibility that my minds sems to be able to grasp (i leave it to the readers to guess it for themselves, if they care).

What is even more in the same spirit of events is that during the 70-90 period (maybe even now), almost all the movies had the urdu script alongwith the hindi and english ones. Now, the population that uses the urdu script is in fact much smaller than the population that speaks it (many of the urdu speakers in bihar/UP are non-muslim). The same questions follow for this fact. And as far as i can see, the same interpretation is available.

I am by no stretch of imagination a religious fanatic (i direct u to my earlier posts for verification). I am only interested in fighting irrational bias. (for my opinions on irrational bias, please see the comments in LINK3)

Du Arschloch!!

2005-08-14T12:48:00.000-07:00

Manka (mayank) had an interesting conversation just now - found it funny. Read it.

(Note, the chat actually started this way, so u can say these were our 'hellos'. lol)

maniac12_82: du arschloch
karthikdurvasula: ur asshole too
maniac12_82: seems like ur well versed with 'imp' german words
maniac12_82: *shakes his head in disgust*
karthikdurvasula: what
karthikdurvasula: it means asshole ??
karthikdurvasula: haha
karthikdurvasula: i thought i was joking
karthikdurvasula: it just looked a lot like 'asshole'
karthikdurvasula: so i said asshole
maniac12_82: *not humoured*
maniac12_82: hmm
karthikdurvasula: *screw u*
maniac12_82: *more looks of contempt*
karthikdurvasula: wassup?
karthikdurvasula: so, tell me
karthikdurvasula: it really means asshole huh?
maniac12_82: ya
maniac12_82: arsch= ass
karthikdurvasula: hahaha
maniac12_82: loch = hole
karthikdurvasula: haha

Fun to read

2005-08-12T15:04:00.000-07:00

Was looking for some info about Linguistics, found a travelogue (LINK) while doing so. Found it to be a lot of fun. Reminded me of the many fun trips I went on with my family as a kid. Also reminded of a most awesome trip me and a few friends from college went on 3-4 years back - touring uttaranchal.

Have fun! And for those of you (if any) who have never been to India, or on long crazy road-trips in india, a hearty welcome to a fascinating world.

Poison!

2005-08-08T04:26:00.000-07:00

Just found out something cool about India. We are world leaders in the producing the most 'unpoisonous' rice!! cool eh!

According to a recent Indian rice had the lowest arsenic content, and (predictably) U.S. rice had the highest! (LINK)

Interestingly, rice is the staple diet of about 65% of the indian population (LINK). And U.P. and West Bengal are amongst the leading producers (alongwith T.N., A.P....) (LINK). It is surprising cos I have heard many people say that rice is eaten mainly by south indians - and infact ridicule 'madrasis' for it. Guess the facts are different from what people claim.

So, that is another thing to be proud of. In fact, I just realised that we the world leaders in yet another field! We do, believe it or not, have the most indians!! Incredible isn't it!

Cricket aussie style

2005-08-07T05:24:00.000-07:00

The second Ashes test just ended (an hour back). What can i say! It was the best test, nay, the best match i ever watched.

I started watching the second test, hoping England would win it. Didn't like the '5-0 victory' that Ponting boasted about. And i told myself, 'these arrogant @!$#$@ need to be taugh a lesson'. And thru-out the test I cheered the English team, and was ecstatic when they were just 2 wickets away from victory at the close of the day's play, last night. With about a hundred runs to get, I thought the game was all but over, and to top it, i saw the result to be 'just' - for all the australian boasting!

Today, with the excitement of having two important matches to watch, i was undecided on which one to concentrate, so chose to flip-flop between the two.

I flipped the channel to Fox Sports about 20 mins after the start of play, and expected England to be rejoicing in their massive victory, and what did I see? Shane Warne blasting everything that came his way. Another 10-15 mins I saw the fall of the smasher on around 55. Then came in the 'master-batsman' Michael Kasprowicz - trust me, i was making fun of his batting skills! He and that brett lee guy hung on like nobody's business man. Granted the english bowling today was pretty patchy, even then, it was the freaking 10th and 11th man there!

The two inched towards the mark -
at 50 short of target, I laughed at the impossibility of the task;
at 40 off target, I thought, 'well they've had their fun, time to go home now';
at 30 off, I thought, 'ok enough, finish em';
at 20 off, I thought, 'whoa, these guys are good! no wonder they have so much pride (vanity??)';
at ‘t minus 15’, I didn't know who was going to win - the momentum was with the australians, but i told myself, 'come on man, this it the 10th wicket partnership! anything can happen'.
6 off, I was like 'oh my god, a 6 away!'. Then started the only 'good bowling' i saw from the english side the whole day - right outside the offstump tempting them to play. and I thought 'too late, what's the use now!'.
4 to target, 'Just a freaking 4 away!'.
2 off, 'hmmppf they did it - the aussie asses did it - but they thoroughly deserved it.'.
And then a bad bouncer, pitched on middle and leg, grazes brett lee's arm and the keeper dives to his left, takes a great catch.

'It is all over. England have won the test match!' was blaring in the background. I leapt out to party (after all i did want England to win) in fact, jumped around for a full 5 mins. And then said, 'those aussies are good, really good!'

A pic's worth a thousand words

2005-08-06T04:34:00.000-07:00

The grand prize will go to the person who identifies the joker in the pic.
(hey, no prizes for guessing the occasion.)

Advice: If u have a yummy choco-brown complexion, please ensure that u face the sun while having ur pic taken. otherwise, all those wonderful facial features which u may claim to have won't show up for others' appreciation. (It will be like bad chocolate, which has the look, yet has a bad after-taste).

Blog with a sense of humour

2005-08-04T01:52:00.000-07:00

Just found a blog that is weirdly funny. Thought others might like it. relax sit back, and enjoy the madness:)

Link:
http://thecasualfriday.blogspot.com

Pujjle yagain

2005-08-04T01:50:00.000-07:00

There is a very famous puzzle known as Zeno's paradox. It has remained one of my favourites thru the last few years - specially because of its simplicity. This is how it goes.

*****

Suppose there is a guy, X, who is 10 metres in front of another guy Y. Further suppose that X and Y are running in the same direction; Y running 10 times as fast as X. Then,

when Y covers 10 metres, X will have covered one metre (so, he is one metre in front of Y). When Y covers that 1 metre, X would have moved a further 0.1 metres. When Y covers the 0.1 metres, X would have moved 0.01 metres ahead... till infinity.

If this goes on till infinity, how will Y ever catch up with X? Yet, we know thru common sense, that given the above initial conditions, Y will definitely overtake X. That too, pretty quickly!

That is the paradox:). Now, obviously, Zeno's reasoning was faulty. Where and what is the error?

puzzle me this

2005-08-03T11:30:00.000-07:00

Ok, I don't believe Einstein said '98%', and I don't agree with the final answer, but I did get an answer.

It is a simple GRE style puzzle, only with many more variables. have some fun with it:).

The Einstein Quiz
Einstein said that 98% of people in the world cannot solve the following puzzle. And Einstein was usually right (that's why he's Einstein.) Here is the Einstein Quiz:

Facts:
1. There are 5 houses in 5 different colors.
2. In each house lives a person with a different nationality.
3. These 5 owners drink a certain beverage, smoke a certain brand of cigar and keep a certain pet.
4. No owners have the same pet, smoke the same brand of cigar or drink the same drink.
5. Hints:
a. The Brit lives in a red house.
b. The Swede keeps dogs as pets.
c. The Dane drinks tea.
d. The green house is on the left of the white house.
e. The green house owner drinks coffee.
f. The person who smokes Pall Mall rears birds.
g. The owner of the yellow house smokes Dunhill.
h. The man living in the house right in the centre drinks milk.
i. The Norwegian lives in the first house.
j. The man who smokes Blend lives next to the one who keeps cats.
k. The man who keeps horses lives next to the man who smokes Dunhill.
l. The owner who smokes Blue Master drinks beer.
m. The German smokes Prince.
n. The Norwegian lives next to the blue house.
o. The man who smokes Blend has a neighbor who drinks water.

Question:
Can you determine WHO KEEPS FISH?

Can You Solve the Einstein Quiz?
It looks hard, huh? If you can't figure it out, try searching on google for the "Einstein Quiz" and see how other people have solved it.

But watch out: Einstein was right, most people can't solve the puzzle correctly. In fact, I have only seen one reference to the correct solution to the Einstein Quiz anywhere on the web.

Puzzle source:
http://www.amazeingart.com/fun/einstein-quiz.html

guess, what this is!

2005-08-03T06:45:00.000-07:00

Key:
(1) notched ring
(2) marking dot for "A" contact
(3) alphabet tyre
(4) plate contacts
(5) wire connections
(6) pin contacts
(7) spring-loaded ring adjusting lever
(8) hub
(9) finger wheel
(10) ratchet

finally, serious

2005-08-03T06:23:00.000-07:00

For, a person who wants to help the world by making it laugh, my last few posts have been excessively serious, especially the one on religion.

having said that, i do wish to correct one mistake of mine before i move on to lighter things in life.

The post on religion got a comment from a guy (lovingly called 'titiv' which could possibly be shortened to 'tits'). The important thing to be said is that it was a serious comment about his beliefs and how he views religion (christianity more accurately). My own response to it was along serious lines. However, following a comment by yet another friend of mine (lovingly called PS (could possibly be shortened, syllabically speaking ofcourse, to 'piss'. And yes, i do have two friends!!), i wrote a silly comment which wasn't in-line with the seriousness of the situation. Especially disappointing was the fact that i belittled something that another held in high esteem when the verdict wasn't out on who was right. This i thought showed me to be quite immature, and to make amends to that act of impulse (in the name of humour), i offer my apologies to the offended (i assume) party - prithiv.

in more jovial fashion: tits, sorry daaaaaa.

ooh-saa does it again

2005-08-02T09:00:00.000-07:00

Boeing recently launched a complaint about the (financial) support that Airbus gets from the European countries - it is apparently illegal (i am not really sure to whom, but the guess is WTO, didn't bother 'checking up'.)

What is interesting is the ooh-saaa has a law called the Byrd Amendment which is basically an anti-free market law. Check it out for yourselves. The main promoter of free trade. yeah right!!

link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byrd_Amendment

2005-08-02T06:08:00.000-07:00

6:45 PM da...

VIT Life

2005-08-01T14:45:00.000-07:00

This is a play I wrote (along with a few friends) 3 year back. It still makes me laugh a tonne. Kumar recently read it, and thought I should post it, so here goes.

**************
All characters in this play are truly fictitious, and any resemblance to any person either living or dead is purely intentional.

Author: Karthik Durvasula
Supporting author: Aswini Kumar

Hiya buddies

Aswini’s behind me – jobless as usual. It is a job, u know? Being jobless!! Well, Aswini gets the maximum pay for it anyhow. I guess, we should ask him about it.

Karthik: So, Aswini, tell us. How do u do it?
Aswini: No da, it is actually like this…

(Rubs nose coupla times)

Karthik: there u go again, rubbing ur nose.
Aswini: let me tell u about my joblessness.
Karthik: ok, start. Tell me, how do u do it?
Aswini: well, it is like this...
Karthik: will u stop that and start explaining!!
Aswini: well, it is like… ahem ahem. Well, I am actually not
like this in reality.
Karthik: Oh no!!!
Aswini: Honest! I am different here. I have nothing to do here.
It is not that I am a do-nothing. It is just that I have
nothing to do. You on the other hand are so busy (
btw, there is no sarcasm in the voice!!)

Naveen enters...

Naveen: Hi guys. Hey aswini, I have a doubt.

(Few laughs)

Aswini: What is it?
Naveen: I will ask you later.
Aswini: You might as well ask me now.
Naveen: ok, what do you feel about me? Tell me.
Aswini: well, it’s like this...

Karthik bursts out laughing.

Doggy (aka Kumar Alagappan) enters.
Doggy: So, Aswini, I heard that you came by JP today. Is that true?
By the way, you got in to Symbiosis.
Aswini: I will not believe it till I see it on-line.
Karthik: Whoa cool!! Hope I could get in.

Anand enters, and Kumar leaves taking Thambi with him.

Anand: Duuuuuh. What happened guys? Hey, no feet on the bed!!
I will die!
Karthik: I am dying, too. Anand, what is the time?
Aswini: We are doing nothing, as usual. By the way,
the Venezuelan economy is better this month.

Prithiv enters.

Prithiv: hey, heard the latest song by Diamond Marmalade!!
It is in the German Top 5!
Aswini: Karthik, why are you quiet?
Karthik: Ahooooooooooga. Is that better?

Karthik shows upper teeth.

Still Karthik: Hey, I think I am going to learn swimming properly
once I go back.
Karthik (again): I really liked the food today. The paneer was good.
I also liked the chappathis; they tasted like nothing
I tasted before!! Honest. Really cooooool.

Adi enters.

Adi: hey guys, wanna see me butt?

Adi pulls shorts down and shows his embarrassment to everybody. Everybody stunned in to silence. Never have they seen such minusculity!! It was a small pendant near the navel.

Adi: I am mad!!
Everybody (in chorus): We know.
Adi: hey guys, I am sending my applications tomorrow.
Karthik: I am sure.
Adi: Actually, I am waiting for the final, final attestation from
the chairman. The college in northern Andaman Nicobar requires it.
Karthik: Hey, I applied there too. Cool place. They didn’t ask me for the
extra documentation. I guess I am special.
Adi: Well, I am applying to the special course in Aeronautical
Engineering with special emphasis on the Thermal aspects of
the buttular friction between the toilet seat and the human
posteriors at sub-sonic and super-sonic speeds in a non-ideal
medium with a varying (loose) motion-resistance co-efficient! I
am taking special sampling bodies from VIT. Bhund happens to be
one of them.
Karthik: Whoa. Chill out!! U are really cool, dude.

Doggy enters again.

Doggy: Karthik, how is the extinct department at Delaware. Heard that
their last recruit was in the Old Stone Age. Is that true? Is
Chomsky going to find his way out of the library? Are u going
there to help him out?
Karthik: ok, just because I am so sweet doesn’t mean that u should
insult me! I feel bad when u say things like that.
Please understand.
Aswini: yes dog, don’t speak like that.

Everybody turns towards Aswini, surprised.

Ashwin: Hey guys, does anybody have a fag?
Aswini: yeah, up my ass.
Doggy: ok, the door is open.
Karthik: good, u can leave. This is Naveen’s room

Dog sleeps on Thambi’s bed with legs up in the air at the critical angle to achieve doggy-hood.
Anand shakes himself awake.

Anand: Hey, it is 6:30.
Karthik: Man, I asked you 20 minutes back!!

Everybody laughs.
…………………..
Chat goes on till late in the night.
Vikram enters

Vikram: what are u guys doing?
Aswini: we are writing a play. We will print it out and we will act it out.

Vikram reads the play – reads his own name mentioned.

Vikram: Why are you including me in the play?
Aswini: We are writing as it happens. It is a futuristic flash-back with
computerized hand pumps. This same techinique was implanted by
Shakespeare to produce “Lahore of Venice”.
Karthik: Oh no!! Stop it Aswini.
Karthik again: Ok, guys, I am going to sleep. Good night.
Aswini: Ok, does anybody have anything to read? Please, I need something
to read. Karthik, do you have something?
Karthik: No da, good night.

Everybody leaves the room.
Karthik comes back after half an hour and asks Naveen if he could sleep in the room.

The END

Religion is tradition not doctrine.

2005-08-01T12:32:00.000-07:00

Wish i could have written a better one than this. This one seems extremely incoherent. I believe the essence of what i wrote here, but somehow, don't think i packaged it well enough. well, for what it is worth, have fun.

Over the years, I have heard many people have some version of the following conversation:

X: Who says it is right?
Y: Well, according to our religion, it is.
X: And what about our/your religion says this?
Y: Our holy books (Vedas, Gita, Bible, Koran...)
X: So, your religion is defined by the holy books?
Y: Obviously! We follow them and their true interpretations!

The understanding i get from this is that people seriously believe that they follow the holy books.

I am of the opinion that people only believe that they are following them, but in reality they are not even close to following them.

I discuss a few examples below.

Let me start with the religion that i was born into. (sad, nowadays we are born into them, hardly anybody consciously embraces them. I mean, a hindu might say he really believes in his religion, but if he were born in a christian household, he would most probably say the same about christianity! so, it has to be that we are born into our respective religious preferences.).

Ok, let me continue, Hinduism - the religion i was born into has a set of 'holy books' like most other religions. these books are usually what make up the so-called hindu doctrine.

Now, a part of this doctrine is the fact that every(living)thing has god in it. Simple in idea. But, just look at what a common hindu does? he goes to a temple, and prays to god in the shape of an idol. Which i think is ok, he wants to channel his energy, so be it. But, let's take what i wanna call the 'spit-test' (sorry for the grossness, but it is exactly what i need to show the point). Let's say i go and spit on those idols? i have two questions now,

a. will that be sacrilege according to a hindu?
b. will that be sacrilege according to the hindu doctrine?

The answer to (a) as is very reasonable is 'Yes'. Now, the more important answer is the one to (b). If god is there in everything, then spitting on a plant is no more sacrilegious than spitting on an idol, right? so, i take it the hindu doctrine says 'It doesn't make a difference'. So, my question is, are we as hindu's following the hindu doctrine, or the tradition of praying to idols that has developed over time? In my opinion, it is clearly the second.

As usual, my aim is not to mock any one religion. To take another case, the christian doctrine sees idolatry as a sin. Yet, we see people going to churches and praying in front of a crucifix. Now, people may have many interpretations of the crucifix, but the point is simply this. will christians tolerate it if i go spit on the crucifix in the church or the church itself? if not, why? is it because they see god in them both? if so, isn't that idolatrous (which i see as the 'believed' manifestation of divine power in specific material objects)?

Again, the same question arises? does a common christian follow the christian doctrine, or what the christian tradition has bequeathed to him? My answer aligns with the latter.

If a person, claims that his religion is what is in those books, yet does things is a way that is not supported (in cases, opposed) by the holy books, then what right does he have to claim he has embraced that religion?

to end, i ask u, what sense is there anymore is referring anyone to the 'holy books' when asked about a particular religion? And more importantly, what is religion?

My own answer to the second question: religion is a cultural heritage. There is nothing divine about it. More importantly, it morphs with age, in fact a lot like language. What a language is today, is not what it will be in a few centuries.

Another funny typo

2005-07-26T14:22:00.000-07:00

Was just chatting with a friends. And suddenly things reached a point where he lauched into a three word diatribe (yes! GRE!) against me. He said:

u incomptent dick

thought it was surely worth a laugh.

Update: One person (the guy who typoed. guess who, btw?) didn't think it was funny at all. To him: I pity you, you freaking loser. (i mean, u frie
king luzer)

Typos are a man's best friend

2005-07-22T13:12:00.000-07:00

I recently emailed a couple of classmates a 'hi email'. I typoed big time. I started the letter with

Hi Sac.

Now, one of the recipients (with a keen eye, and an excellent sense of humour) mailed back

you know, that means something in English.

haha. I saw my own letter, and burst out laughing. I mailed him back saying it was super funny, and (I think) acknowledging that even the best had slips. Now, he being a good sport emailed back recounting one of HIS recent emailing debacles.

He presented a paper last week, and emailed the conference director
a few days before the conference asking him a few questions about the conference. He ran a spell-check for typos, and then emailed it. He got a reply with all his doubts answered and a section of his (myfriend's) letter highlighted with the comment (from the conf. director) to the effect of

we are, too.

The highlighted words from my friend's letter were

I am sorry for the incontinence!

I read the guy's confession, and I swear, I never laughed so much for a typo. It should be in the typo hall of fame. Adding to the humour is that I typoed 'sac' and he 'incontinence'.

Hands and Paws, and Paws and Hands

2005-07-22T12:50:00.000-07:00

I just realised Teddy (my 7 1/2 year old puppy;)) was left-pawed. My parents apparently knew it for a long time, but I just noticed it. He pulls stuff with his left front paw, he pees to his left... (actually, that is about it, lol). And I thought wow, I need to find out if this is really true, and looked up on the net. Lo and behold, I had an answer in less than 2 mins. Yes, other animals can have a hand/paw bias. The figures weren't there to be quoted except for chimps and humans. Chimps have a more-or-less equal number of lefties and righties, while there is a huge bias in humans (85-90% righties) (Reference no. 3 for more).

Ambidextrousness was also seen - it was clearly the left/right-handed chimp with the advantage. With more use of a single hand, there is better control; hence, more food (insects) caught. The ambidextrous remain jacks-of-all-trades-good-at-none, so they get a smaller catch. That might explain why handedness is evolutionarily advantageous, but there is still some unresolved stuff about why humans have a huge right-hand bias.

A lot is covered in the Wikipedia article (Reference 2) - an excellent article. The most interesting aspect is this:

The researchers hypothesize that left-handed inheritance is likely to be associated with violence, because violent left-handed people would be more likely to benefit from the advantage in fighting. They found a positive correlation between murder rates and percentage of left-handed people in several traditional societies: The more left-handed people, the higher the homicide rate.

The researchers argue that left-handed people are not more violent than right-handed, but that violent left-handed people are more likely to be successful than violent right-handed people(Reference 2)

One question is - why do lefties have an advantage in fight? And the answer provided is actually quite believable. Righties are more common, so a leftie gets a lot of practice in how to counter a rightie (we are talking about hands-on combat here) than the reverse. So, a leftie is more likely to succeed in a fight cos he's had more practice.

All this is very surprising because my mom always told me as a kid, that people with left-slanted writing or left-handed people often have criminal intentions. Maybe a house-wives tale, but I am willing to believe (now) that maybe it was the experience of centuries speaking.

Interesting Reads:
1. http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/sex/articles/handedness.shtml
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left-handed
3. http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/animals/features/341feature3.shtml

Douglas Adams

2005-07-20T22:20:00.000-07:00

An article by Douglas Adams. worth a read.

http://www.douglasadams.com/dna/19990901-00-a.html

The love triangle - shmiangle

2005-07-20T03:44:00.000-07:00

I just thought of something. The love triangle! A very common phrase. Used a million times at least to describe the plots of (Hindi) movies.

I just realised we were all fools! The love triangle is impossible for 'hetero-sexual' love (which was surely what was clearly intended by the directors of all those movies)!

Think about it, a triangle needs to be closed. In those love plots. It isn't! A boy loves a girl, who loves another boy. Now, unless the second boy loves the first boy, where's the freaking triangle!!? It should be a love-line!

Were we dufuses or what!

The lounge - Resurrected

2005-07-20T03:37:00.000-07:00

This blog has been rechristened 'The Lounge' (though the name says 'The world of no good' - that is just the tagline).

We tried a lot of things after college to keep this fantastic community alive. We tried telephone calls, we tried webpages, we tried multiple-webpages, we even tried visiting each other! yet, somehow we managed to lose touch (ok, i meant it figuratively, before u despos get excited). So, this is the latest technological innovation to keep the sinking boat afloat. The Blog (trumpeting heard in the background along with donkeys braying, and females screaming for gender equality).

as i love to copy Richard o'Brian of Crystal Maze fame -'Let the games begin.'

Crime or something like it.

2005-07-17T14:56:00.000-07:00

Just read an old article by a friend - http://www.geocities.com/karthikdurvasula/scribbles/ashwin/Prison_system.doc (yes, this is the season for reading old stuff). Reminded me of a question that I wondered about as a kid -

why is stealing bad?
Well, tried thinking about it again. And again, i came to the same conclusion.

Let's see. the traditional answer - it is morally wrong. Let's go a little deeper into this. A thief, works hard, risks his life on his work and gets money. Why is it morally wrong, again? oh wait, simple! Cos it is deception! duh! So, is it ok if the thief warns the person he is stealing and then actually gets away with the theft? I don't see the deception anymore. I guess most would say no. But they dunno why anymore! Basically, their moral argument is no longer valid.

Practical answers are infact more satisfying. I can think of two. One, If X steals from Y, then Y loses his money for nothing. The key is 'nothing'. So, Y is unhappy cos he got a bad deal. Two, cos theft disturbs how society hopes to work in general - with order. This is, in my opinion, closer to the truth than those vague and psedo-religious claims of morality/ethics.

Now, it is easy to understand why theft is 'wrong' in our society. It is an unfair business practice - one that can cause considerable instability in the normal workings of society because there is no control over it. So, the society 'punishes' the 'wrong-doer'.

All this may seem elementary, but it is important that we realise the reasons for our actions. They are not based in any god-given right called morality, they are just base/crude displays of our survival instinct.

This brings us to the question that my friend, Ashwin, actually raised in that article of his. Does anyone deserve capital punishment? It is for each of us to answer for ourselves. It should match the answer to this: Is it ok to kill someone to protect ourselves (and our society) - especially if there are ways and means of avoiding it?

It logically relates to the question of economic feasibilty. Remember, it is not about ethics/morality anymore.

The logical (but heartless) question is: Can the above questions be answered based on principles of optimisation from mathematics (given that it is simple social economics/order at stake)?

Logic forces me to accept that for the proper functioning of society, what is not economically feasible should be avoided. So, if keeping those murders alive is really bad for us, then we should 'get rid of them'. However, conscience (perhaps, a set of brainwashed ideas of 'morality') urges me to consider otherwise.

A bridge between yesterday and today

2005-07-17T13:34:00.000-07:00

Just found something interesting that i wrote a long time back. Funnily enough, I had named it 'Crap' - the keen reader would already have noticed my penchant for this wonderfully descriptive word. It is good to know that I haven't changed too much in all these years. Here goes...

CRAP
What is maturity? Is it the understanding that comes through years of social interaction? Is it the knowledge that one gains through experience? Or is it innate, and is it dependent only on the person being talked about – something like intelligence?

Over the years, many people have asserted that maturity can come only through experiences; only if ‘you see the world’ – a favourite of all parents ;). Well, all such definitions cannot explain oddities in the behaviour of normal people.

On one hand, if a parent tells a child to ‘shut up’, the child usually listens. Maybe, it is not due to respect all the time. Sometimes it is due to fear. But, the end result is that he realises that a quiet submission would really be in his best interests.

On the other hand, if a child tells a parent to ‘shut up’, the parent usually gets agitated (in very few cases does he/she not get agitated). The parent should have known through his/her many interactions with the world that such an action might be a result of the stress the child is under. But, in stead of being understanding (and mature?), the parent is usually severe.

Well, then who is more mature in this case - the parent or the child? This is a singled out example of the many that happen everyday. It only leads one to wonder if we haven’t got many of our ideas wrong. Don’t you think it is time to do something about it?

Troubles, worries...

2005-07-17T13:18:00.000-07:00

I am jealous! Terribly jealous of a dear friend's success. Ever had that feeling? Well, if u are me, u will have it all the time. But this time, it is justified. This friend Kumar has a blog, and it is doing smashing well. The idiot's got stories and romantic comedies and stuff posted, and all i have is crap about crap that no one cares a crap about. Now, tell me isn't that a position that would make the noblest minds jealous?

To worsen it, i have weird human ideas to battle - not mine, others'. Think about it. i am a funny man (u will vouch for that, I am sure), but if i even attempt writing a comedy at this stage, i have so many hurdles to cross.

If i write a crappy story, immediately people (you fake friends!!) will say 'You copied kumar, but are useless, so of course the stories came out like crap'!

If the story is good, then i get, 'You copied kumar, but why read yours if there is nothing new on offer'.

And, if the story is great, then i get, 'You are a great writer though you were inspired but kumar. And you are so much better then kumar'. Then Kumar will say 'Ass, you copied me. what a cheapskate. hope u go to hell, you backstabber'.

And finally, if i choose not to write a story, I will writhe with justified (as i have clearly shown before) anguish.

You see! No matter what I do, I am bound to be troubled! Such is my life. Hmmpf! And you worry about urs, daily!

Bush, Blair, and the Downing Street Memo

2005-07-04T04:33:00.000-07:00

Just found the Downing Street Memo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downing_Street_memo) online.

Please do read it.

Bush and Blair (alongwith their cohorts) should be tried for international terrorism. It is a shame that their countries get a bad name because of them. There are still many decent people in their lands.

A word of advice to all of you. Don't hate the countries and the common man living there for the mistakes of these despicable individuals. People were simply misinformed there.

Come on, Georgie Porgie!!

2005-07-04T00:02:00.000-07:00

'We know that the best way to honour the lives that have been given in this struggle is to complete the mission, so we will stay in the fight until the fight is won'
- George Bush, July 2, 2005, (weekly radio address marking the 4th July holiday)

Come on georgie!! Is that the only argument left for u to use? What happened to WMD and freedom and the other stuff you talked about? oh, oh, I forgot, you don't beeeive them yourself! Lessee,

Q: Does the US have WMD?
A: yes.

Q: Does the US have the freedom Georgie talked about for a long time?
A: Not exactly. Corporate America does, not the common man.

Q: Which is the only country to actually use a nuke-bomb in war?
A: I know, I know! The greatest country on Earth, the champion of liberty. The US of A.

No wonder the change in words! Georgie is no hypocrite (anymore).

I thought the dead (martyred??) soldiers fought for peace/freedom of Iraq. Don't you all think they would be happier in heaven/hell (as the case may be) knowing they achieved peace and not a never-ending saga of bloodshed?

What does America have to do for peace/freedom in Iraq? Not a toughie. I will leave the answer for you to figure out.

We all need to get a life!

2005-07-02T22:23:00.000-07:00

Just a couple of days back, the US rebuked Mexico for introducing a stamp that supposedly had racist undertones. The stamp is of a mexican cartoon character, Memin Pinguin. The US said Mexico failed to show proper respect to the black populations (ahem, african american in america), and that it was propagating a false stereotype of that particular race.

I see it mainly as a failure of US to understand what the character means to the mexican (now, I am not a mexican, and so don't claim any better understanding. However, America seems to be imposing its own racially discriminatory view here.)

More notably, such 'discrimination' is a part of the american philatelic tradition, too - Speedy Gonzales (remember the song by Pat Boone) - Speedy Gonzales is the mexican version of the italian Casanova, or the spanish Don Juan - only, with a twist. He is perceived to represent the mexican stereotype - lazy, drunk, and womanising. So, what happened to all the american yap when they were printing that stamp? What happened to Jesse Jackson's (the self-proclaimed torch-bearer of all black culture in america) 'racial discrimation' view? Why didn't he see it in the Speedy Gonzales stamps? It sure looks like he isn't really interested in discrimination. He is just interested in blacks. A very familiar case of one bigot fighting against the bigotry of others! Great , simply great!

Another thing, there are too many american (cartoon) stamps that portray violence (from cartoons). While it is by itself innocuous (at least to me), using the 'american yardstick' should lead us to accuse America of not respecting basic human morals/feelings. I mean, isn't violence something to resist (even as per the american constitution)?

As far as I can see, those people who see racism in the Memin Pinguin stamps are themselves either racist 'whites' or obsessed 'blacks'. Too many whites in america are racist, and too many blacks in america are overly sensitive about such crap because of this. So, what the whites usually do is keep mum about their feelings - doesn't mean they don't have them, and in fact lash out at anyone who does voice his opinion. Note, it happens all too often that a black man can make fun of both white people and balck people (pretty openly), but rarely do you see the opposite - of a white man making fun of both - the moment he does it, he is deemed racist. The term racism has gained an all together new meaning in america (and perhaps the whole world). It no more means the 'discrimination against the people of a particular race'. Rather, it now means, 'discrimination against minority races', more specifically, 'black minorities' in america.

Similar problems exist in India too. Let a muslim or a christian or a 'lower caste' hindu open up a school or office only for 'his people' - this is hailed as good coomunity service, while a similar action on the majority hindu's (or more specifically brahmins') part is immediately deemed communal and anti-social! The indian constitution forbids 'casteism', yet when it comes to admissions in schools and employment opportunity, 'low caste' quotas are openly accepted. Where the hell is the constitutional right for all the others then? Many, have claimed that such sops help decrease the divide. But, long gone are those days where only the low-caste' people are economically challenged or only the 'higher caste' people are basking in plenty. If any sop needs to be given, it has to be for the 'poor' people. Yes, i agree the overlap is huge between the so called low-classes and the poor, but if the idea is to help the people without opportunity then, why not include the 'high-caste' people who are poor - they lack opportunities too! All i see here is the same blatant violation of the constitutional rights by the indian govt. that is shown by its american couterpart.

I guess, it is not 'racism' but 'discrimiantion' that has a new meaning. I am not pro-hindu or pro-white. All i am saying is, let everyone have the same freaking privileges!

Hurray Spain!

2005-07-01T05:35:00.000-07:00

I recently read the book 'The Name of the Rose'. For anyone who is not familiar with this cult book by Umberto Eco who specialises in Semiotics - it was written about 20 years before Dan Brown wrote 'The DaVinci Code'. It is based in medieval europe and is basically a murder mystery (others would see a lot more than just this) with the political/religious problems of the medieval church as back-drop. The book is an ocean of information about medieval church life and the beliefs/practices that were current in that era.

It was a long read. Many bits in it were especially fun to read. My favourite part of the book was when a guy called 'WIlliam' stands up to give a speech before a gathering. His speech discusses the need for dissociation between choices of faith( and what religion demands) and the right to freedom that every human being has.

The message is especially instructive in light of recent events in Spain. Spain became the fourth country to amend its constitution to make same-sex marriages legal (after, Belgium, Holland, and Canada). There was as expected a huge outcry from the catholic sections (amongst others) of society who seemed to declare it a travesty of the divine order of things. Such feelings have plagued the human race for too long, and it is about time we let go of them for the sake of freedom.

What a man does in the privacy of his house is his business - with the obvious proviso - as long as it doesn't not hurt the rest of the population in any (quantifiable/real) way. And if your doctrine professes that such a man will go to hell, then too bad for him.

Simply put, if u believe in a particular faith (Catholic, for the spaniards who protested), then u follow it. You have no right to condemn anyone else who chooses not to. Especially religious choices, which are personal choices.

To point out the slag more clearly - christianity (to be precise, The Bible in one of its interpretations) professes (only) heterosexual relations, so if you wanna be a good follower of the faith, then do as it says. But, the Bible has nothing to say about people who choose not to follow its teachings. - except say that they will go to hell. It doesn't say that the religious minded should punish the 'pagans'. So, what right does even a devout christian have to outlaw same-sex marriages? Why impose what you believe in (u are really curtailing ur own freedom - but out of choice) on others who have other opinions?

What I have said about christianity in particular is not to point out that it is the only flawed doctrine. I am of the opinion that all religious doctrines are flawed along similar lines, and that a real belief in god has very little to do with religion. Religion is, really speaking, the view of people on what god is and what is needed of us to get in touch with him - it doesn't mean it is the only way (as is openly professed by some faiths).(Although, pratically, it makes good reason to put such stuff in what is basically propaganda for a particular view of things which is you want people to believe it. The best way is to scare them into believing that there is no other way. The theory of advertising will have moer to say about it I am sure.)

Update on entrance exams in Tamil Nade

2005-06-30T01:01:00.000-07:00

The Madras high-court has rejected the state govt.'s plan to scrap the CET. One of the suggestions made was the immediate announcement of any plans (of the govt.) for next year. In short, if the govt. plans to scrap the CET next year, then they should warn all concerned ASAP. The suggestion is in the right direction, but I feel there should be more time given to students, and even a year is too little time for a change of this magnitude. The govt. should chalk out an exact plan and aim to implement it over the next 5-10 years. And immediate attention should be directed at unifying the different 'boards'. These different 'boards', more than any other factor, are hindering the simplification of our educational system, and it is high-time we got rid of them (obviously, all except one;)).

I am sure there are many hurdles to what i suggest, and it seems far easier on paper than in reality. However, (although a truism) necessities cannot be avoided.

Stand-up New York

2005-06-30T01:00:00.000-07:00

Was in New York a week back. Had a blast. And my pocket's got a gaping hole, too. Manhattan is a million times more expensive than Dela-hella-no-ware - or more commonly known as Delaware - that tiny stub of a state between Maryland and Jersey (joysey for the italian New-Yorkers)

A must-do in NYC is an evening at one of the stand-up comedy clubs. Went to a place called 'Stand-up New York' - pretty far uptown (past Columbia). There were about 8 guys who did their routines there. And I swear, except for one lady, they were hilarious.

Sadly, can't remember the jokes. But, i guess their art lay in their delivery and not all was in the content.

I wish I lived in NYC. The friend who took me to the club is a regular there. Oh, how I envy him!

My next trip to NYC will have to include checking out the jazz-bars. Another long-dreamt dream(?!). Actually, I am sure Philly has a good selection of jazz-bars too, and it is closer to home (dela-hella...). Have to get there!

Pet Food S(h/c)am

2005-06-30T00:01:00.000-07:00

I just realised something last night about pet food (and more generally, pet products). They usually (almost always) have the warning 'Not fit for human consumption'. For the last seven and a half years, I took the statement for granted without bothering to think about it.

A moment's thought in that direction prompted the question 'why?'. I mean, after all, in theory, it is just cooked meat. Why should meat cooked for animals not be fit for human consumption? I reasoned, perhaps, it has to do with the fact that they put all kinds of meat in it (intestines, brains...). But, people do eat all that. I mean, there is nothing wrong with eating it. In the end, I couldn't think of a convincing answer. I figured, the warning is because pet food manufacturers are not really quality conscious (just found out that there is no quality standard for pet food - even in the US).

It has to be that pet food is just not good enough. But the obvious trump card manufacturers hold is that pets don't usually rebel and 'voice' their opinions. And any long term effect of chemicals and crap in the food is bound to be ascribed to other (invented) factors.

A little online (re-)searching showed me that pet foods contain processessed offals of a variety of (dead) animals - including cats and dogs!! (note, euthanised animals have Sodium Pentabarbitol - u can imagine the effects of its regular ingestion) Pet-food manufacturing methods have been questioned by veterinarians for years now. In fact, home-cooked food is encouraged for pets. And if that isn't possible, at least, regular tid-bits of left-overs - just to get some balance in their (chemical) diet.

I have a dog (teddy) at home. Have had him for the last 7 1/2 years. And all this while, i have (force-)fed him pet food (pedigree, mostly). Fortunately, he gets to eat a lot of junk food too (chocolates, gulab jamuns, chips...). Just beginning to realise that maybe the junk food ain't so junky after all.

Just a final thought - cheating people is one thing (they can atleast rebel). but cheating animals because they can't fight back is just sad.

Yes, such morality has no end, and I know we indulge in a lot of things on a daily basis which aren't exactly great for the other animals on earth. But, at least we do most of it openly with an acceptance of our shortcomings - or are we just fooling ourselves into believing the unavoidability of our actions?

Review: Insecurities of a Middle Aged Indian Expatriate

2005-06-11T16:36:00.000-07:00

Thought I'd review this story (look at the end of this post for links) blogged by a friend fo mine. Let me start with : definitely worth a read.

The story is told in a series of three posts (over 2 1/2 months! - agonising for anyone who followed it, i am sure). The plot itself is something every expatriate can relate to. In fact, it is actually a matter of considerable worry for expatriates living in some parts of the world. The story is set in one such part, the Middle East (no specific country mentioned). It is about an Indian guy, Appan, working as an Engineer in a power station, who is due to have a medical check-up for visa-renewal. The bulk of the story is set within the span of a couple of days. Most of it deals with the mental battles that Appan faces. I will not divulge anymore than this, as it is bound to spoil it for the reader.

One thing I do wish to point out about the story is the continuous improvement the writer makes in his literary style. The first post kicks off matters pretty normally - being very 'to the point' - and seems more of an account than a story. The second post shows the writer experimenting more with the descriptive subtleties that are essential to any good story. The writer looks to develop the backgrounds more thouroughly - in particular, he adds a more human appeal to his characters. And the last post, is by far the best. In fact, it has some real flashes of brilliance. The author really captures the sentiments of normal humans beings. The story develops a very real feel and suddenly the characters appear much more life-like. The following lines, especially, have a lasting effect on the reader:

'He already started making a list of dos and donts....coverup a few years.....'

I think it was really awesome. And, anyone who reads the whole story will notice that the author finishes off in style.

One negative for the story is definitely the grammar/spellings. They are a put-off at times. But, it is clear that the errors are more because of the author's negligence than his inadequacy.

Finally Review: As mentioned before, definitely worth a read.

links:
Part 1: http://pagalak.blogspot.com/2005/04/insecurities-of-middle-aged-indian.html
Part 2: http://pagalak.blogspot.com/2005/04/insecurities-of-middle-aged-indian_20.html
Part 3: http://pagalak.blogspot.com/2005/06/insecurities-of-middle-aged-indian.html

Good news or bad news?

2005-06-06T20:51:00.000-07:00

The announcement by the TN government (govt) that entrance exams are henceforth abolished is worth speculating over.

The good news as has been highlighted by the govt is that students will have less to study. Entrance exams and school boards have different syllabi. Given that students study the required stuff in high-school, it is in everyone's best interests that any extra 'junk' be swept off. This much, i guess, everyone likes.

Now comes the bad news. TN, like most (dunno if it is all) Indian states is troubled by multiple educational boards - CBSE, ICSE, State Board (SB)... - this was the first thing that came to mind because I myself was a CBSE student and know quite well that there is a huge difference in the grading policies, syllabi and general approach to teaching between CBSE and other boards. Traditionally, in TN, SB students have got higher scores than their CBSE and ICSE counterparts. This is where the trouble lies (I will ignore difference is standard for the moment). This differential grading patterns are enough to worry about. Students in the 'wrong' boards are screwed!

Bad news is in store even for the poor kids who chanced it by waiting out an extra year (in many case, more than a year) to improve their scores. What's to become of them? Are we to let them take an 'entrance' exam specially designed for them, or are we to consider just their high-school grades. The second option is unfair, because the students chose to wait another year crucially based on their being allowed to take another shot at the entrance exam.

There seems to be some sort of a solution for the kids from different boards. People have suggested adding 5 points to CBSE scores. This, in my opinion, is still not fair. Because it assumes that the range and distributions of the boards will be equated by this addition. For the sake of clarity let me take a hypothetical example.

highest score in SB 100
lowest score in SB 30

highest score in CBSE 95
lowest score in CBSE 25

This still doesn't mean that adding 5 points to a CBSE score is then mathematically fair. Because it is entirely possible (and in my opinion highly probably) that the bulk of the SB students score above 80, and the bulk of the CBSE student score above 70 - the difference being around 10 points then. In short, the highest and lowest values do not cater to needs of the ones in the middle of the distribution.

To be really fair, the different boards for the moment should be considered separately and the scores should be mapped to separate normal distribution curves. This is relatively simple (Something that I have done for my own classes). Once, the scores of each board (separately) are mapped to a normal-distribution curve, ranking the students will be fairly easy - it will depend on their position on the curve - then, considering the 'normally distributed scores' will be mathematically fair.

However, the kids who waited to take the exam again don't have any seriously fair options.

The real fault for this mess lies in two main facts. First, a 'change' in educational policy, especially one of this degree of consequence, needs to be announced well in advance, and is not to be implemented overnight. Second, the sequence of changes the govt. appears to have chosen is quite obviously wrong. It should have aimed at neutralising differences between boards/syllabi and then gone on to abolishing the entrance exams.

I always thought it was ridiculous that India had more than one educational board. It makes no sense. This is a problem we as a country need to sort out right away. Different states have different boards, different yardsticks for academic performance and so on. This cannot be the case if we are to harmonise the differences in the country. Yes, I agree with each state wanting to promote its own culture through the educational system. This should show up in the form of extra courses of history, geography and languages and so on. It should not affect the core courses which should be common to everyone across the country. This is especially important for the sciences and mathematics and courses like management, economics, civics and so on, to which local cultures or traditions have very little to add.

The educational system requires serious reworking. The troubles we see in TN today are so obviously the 'kickbacks' of an ill-designed system. I know, it is easy for me to sit hear and talk , but the fact remains that the changes needed are not very difficult to effect. It requires just a little political foresight.

For more info:
http://www.hindu.com/2005/06/07/stories/2005060705390100.htm (general view)
http://www.hindu.com/2005/06/07/stories/2005060713880600.htm (administration view)
http://www.hindu.com/2005/06/07/stories/2005060714080400.htm (SB and CBSE views)

20 questions

2005-05-08T16:07:00.000-07:00

You can play 20Questions online. Only difference, the program does the guessing. I tried totally unrelated stuff like laptop, mongoose, cabinet - it got all three within 18 questions. Quite impressive. I remembering out-foxing the program a lot of times a couple of years back. Good to have a challenge for the evening. Here is the site: http://y.20q.net/

No Pants Day

2005-05-08T15:30:00.000-07:00

The first Friday of May is NO PANTS DAY! There is a site dedicated to it, http://www.nopantsday.com. Man, there is a day for almost everything!! Next, we will have an 'I will fart the whole day' day. We see tonnes of these 'XYZ days' - dunno who bothers celebrating. Oh yeah, today is 'Mother's' Day'! Guess, I should stop complaining and just have fun.

Another thing, I found a list of british words unknown/unfamiliar to travelling americans. Funny, i found so many words that were natural to me (and most indians, I guess). The one that caught my eye was 'dustbin'. Funny, I manage to elicit a laugh each time I say it here (the US). Another that has the same effect is 'letterbox'. http://www.liveplaylearn.com/brit_menu.html

yippee

2005-04-30T18:18:00.000-07:00

After months of useless attempts, i finally did it. I have a blogspot!! all thanks to kumar - my dear old doggie friend. Thanks bud. will post more later. for now, let teh world be warned that a new force has joined the blogging community.

as the o'brien guy in crystal maze succinctly put it: Let the games begin.