thescian | May 15, 2009One of the occasional political posts. You're probably full of this news already, if you live in the UK. It on the TV for 24 hrs. Anyway, let me unload before my head explodes.
The motherload.
There's an article in guardian that's worth a read to understand how deeply fucked-up many MPs heads are. The political class loves public data - to protect the public, of course - but, oh no, MPs expenses are private. WTF.
A few days back Stephen Fry offered his opinion that everyone fudges their expenses: we should move on, there are bigger things at stake to get hung up on small fry (unintended pun…
thescian | May 14, 2009
Layman: What are the strings in String Theory made of?
Physicist: Well, they are not made of anything. They are fundamental.
Layman: Like how sometime back protons were fundamental, and then how quarks were fundamental?
Physicist: You see, physics usually advances gradually, building upon our earlier understanding. Sometimes, we have breakthroughs: times such as when Newton published his Principia, when Einstein published his Theory of Gravitation or when Quantum Mechanical Laws were published. New models of reality that change our conception fundamentally are found and we begin again. The…
thescian | May 12, 2009Dubliners, naturally. Counterparts is as simple and as powerful as it gets. The story leads us to these lines:
The boy uttered a squeal of pain as the stick cut his thigh. He clasped his hands together in the air and his voice shook with fright.
"O, pa!" he cried. "Don't beat me, pa! And I'll... I'll say a Hail Mary for you.... I'll say a Hail Mary for you, pa, if you don't beat me.... I'll say a Hail Mary...."
Everytime one reads it, the utter blindness of everyday life and the attendant cruelty looms larger and larger before one's eyes.
thescian | April 30, 2009
It happens when matter meets anti-matter. That there is such a thing called anti-matter never ceases to amaze me. Paul Dirac, when he arrived at the famous equation for electron-, realized that the equation predicted two particles: one was the electron and the other a as yet unknown particle which he called the positron. Great physicists are guided towards Truth by the subtle hand of Beauty. Dirac's equation was exquisite. Hence, it must be true, he declared in 1928. The positron was discovered in 1932. (Dirac was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics the following year.)
The positron is…
thescian | April 21, 2009World Digital Library, the UN project to provide digital access to cultural heritage of our world. The search interface is quite interesting. Give it a go.
Susan Boyle. For a few minutes, I forgot my distaste for gawdy talent shows and delighted in Possibilities. The unlikely and heart-warming realization of a middle aged woman's dream.
thescian | April 20, 2009The accomplished author died a few days ago at 78. This, at Guardian:
[As a] science fiction author [he] "wasn't interested in the far future, spaceships and all that", he explained; rather he was interested in "the evolving world, the world of hidden persuaders, of the communications landscape developing, of mass tourism, of the vast conformist suburbs dominated by television - that was a form of science fiction, and it was already here".
Ballard was the first author who brought the vision of bleakness and dystopia into my teenage life.
thescian | April 15, 2009From his collection Death of a Naturalist. A wonderful collection of short poems. This particular poem's theme and language resonates across cultures and continents. It triggered memories of my time with my grandfather on the land picking cotton and onion, cutting grass and sugarcane, wading through the wet clay of paddy fields, sleeping under coconut trees...
Digging
Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests; as snug as a gun.
Under my window a clean rasping sound
When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:
My father, digging. I look down
Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds…
thescian | April 9, 2009This at the BBC. So, when he was 10, Blair's father fell seriously ill. Blair prays for his atheist father with his headmaster.
"I said to him 'Before we pray, I should tell you that my father, he doesn't believe in God.
"And I always remember the headmaster saying to me 'Well, that doesn't matter because God believes in him'".
He described the experience as having a "tremendous impact" on him.
The emotional trauma that a 10 year old has to endure when his father is seriously ill is a terrible thing. But if the impact of irrational words stays even after one grows up to be a influential…
thescian | April 9, 2009An interesting article by Nicholas Kulish on something very german: Rules.
What the Germans call Ordnung (the usual translation is "order," but it is a much broader concept) is the unwritten road map of one society's concerted effort to permanently banish the instability and violence that have marked its history. That sense of insecurity includes Germany's forced division in the cold war, the Nazi era and the hyperinflation of the 1920s, but it also stretches at least as far back as the Thirty Years' War in the 17th century, which decimated much of the German territories and population, and…
thescian | April 8, 2009Would you please piss-off. -Dawkins.
Dawkins responds to Mr Blair, who wrote:
The 21st century will be poorer in spirit and ambition, less focused on social justice, less sensitive to conscience and the common good, without a full and proper recognition of the role that the great faiths can and do play. I hope my foundation, in its own way, can work with others in those faiths to help harness their full power to transform our world for the better
How grandiose can a man get! Clearly, Faith facilitates - nay, actively promotes - one to be this delusional. Dawkins exposes this BS for what it…
thescian | April 8, 2009First published around this time in 1869 in The Atlantic. Stirs me whenever I read it. Some parts of the poem:
Pround music of the storm!
Blast that careers so free, whistling across the prairies!
Strong hum of forest tree-tops! Wind of the mountains!
Personified dim shapes! you hidden orchestras!
You serenades of phantoms, with instruments alert,
Blending, with Nature's rhythmus, all the tongues of nations;
You chords left us by vast composers! you choruses!
You formless, free, religious dances! you from the Orient!
You undertone of rivers, roar of pouring cataracts;
You sounds from distant…
thescian | March 27, 2009The Pope has said while in Africa that condoms may increase AIDS problems. What? He is so insulated from science that even the most basic application of science to our problems eludes his comprehension. Who the fuck advises the Pope? (besides the Bible, that is. If it is just the Bible, we have gotten to the bottom of this already).
Redemption for the Pope? asks The Lancet condemning the Pope's ignorance.
Whether the Pope's error was due to ignorance or a deliberate attempt to manipulate science to support Catholic ideology is unclear. But the comment still stands and the Vatican's attempts…
thescian | March 27, 2009Business that requires direct customer service, that's where. If the post's heading attracted you, you should give this HN thread about Google Checkout woes a read. As many on the thread point out, there is a upper bound you hit when optimizing customer service against efficiency. After a stage, the more you serve, the less you can attend to them when they have problems. So, you automate and automate and hope all customers will be robots who follow a process without error. But, then, as always, reality intervenes. Clearly, Google isn't the only company you can beat in this area.
thescian | March 26, 2009It's TED day at this blog.
Here are two videos I watched lately. Viva la User Interface revolution!
Johnny Lee's Wii Hacks at TED
Pranav Mistry's Sixth Sense
thescian | March 26, 2009TEDIndia Conference: "The Future Beckons" has been announced. It will take place November 4-7, 2009, in Mysore, India. More here.
iAccelerator 2009 startup incubator at IIM Ahmedabad is now accepting applications. They help first time technology entrepreneurs. Go here and get started.
thescian | March 23, 2009Where there is nothing, there is no thing as there. That's the usual response to 'what's outside the universe'. Evidently, this stands at the very edge of meaning: meaning in the scientific sense, meaning derived from being able to observe and measure some thing.
This response would satisfy those engaged in scientific observations and measurements. They can sleep easy in the knowledge that even if they don't know, they are making the attempt to know (am not saying they do sleep, but that they can sleep). In the end, this is probably the most rational way to proceed. But, what about ordinary…
thescian | March 20, 2009Ladies and lads, Extreme Sheep LED Art, a.k.a Welsh herd hacking and The Baa-Vinci Project.
via
thescian | March 18, 20091. grandeur, not excess
2. sublimity, not harshness
3. strength, not rashness
4. severity, not grimness
5. gravity, not dullness
6. joy, not abandon
7. pleasantness, not decadence
8. greatness, not pomposity
I like 1, 6 and 8. They make my sensibilities feel warm and fuzzy, like a campfire that is neither too close not too far. The rest are, well, they are unpleasant, harsh, rash, grim, dull and decadent. I feel pompous for saying that.