The Second Battle of El Alamein - 2011 Redux

In November 1942, General der Panzertruppe Wilhelm Josef Ritter von Thoma was ordered by his commander Generlfeldmarschall Erwin Rommel (who was relaying a Fuhrerbefehl) to fight to the last man and tank. The Deutsches Afrikakorps ground itself to pieces around him and virtually bereft of tanks, he mounted one the tanks attached to his HQ guard unit and drove to the apex of the battle.

With his tank hit several times and on fire, von Thoma dismounted and stood quietly amongst a sea of burning tanks. Rommel later opined that von Thoma was probably seeking his death in battle while other staff officers quietly speculated that he went to the front to deliberately surrender. That evening, von Thoma dined with General Montgomery at his headquarters to discuss the battle.

Nearly 70 years later, Rahul Dravid is attempting a Thoma.

Construction Management in the Slip Cordon

Whoddathunkit?

I Love Indian Women

With A Little Help From My Friends

It's apparently Ringo's birthday today. He's been interviewed.

A few weeks ago the Vatican finally gave its approval to the Beatles. How did you feel about that?

It didn't affect me in any way, but I do believe that the Vatican have better things to deal with than forgiving the Beatles. I don't remember what it actually said — it had some weird piece in it, too. That they've forgiven us for being, what, satanic? Whoever wrote it was thinking about the Stones.

Priceless. Man, I wish that band was still around. Peace and love. Happy birthday, Ringo. Seeing as it is the season of soothsaying octopi,


I do hope Panzerdivision Mannschaft runs roughshod over the cephalopod ("Paul is dead!") tonight.

Best Football Match Ever

It's that time again. I present to you, the most thrilling and entertaining football match ever played (Germany v. Greece, Munich).



It's good to watch football, because it's so boring and languorous most of the time, with flurries of excitement ever so often. More than anything else, it is a chance to hang out with friends and/or chemists and drink and eat pizza and idiappam and shoot the breeze.

Meanwhile, certain other team of interest is doing rather well, more power to them. Boston is everything Los Angeles is not: small, pretty, smart, negotiable via public transport, livable. Here's to the Celtics slitting eviscerating until the floor is slick with the Lakers' blood.

My IPL Support Algorithm (Redux)

Last year, I was jobless enough to present a programming version with suitable cultural and historical references thrown in. This time, it's a bit sooner, and it's more like the laws of robotics.

Hereby presenting:

Law I: Deccan Chargers (DC) win all their games.
Law II: Mumbai Indians (MI) win all their games (except when it conflicts with Law I)
Law III: Kings XI Punjab (KXIP) win all their games (except when it conflicts with Laws I & II)
Law IV: The team with the lower net run rate wins its game (except when it conflicts with Laws I, II and III)

Very tidy.

Forthcoming Results

KKR wins CSK v KKR (IV)
RR wins RR v RCB (IV)
CSK wins CSK v DD (IV)
DC wins KXIP v DC (I)
MI wins RCB v MI (II)
KKR wins KKR v RR (IV)
KXIP wins KXIP v CSK (III)
DC wins DD v DC (I)
MI wins KKR v MI (II)

Points Table

Semifinalists

MI - 14 - 11 - 22
DC - 14 - 8 - 16
RR & KKR - 14 - 7 - 14

Sad, sorry, losers

RCB - 14 - 6 - 12
DD - 14 - 6 - 12
CSK - 14 - 6 - 12

Fair Play Award, hugs from Preity
KXIP - 14 - 5 - 10

Thank you, thank you.

P.S. Forgot the Zeroeth Law

DC will (do you hear that, Adam? WILLLLLLLLL) play VOLCANO VENU!!!!!!!!!!!!

About Time, Neh?

I

I don't know why this makes me so happy, but I'm so happy this happened. About bloody time, I think.

Here are couple of things that are vitally important to know.

• When the Filmfare award for Best Cinematography went to Murthy for Kaagaz Ke Phool, he was actually in Greece where Guru Dutt had sent him, to learn what he could from the making of The Guns of Navarone!
• There is a long and lovely audio interview with Murthy available on the Kamla Bhatt Show website.
• There used to be a lovely interview with Murthy in PDF format at Sarai, can't seem to find it now. I'm pretty sure I have it downloaded somewhere, let me see.

II

Some data are presented, thanks to Cricinfo's wonderful searching, filtering, sorting and querying capabilities.


Of course, several of you will scream bloody murder. In the interest of fairness, we present this.


Determining who the better batsman is, is left as an exercise for the reader. [Hint: The relevant numbers that should help clinch the issue are marked in bold in the pictures.]

P.S.: Inspiration? This.

My IPL Support Algorithm

This surely comes a little too late, seeing as semifinal #1 is about to start in 4 minutes time, but what the hell. Here goes.

if (Chargers.areKnockedOut() != true) {
    support(Chargers);
} else {
    if (Daredevils.areFinalists() == true) {
        support(Opposing South Indian team);
        Saroja.saamaan(nigaalo++);
    }
}

if (2nd semi final) {
    support(CSK);
    System.out.println("I see your Pulakesin II, but look! Here is your Vaataapi Ganapati, and see! There goes Rajendra Chola after your sorry Chalukya ass.");
}

An Equal Music

In which we're drained

They play without music, their eyes sometimes on their hands, sometimes closed, sometimes on each other. What they hear, what they imagine, I do not know. There is no forced gravitas in their playing. It is a beauty beyond imagining — clear, lovely, inexorable, stroke across stroke, stroke echoing stroke, the incomplete, like the unending ‘Art of Fugue.’ It is an equal music.

Music, such music, is a sufficient gift. Why ask for happiness; why hope not to grieve? It is enough, it is to be blessed enough, to live from day to day and to hear such music - not too much, or the soul could not sustain it from time to time.

Song du jour.

On The Road - Funda, The Fourth

Which is a long and winding post

The Lord of the Links - The Return of the King: "I come back to you now, at the turn of the tide."

The Charminar Express pulled into Gudur Jn. around 9:00 p.m. Ludwig had polished off his egg biryani, apple, biscuit, and Perk and was lolling in the upper berth with his laptop, churning out code playing Tetris till the battery was doomed. Directly we heard the sounds of the railway platform and we detrained to see what was to be seen and to eat that which was to be eaten.

Those of you who ride the rails in this wonderful country will know that a new blight that answers to the names such as "standardization", "privatization" and so on now inflicts the expresses and mails.

What this means is that a host of private caterers under the umbrella of the IRCTC have theka le rakha hai the business of plying the hapless traveling public with grub, chow, and oota. Since these guys are all about margins and are allotted on a per train and per station basis, it isn't really in their interest to have your platform vendors selling all and sundry to their precious flock.

What this means is that the desi railway platform is fast turning into culinary Kalahari. Remember the days when you could exit the vestibule and swoon into the arms (and/or boiling pan of oil) of the poori bhaaji? Gone. The bun omelet fellow with the banshee wail is silent, the plaintive tones of the pazham pori plantain guy is hushed, and a sepulchral silence more or less pervades over the qaaynaat.

We are not even talking about the Tadepalligudems and the Nidadavolus of the world, this malaise has spread to the Vijayawadas and the Vizags of the network. The good vendors of the sublime dal vadaas at Dharmavaram Jn were the last bastion of station specific food specialization, the final line of defense, the Spartans of saapaad at the Thermopylae of sleeper class hunger.

We report that we were (thankfully) somewhat mistaken. On this particular trip, we had the good fortune to be plonked in S14, which as you all know, is the last sleeper class compartment on Charminar Express before the general compartments, brake van, engine, and everything in front of the engine.

It turns out that these private caterers don't have any interest in catering to the general bogies. Question of margins, we think. So instead the good 'ol poori man with his hellfire, the banshee and other such creatures now lurk at the ends of the trains and it's all a throwback to the old days.

At Gudur, we whipped out our cellphone and shot our first ever movie with it. A brief snippet titled "Life At One End Of Charminar Express In Gudur Junction In March 2008" is presented below.



We also recorded the sounds, this was a lot easier (try hanging out with a video camera At One End Of Charminar Express In Gudur Junction In March 2008 - quite nerve wracking, everyone will either be very suspicious, or start pretending like they're Dilip Kumar).

The clip (993K MP3) is here. (Hat tip to BM for suggesting location and helping us find the damn thing once it was uploaded). Warning: This may make you hungry. Quite mellifluous, the vendors of Gudur. Try to make a note of all the different comestibles being hawked.

Finally, as the train left, we shot a motion picture (of the leaving). A brief glimpse of Ludwig's sexy legs is to be seen right at the beginning. The blur on the other platform is the empty rake of 2709 Gudur-Hyderabad Simhapuri Express. A fine and upstanding member of the train community no doubt. Much to our horror however, it was being hauled by a WAG! A WAG, we tell you. What self respecting superfast allows itself to be hauled by a WAG. A WAM might be excusable, but a WAP would be the proper thing to do by it. Shameless train. Kali yugam.

Anyway, Video Deux: Departing Gudur.



So we bookmarked a whole bunch of interesting links from last week. Yensoy.

Missing Children

Spare a moment. Check out Missing Indian Kids. You might be able to help.

Sports

Via Smoke Signals, the Pedros and the Schillings of the world better watch out, cometh the hour, cometh the man, Rinku Singh is here.

They are not exactly sure what baseball is, or even javelin for that matter. However, in and around Rinku Singh’s village Holepur in Bhadohi, the news of his $100,000 throw — catapulting him to San Francisco — has reached fast.

While on the subject, On Point tells us that they're taking down Yankee Stadium. Good riddance. Please make sure that the team is in the clubhouse when the dynamite goes off.

Kidding.

Not.

Kidding.

Not.

No, really, kidding.





Not.

Science

Physics

Newsweek asks Nobel boy Steven Weinberg about how the Large Hadron Collider experiments might impact our ideas of the cosmos and our place in it.

At some point will it be possible to find proof that God or the Ultimate Designer does not exist?
I don't think that we can ever prove that God does not exist. But if he does exit it might be possible to prove it.

It might be?
Well, if God did exist and suddenly made himself known by sending thunderbolts to all the people who don't believe in him [Laughs], that would be pretty strong evidence that he exists.

Do you think he would send you one?
He hasn't so far.

Philosophy of Science

On a related note, the excellent Cosmic Variance has tried to address the issue of science and unobservable things.

...the case I tried to make was that attitudes along the lines of “that stuff you’re talking about can never be observed, so you’re not doing science, it’s just theology” are woefully simplistic, and simply don’t reflect the way that science works in the real world.

Marine Biology

Delightful. Apparently, "A bizarre geek-fight has erupted in the blogosphere over which types of invertebrates are coolest, Echinoderms or Molluscs.". How can you not love something like that?

Back on the 20th of March The Intersection blog mused on sea cucumbers and squid, concluding, “No contest! Cukes would eat squid for breakfast...”

This drew a scathing response from some quarters, with Craig McClain on Deep Sea News delivering this cutting put down to the sea cucumber fans:

It’s just hard to get excited about a sea cucumber that either feeds on sediment muck or filters muck out of the water column and not much else. Or an organism whose idea of fun is spewing its organs all over you or creating poop trails.

Hilarious.

Funny Geeky Stuff

Error Messages

30 error messages from hell.

A problem has been detected and CONTROLPANEL N9608P has been shut down to prevent further damage to your HELICOPTER.

Please shut down and restart your HELICOPTER and check all newly installed hardware or software...

#2 is a variation on a theme from Pulp Fiction, no less!

Funny Answers

This is a chestnut, but worth revisiting.

Time Travel Forum

Priceless. Read right through to the end.

11/15/2104
At 14:52:28, FreedomFighter69 wrote:
Reporting my first temporal excursion since joining IATT: have just returned from 1936 Berlin, having taken the place of one of Leni Riefenstahl's cameramen and assassinated Adolf Hitler during the opening of the Olympic Games. Let a free world rejoice!

At 14:57:44, SilverFox316 wrote:
Back from 1936 Berlin; incapacitated FreedomFighter69 before he could pull his little stunt. Freedomfighter69, as you are a new member, please read IATT Bulletin 1147 regarding the killing of Hitler before your next excursion. Failure to do so may result in your expulsion per Bylaw 223.

Department of Remarkably Good Ideas, nuclear weapons edition

Netscape founder Marc Andreessen writes about a Dr. Strangeloveish headline he found.

Hackszine

A plug for the Hackszine where the most bizarre and cool hacks are perpetrated. For instance, you could build a little drummer bot

...Yellow Drum Machine is a tiny musical robot who's sole purpose in simulife is to motor around looking for suitable surfaces to drum a beat on.

Stick Figure Genius/Misogyny

Fuck grapefruit. Anyone who has read a Gartner Magic Quadrant thing will empathize. Mouse over for more gyaan.

Suggestive pickup lines for geeks. Mouse over for more gyaan.

And gender and math. Mouse over for more gyaan. A related math joke (molto funny if you get it, sorry non-calculus folks) is at Wild About Math.

April Fool

Virgle and singles sites for IITians is all very well, but the award goes to the BBC for the blow-you-off-your-feet hoax (see the YouTube video here).
Just Plain Weird

Science tattoos it seems!

Environment

Siva wonders how you could live in a big bad city and not be a total environmental jerk, with en passant references to diesel generator sets.

History, Literature, Religion

Everyone's surely on top of the RaamaayaNa controversy where a bunch of the usual suspects (i.e. khaaki chaddiwaala isotopes) beat up someone for something to do with the fact that many Indian traditions have many readings of the epic. It turns out that the "controversial" essay is available online. Fascinating, fascinating stories. Read.

On a related note, we told a couple of running buddies that in some versions Sita is depicted as Ravana's daughter for various reasons, and they were somewhat mortified. Since when do Valmiki and Tulsidas have exclusive rights on this tale?

Science, Religion

Child abuse video, via Parseval.

In other news, one issue that had the science blog world in a tizzy last week was PZ Myers - Richard Dawkins - Expelled incident.

Briefly: Ben Stein and a bunch of other eminent scientists have made a movie called Expelled. The basic premise of this movie is that "big science" is a monster that suppresses alternative, valid theories such as "intelligent design", "creationism" etc. The movie included interview excerpts with PZ Myers and Richard Dawkins, who were to speak for the non-believer position.

Myers and Dawkins showed up at a screening where the director recognized Myers and refused to allow him in, but inexplicably let Dawkins through. Controversies galore. Search for "Myers", "Dawkins" and "Expelled" and you'll be all set.

Economics

On Point had a great show, an interview with MIT professor Daniel Ariely about irrational human behaviour. Some very, very interesting experiments...

Now, a new work of behavioral economics looks at how dependably goofy we humans can be. How "predictably irrational," whether we're standing at the all-you-can-eat buffet, or fingering our credit card or getting naked at Mardi Gras.

This really deserves a post of its own, but listen to the podcast if you can. Fascinating.

For Nothing Now Can Ever Come To Any Good

Which is a connection quiz question

Connect:

The New England Patriots

Roger Federer

India

It's all ending.

Bridges, Historiography, Patriotism and Politics

Where we proudly call ourselves a civil engineer, make some observations on historiography, comment on the last refuge of the scoundrel, and take a swipe at Our American Cousins

On the lines of the colourblindness confession, here's another one. We got a couple of degrees in civil engineering, and we have to admit that secretly and not-so-secretly, we're rather proud of ye olde profession. The heart leaps up with joy unbounded at the sight of buildings, roads, bridges, tunnels, dams, airports, railway stations, and so on. Large construction sites tend to cause a distinct uplifting of spirit. Something like this is a positive cause for bursting into song.

Blast furnaces, cooling towers, Bessemer converters are all poetic. There, we've said it once if we've said it once. Or whatever. (The other thing that sets one off is a gorgeous looking warship, but be that as it may...)

Some weeks back, we went on a birding trip to the AP Police Academy, and after having stumbled through the undergrowth for a couple of hours, we found ourselves at the edge of the campus, where that well known topological paradox, the Outer Ring Road cuts through. (Paradox: All plots in Hyderabad, nay South Central India, are within 2 km of ORR, if you believe the adverts.)

Of course, suitable horror was expressed at Man's depredation, the sullying of pristine nature and so on. But this was somewhat offset by the sight of earth movers and hard hats at work on the permanent way. The best photo from that trip follows. And its not just us, others were seen clicking away, possibly in appreciation only!

Which lets us segue into 18 stunning bridges. Molto fantastico. Check out the water-on-water bridge. Poetry only. There's that word again.

And although we are long sundered from bending moments and serendipity elements, we well up with emotion once in a while, and this will hopefully help us win the New Hampshire primary.

Martin R, over at Aardvarcheology has written a pertinent piece on history and proto-history. Several points he makes rang true, and deserves to be quoted at length.

A really good historical source is coeval with the events it describes, or it may even form a part of those events, such as in the case of a land deed. It is written by a knowledgeable participant in the events, one who is not strongly politically biased or whose bias is at least known. And any statement in a good historical source is ideally corroborated by other independent good historical sources.
...
But before the historical period...there is usually a proto-historical era: one for which there are only few and bad sources, often quite extremely bad ones. Typically, proto-historical sources are written centuries after the fact by political propagandists, and there exists no corroborating historical evidence.

Proto-history offers a powerful lure to all students of the past: oh, how we all wish that we could somehow dig good historical knowledge out of those crap sources!
...
Those texts must be treated like fairytales, because they most likely are and there is no way of finding out if they aren't.

Everywhere on earth, the proto-historical sources that appear to stretch the farthest inte the past are usually genealogies, often royal ones. "Lo, King Freddie reigned for 253 years and begat King Ronnie who smote the Fellatians and reigned for 346 years and begat King Reginald who reigned for 123 years and begat King Humpty" etc. At the head of the list is usually a god who acts as mythical ancestor of whoever is king at the time when the genealogy is compiled.

Indian history is also full of king lists which seem to be of the most dubious authenticity. When there appears to be no corroborating material evidence (written records of such mundane things as taxes, revenue, treaties, inscriptions, etc; coinage, other artifacts), it's a bit preposterous to think that the king lists/puraaNas whatever need to be given any credibility. Back to Martin...

As historical scholarship has improved, one area after another on Earth has lost its proto-historical innocence and relegated the king lists to a position as sources on the royal propaganda of far later ages than they purport to treat. But this process isn't complete yet. A good paper...shows that China is finally beginning the necessary reevalutation. This is a painful process, as the current Chinese elite quite likes the idea of unbroken historical continuity way back into the Bronze Age.

Parallels with some of the Hindu revivalist types who seem to be able to back calculate from Narendra Modi to Nala, Nakula and Nahusha? A word of caution for us, we think. [A good separate post for the choultry or elsewhere would be the the Top 10 Myths About History Cherished By Indians, including such pfaff as the definitive authorship of the Arthashaastra, "Vedic" mathematics, "India" never invaded any country (Go Cho!) and so on.]

We have written about popular historiography and engineering before.

If history has made an appearance, can patriotism be far behind?

Gotcha.

The New England Patriots are apparently playing as though they are lving a dream. They didn't lose a game in their perfect season. This has been done once before by the Miami Dolphins, in 1972, but they had only 14(?) games then. If all goes well, they will win 3 more and duly pocket the Superbowl. They ought to. For those not in the know, the Pats this year are somewhat like the Australian team. Clinical in winning, with accusations of ( videotaping opposing coach's signals) and unsportsmanlike conduct (running up the score, or doing unto Washington what Achilles did to Hector or Dushasana(?) to Abhimanyu(?). Ludwig is a Macaulayite, he knows his Greek myth better than his Indian "history", and look at all that stuff he wrote about Indian history).

Who cares? Go Pats!

Politics.

Reporter to passerby: "Sir, sir. Why is it that more Americans don't participate in the electoral process, is it ignorance or apathy?"
Passerby: "I don't know and I don't care."

Teams

Which is about teams we've been following lately

This is apparently now business as usual.

These guys apparently lost by a whisker to these guys. Who gives a shit?

The Dynasty are in the process of whipping the aquatic mammals in the third quarter as we type this, and seem to be sublimely unbeatable.

He lost. But this might simply mean that He has used up His allotted quota of losses for next year, and will therefore win everything.

And finally, the only thing that really matters, and has mattered for the last couple of weeks, is what will happen to them? Hail Mary...

Pongal O' Pongal

Exhausted. Spent weekend running in circles around the harvest, chanting "pongalo pongal". Phew.

Not.

A hurriedly hatched trip to Belur, Halebid, and Malnad resulted this weekend. The surreal temples at Belur and Halebid were built during the reign of the Hoysala dynasty, in the early centuries of the second millenium A.D. During this time, they developed a style of art and architecture that was radically different. Some of the sculptures are stupendously intricate. That stone can be hewed and shaped into such 'relaxed complexity' is hard to believe.

The Narasimha (Halebid), for example, is lovingly embellished with such details as the intestines of poor Hiranyakashipu emerging from the slash in his belly, distinct punctures where N.'s talons hold H.'s legs and so on. These guys would've found some cool jobs in Hollywood. Not all of it is blood and gore, and it is evident that non-trivial amounts of thought and imagination seem to have gone into every figurine. After the temples, we drove out through Chickmangalur (via Joldal - again a Kenneth Anderson connection!) to the hills of Malnad. The evening, night and much of the next day were spent at Wood-Way Home Stay.


The bungalow itself was built by a European coffee planter on a hill slope. A large, cool, womb-ish, house. The vestiges of the coffee bean processing days are about the place - places for drying the beans, removing the pulp and so on. Also lawns, trees, swinging chairs etc. A ramble through the estate, learning the fascinating business of coffee, was followed by sitting on hill top and watching the sun go down over the Baba Budan Hills. At night beer, chicken, baked potatos, peanuts, campfire, moonlight, conversation. Dinner followed. Unbelievable. Vegetable biryani, chicken biryani, two kinds of veg curries, dal, a chicken curry, salad, fried bread with a third type of curry, rice, thayir, caramel custard. Unbelieveable. Santosh, who is the major domo type person at Wood-Way, is God. Don't tell anyone.


Then demented movie. Later, in the quiet of the night, the grounds were bathed in moonlight, a cool breeze blew over the valley, and the Trout Quintet playing softly. All cliches, but what to do? Next morning, we drove up to 'elephant head' hill. From this high place, you can see the distant hills of Kudremukh and the Bhadra Sanctuary, and catch sight of the resident serpent crested eagle, trying to find a helpful thermal. Pongal lunch followed, coffee (some of the best coffee ever) bags were packed, and then we rejoined the real world.

In other (shattering news), the Pats are out of the reckoning for another Superbowl title. Perhaps not a dynasty, after all? What a bummer of a year for the Red Sox and the Pats...Yuck.

Finally, EPW carries an interesting critique of the (draft?) National Rehabilitation Policy (for people displaced by projects such as dams, mines, steel plants etc.)

However, the clause that is the real give-away, that it is not even the intention of the policy to ensure that oustees will actually be given agricultural land to make their living, states that even this allotment of agricultural land or culturable waste is “subject to the availability of government land in the district”. Everybody, not least the government, is aware of the ground reality and non-availability of government land suitable for agriculture. Thus, the application of such a condition is intended to defeat the prospect of land-based rehabilitation from the outset. Why, for example, is there no provision for the purchase of irrigated agricultural land by the state government to compensate the oustees? Why is there no explicit provision for the acquisition of private agricultural lands in the irrigation command of the projects for the rehabilitation of the oustees, if the lands are being acquired for irrigation projects – small, medium or large? Especially, when this is a widely accepted principle for most State Displacement Acts, that those who benefit must share their gains with those who are losing their resources?