Musikkutho Muddulaadalaa?

Lyrikkule nenu paadalla?
Mikellu Jacksonnu blahblahblah...

Dr. Goebbels, I Presume?

It's hard to make up my mind whether this Iranian government video is funny or scary. Is this their equivalent of

Queue Cutters and Line Jumpers - A Taxonomy

A seminal work in the biological sciences field...

A Wednesday

Man.

I need to stop writing this serious stuff and let my hair down one of these days.

Indus Vali, Sugreeva And So On

Here

Posts

1. Upon My Word
2. Bangalored!

Check Out The Moves On That Kid

The kid being, yours truly. Read the below carefully. Several announcements of engrossing interest follow.

1. ACE 2009 is on, baby!! It's the 5^th edition. It's bigger. It's better. More teams, more media coverage, more everything. More kozhambu, damn it. Please participate in vast multitudes! See this too:



2. This blog is moving!!!!!!!! Sort of. Actually, it's trifurcating. This is a word normally found only in Indian Railways timetables. And with reference to places like Renigunta and Mughalsarai. Anyway, apparently, the key to becoming a famous blogger, is to know the right people. Thanks to such Beings, one part of the blog will now live on the Livemint website under the name Filter Coffee (we're looking for better names, yes.). Some new and rehashed posts are already up. This will contain the "serious" stuff. The insanity such as mythology, engineering, and sundry letters will continue here.

A second, and hitherto unsuspected facet of the Ludwigumbareshwari will occur on the company blog. This will mostly be about arcane Java and project management concepts. Be warned.

So that is move #1.

3. Move #2 is more corporeal. As the Livemint description says, "Ludwig Wittgenstein based out of Chennai blogs about science, literature, travel and culture." Yes, ladeej and jantalbhainses. Mayur Marg, Begumpet is filled with the cries of forlorn hornbills, even as the evil auto drivers of Venkatraman St., T. Nagar salivate. Lock, stock and barrel have been transplanted to salubrious Madras. The hapless denizens of Hyderabad need not fear. The lure of biryani and other such enticements will keep bringing us back. Hell, looks like work will keep bringing us back.

Dear silent Madrasi readers of this blog, hello. Nice to make your acquaintance. Feed me.

4. Yes, the move was a serious pain in the rear. Agarwal Packers broke my washing machine, and are refusing to cough up the insurance money. A pox on their house. Otherwise trying to settle down.

Watch these spaces. Lot's of excitement coming up. Prizes for all.

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.");
}

Pay Attention

Really. Pay attention.



Really.

Assorted Links

Seems to be a good day for random readings:

1. Genius: The Modern View - David Brooks finds out what goes into the making of genius.

...In the view that is now dominant, even Mozart’s early abilities were not the product of some innate spiritual gift. His early compositions were nothing special. They were pastiches of other people’s work. Mozart was a good musician at an early age, but he would not stand out among today’s top child-performers.

What Mozart had, we now believe, was the same thing Tiger Woods had — the ability to focus for long periods of time and a father intent on improving his skills. Mozart played a lot of piano at a very young age, so he got his 10,000 hours of practice in early and then he built from there...

2. Siddharth Varadarajan - Narendra Modi is unwilling even to apologize for the Gujarat massacres because neither religious India nor political India considers his involvement a liability.

En passant, he makes some interesting observations on daadi baaba and his oily sanctimoniousness. And finally mentions this chilling piece of news:

Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader L.K. Advani has written to over 1,000 religious leaders promising to consult them on all government policy matters if he were to lead the next government...

....Seeking the "support" of religious leaders, Mr. Advani ended the letter with a 'shastang namaskar' ("I greet you while prostrating before you") while promising them a "consultative mechanism" and adding that his government "would like religious establishments to play an important role in inculcating spiritual and patriotic values." He further promised cow protection, security of Ram Sethu, simplification of income tax exemption rules for religious institutions, outlawing of all religious conversion using fraudulent means, promotion of spiritual tourism and not allowing controversies like the one on land for the Amarnath Shrine Board.

Swedish visa, whither art thou?

3. What Makes Men Stupid - Apparently Robert Jensen thinks the list of things is countably finite. Ha ha. Anyway, a very very interesting account of a class Jensen was teaching in Islamabad follows. Via TheSouthAsianIdea Weblog.

4. Phantasmagoria offers belated Valentine's Day suggestions addressed to ex-es everywhere:

1) If you expect to stay 'friends', remember that there is no such thing. You will always be the ex. Even if you were friends before you were together. That doesn’t mean you can’t be friendly and civil and kind...
7) Even though as the ex you are entitled to imagine us naked, you don’t have to bring it up. That can be your own little dirty secret. Really. We don’t want to know...

The Return Of The Jedi

"We're back, we're going to whup the Higgs' ass." says a press release from CERN. Woohoo.

The Daily Show does a "scoop" on the LHC story.

The Particle Adventure - The Fundamentals of Matter and Force, seems to be a good source of basic info for the layperson.

See how small we are... (click on the picture to expand)

Distant Storm

Tucked away in the midst of the quotidian in today's newspaper, was an interesting picture. Is it our imagination, or is the Bay of Bengal fomenting a nice and juicy cyclone for Coromandel coast consumption?

We've spoken about the weather before at the Choultry, more specifically the obsession with cyclones and the monsoon, so we will not rinse and repeat the experiment. We merely wish to record that frissons were felt today at the prospect of a jolly good Force 10 style blow.

En passant, we quote 1 nos. sher from "Garam Hawa":

Jo door se kartein hain toofaan ka nazara,
Unke liye toofaan udhar bhi hai idhar bhi,
Beh jaoge jo dhaare mein to ban jaoge dhara,
Yeh waqt ka aayelaan udhar bhi hai idhar bhi

Travel Envy Rant

They are being insufferable all over the place. As suspected strongly.

I am sure at least 5 more posts will follow in approximately 13.76 picoseconds and those last 5 pathetic words can also be elevated to the ranks of hyperlinks.

Hmph.

Election Thoughts

Have seen Rakesh Sharma's documentary (with axe to grind, doubtless) "The Final Solution". Excerpt:



More available on YouTube, see the "Related Videos" link for the above.

The BJP variety of "cultural nationalism" is really vomit inducing, as these types of -isms tend to be. A sick vomit, full of sadness and despair. Lumps of undigested history, chunky and chewy; bile distilled from grievances real and imagined; all held together by a viscous, retch-inducing goo of misguided religion, "culture" and propaganda.

Unfortunately, we aren't flush with alternatives (even if almost anything is better).

Thank goodness for having grown up in Amherst, MA and Cambridge, MA, and to Hyderabad, AP for more recent epiphanies.

Today comes this. WTF is going on? Help.

Room With A View

These (more or less) used to be the views from my (corner) office (on the 13th floor of 5 Cambridge Center in 2003-2004.


View Larger Map







This is view from current office.


View Larger Map



O Fortuna
velut luna
statu variabilis,
semper crescis
aut decrescis;
vita detestabilis
nunc obdurat
et tunc curat
ludo mentis aciem,
egestatem,
potestatem
dissolvit ut glaciem.

This lament is more familiar to us from childhood TV ads with these lyrics, of course.

O-oooo-ld Sp-iiiiiiice
Old Spice,
Old Spice,
Old Spice,
OLD SPICE,
OLD SPICE,
Old Spice,
OLD SPICE,
O-ooooooo-ld Sp-iiiiiiice

Monsters Lynx

There be monsters here

A survey of monsters (i.e. blogspawn) has been in progress. Sample size: 2. Images highly grainy owing to cell phone.

I. Spaniard has already posted about her's. Since it is after all a Spaniard child, we should call him El Cid, neh? All we have to add is photos of Glide Airlines, with the founder excavating pasta and drinking beer ('ginger' silent) in the background.






Apparently the undercarriage of the contraption is vitally important for obscure aeronautical reasons or something, and had to be photographed.

II. Kenny of course owns original copyright on the "monster" label. We provide photographic evidence. Here are mother and child doing homework. Points for guessing which is which.



III. No monsters here, but certain readers will be aware of how mawkish we got on a train ride a couple of weeks back. Somewhere in Karnataka, this thunderstorm descended on us. It was quite spectacular.









This is a good time to think once again about that obscure piece by Khushwant Singh about rain in India.

European Literature

Came across Umberto Eco's most brilliant, but perhaps least known work about his frustrations with his grandfather clock. It's called 'Fuckall Pendulum'.

Hee hee.

Do You Have A Flag?

Have I ever told you about the Strange Maps blog? An source of endless diversion. The post that made me want to make sure that all and Sundari are informed about this blog is the latest one on maps fighting World War II. Absolutely brilliant.

The map fighting thing reminds me rather of the brilliant Izzard's flag video:



While we're at it, Abstruse Goose ROCKS!! Your inner physicist/programmer/mathematician will be thrilled to bits and bytes. Give it a gander (heh heh).

Here We Stand, We Can Do No Other

Randomness:

I. The Secret of Happiness

Surrender at the feet of the Lord.

Heh. Yeah, right.

If you're able to read this blog, you really don't have a reason to complain, do you? If you are Indian and reading this blog, you are one amongst the 5% or thereabouts who

(i) belongs to the right economic and social class
(ii) has the necessary level of education
(iii) has the right kinds of freedom (from gender-based and other discrimination)
(iv) has the luxury of time on your hands (and presumably full stomach, roof over head, iPod in armpit and so on)

So what, exactly, are you whining about (if you are in the whining trade, that is)? Take a look around, pick almost anyone on the street and odds are they are bearing burdens that make yours carry-on baggage. Think about it.

II. Really, There is No Help

No answers anywhere. The existentialists possibly had this one covered. Just deal. And see this video, it's quite refreshing for perspective.



III. The Really Important Stuff





Thanks to RamTek and Her Serpentine African Highness for the pointers.

Enjaai.

Public Service Announcements

Alive and well, pretty busy over the last week or so. Couple of things that may be of interest to public.

1. Ram uvaacha:

---

Dear All,

If you or your company can donate some old laptops (in working condition of course) to Puvidham it would be a lot of help. I have finally started using computers as part of the school here in Puvidham and I find it will be of use to the children in their learning process. We here at Puvidham are looking at computers as an additional tool (along with books) to help children learn better things like language, mathematics and science.

I am now embarking on a trial of the software created by Educational Initiatives called Mindspark which is a adaptive program to help children learn school mathematics better. Through interaction it is intelligent enough to pose appropriate problems to children. I view this program as an addition to the teacher's efforts so that children master mathematics. For this trial we need additional machines (currently we have only 3 computers in our school).

Why laptops?
a.. We need at least 7 machines to making the learning process meaningful (two students per machine for a class). The physical infrastructure needed in terms of space and rooms for setting up 7 machines is expensive. We can just put away the laptops in an almirah after use.

b.. Laptops are less power hungry and we don't have to worry about UPS etc. We in fact are planning to charge the laptops while they are stored in the almirah through solar power.

c.. Puvidham is not a dust free environment. It is difficult to maintain PCs. We plan to store the laptops in a dust free almirah (a steel cupboard).

Regards,
Ram.

---

2. K-Circle, ye olde venerable association of quizzers is hosting the full day K-Circle Quiz Fest on Saturday, 7 March 2009 at the Khemka Auditorium in ISB. It's apparently "Bigger, Tougher, Wittier". Readers will be aware that we are currently defending champions of the thing ;) but may or may not be around to defend titles. Visit KC website for details on timings, registrations etc.