Which is about a jugalbandi
Just got back from Sunday evening concert at the Ravindra Bharati. "Bombay" Jayashri Ramnath in the South corner, and Shubha Mudgal (who even has what seems to be a very up to date blog) in the North.
Now pretty much everyone knows that we have issues with frequencies in general. Cannot tell some in the visual spectrum apart, ditto also with audio frequencies. We have a very eclectic music taste, dipping into this, that and the other. Another way of saying the same thing is that we're tone deaf.
Be that as it may, Ms. Jayashri has long been on the "want to attend live performance" list, and so also Ms. Mudgal (perhaps just a little less, not having heard much beyond ab ke saawan). Tonight was a chance to remedy this, and it really was worth it. Both the ladies seem to have a base octave (or whatever) that is nicely lower than many of their higher pitched contemporaries, which is definitely one reason why we like them.
The whole Jayashri thing started off (perhaps like for most people) with that vaseegara song. This was to Jayashri what ennavale was to Unnikrishnan, and random sampling of more of her stuff resulted in much joy. Then we read Baradwaj Rangan's interview with her. She makes a point which possibly sets her apart from the rest of them.
Because down the ages, we’ve had it drummed into our heads that the essence of Hindustani music is shringara, love, while Carnatic compositions are capsules of bhakti, or devotion. And here’s Jayashri, implying otherwise. Or is she, really? "This is bhakti, but to the music – not to Krishna," she says. "We're not in an era where we're into that kind of bhakti. Because if it's just bhakti, and if it's just about Krishna or Rama, why would I – someone who doesn't come from a very religious or ritualistic background – revel in it? I don't think I love God more than I love music. Why would a European sitting there, who doesn't know the difference between Krishna and Rama, listen to this music for two hours? Why are instrumental concerts so popular? Do we know if the performer is playing a kriti in Kannada or Telugu, or if that kriti is talking about this lord or that deity? Our music is not about religion."
More power to you, lady. Mudgal's blog seems to be very interesting, isn't it great when someone like her has a post called Eeks! Look what I found! with a bare midriff picture of Rakhi Sawant?
Back to the concert: It was 90% good (there was one Hindi song that didn't quite fit too well). Aneesh Pradhan on the tabla and Embar S. Kannan (whom we've heard so often on Worldspace) on the violin, the mridangist and the haromniumist were all very nicely in sync, and seemed to sincerely enjoy the evening, which really helps. The percussion (oxymoron alert) jugalbandi tanniavartanam was a big hit with the audience, these things usually are.
They started off with saraswati namostute in saraswati raagam, did a kamaas/khamaaj thingy and so on. The bestest piece we thought was something called pAyum oLi nI enakku pArkkum/papiihara mat bol, very soulful and tragic. We can find the lyrics to the Tamizh song, but need the meaning. Can't find the Hindustani one anywhere. Help!!
A splendid time was had by all.
pAyum oLi nI enakku pArkkum vizhi nAn unakku tOyum madu nI enakku tumbiyaDi nAnunakku
vAyuraikka varugudillai vAzhi ninran mEnmaiyellAm tUya shuDar vAnoLiyE shUraiyamudE kaNNammA
2: vINaiyaDi nI enakku mEvum viral nAnunakku pUNum vaDam nI enakku pudu vayiram nAnunakku
kANumindOru ninran kaNNin oLi vIshudaDi mANuDaiya pErarashE vAzhvu nilaiyE kaNNammA
3: vAna mazhai nI enakku vaNNa mayil nAnunakku pAnamaDi nI enakku bhANDamaDi nAnunakku
jnAna oLI vIshudaDi nangai ninran jyOti mukham Unamaru nallazhagE Uru shuvaiyE kaNNammA
4: veNNIlavu nI enakku mEvu kaDal nAnunakku paNNU gati nI enakku pATTinimai nAnunakku
eNNi eNNI pArtiDilOr eNNamilai nin shuvaikkE kaNNin maNi pOnravaLE kaTTi amudE kaNNammA
5: vIshu kamazh nI enakku viriyu malar nAnunakku pEshu poruL nI enakku pENu mozhi nAnunakku
nEshamuLLa vAn shuDarE ninnazhagai EduraippEn Ashai madhuvE kaniyE aLLu shuvaiyE kaNNammA
6: kAdalaDi nI enakku kAntamaDi nAnunakku vEdamaDi nI enakku viddaiyaDi nAnunakku
bOdhamuTra pOdinilE pongi varum tIn-shuvaiyE nAda vaDivAnavaLE nalla uyirE kaNNammA
7: nalla uyir nI enakku nADiyaDi nAnunakku shelvamaDi nI enakku kSEma nidhi nAnunakku
ellaiyaTra pErazhagE engum nirai pork-kaDarE mullai nigar punnakaiyAi pOdum inbamE kaNNammA
8: tAraiyaDi nI enakku taNmatiyam nAnunakku vIramaDi nI enakku veTriyaDi nAnunakku
dAraNiyil vAnulagil shArndirukkum inbamellAm oruvarumAi samaindAi uLLamudE kaNNammA
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Friday, April 11, 2008
On The Road - Funda, The Fifth
More RaamaayaNaa, geekiness, no science (haven't had time to trough at the feeds), and so on
One more trip to Madras. Phew. Time to move? Not much this time by way of audio-visual media. Almost duffilled again, this time in Kavali. Completely forgot that the Madras-Tenali line is a double line, was blissfully waiting for the crossing train to cross, and wham, off she went. Made it back on board in one piece, as you can see. Almost slept all the way through to Hyderabad, luckily the pandemonium at Sec'bad was pandemoniacal.
This picture, of a tired Coromandel Express gliding into Central should soothe you.
.jpg)
The RaamaayaNa is suddenly all over the place. We pointed to one source in funda IV. We come back to find (via this Passion for Cinema post) that there's an animated movie called Mahayoddha Rama that's in the making apparently. The trailer shows a glimpse of what RaavaNa is going to look like. Most disappointing.
There seems to be (i.e. some (mostly North Indian) friends and acquaintances have told us) that this whole RaavaNa-as-a-sympathetic character is a figment of the loony Dravidian chauvinist fringe imagination. How then, to explain, that at least some of mainstream pauraNic Telugu cinema is very sympathetic to the dude? See any of the YouTube clips of Bhookailas, for example. RaavaNa is played by NTR, no less!
Or Falstaff's interpretation, more power to him. And also Nina Paley's (via Samanth).
In 2002, Nina Paley got dumped by her husband, over email. But instead of reaching for the nearest bottle of Prozac, Paley began to sketch. The result: Sita Sings the Blues, an animated retelling of the Ramayana and of Paley’s own break-up, set to the 1920s jazz of Annette Hanshaw.
...
I didn’t understand why my husband had dumped me, or why I still loved him and wanted him back, but apparently Valmiki was writing about such things 3,000 years ago.
The Hackszine has a post on "Relational database using jQuery and HTML tables" i.e. a relational database implementation (joins and all!) that runs inside a web browser thanks to HTML and some voodoo called jQuery! Seems wayy too cool.
There is a somewhat intimidating discussion going on at Space Bar's. Positively terrifying, actually. Wovon mann nicht sprechen kann and all. There's something about writing poetry in a programming language or something that caught the eye, and we beg to drag everyone's attention to Perl Poetry.
Jacob Cass has 2 fantastic posts (1, 2) about "Awe Inspiring Must See Creative Photographs".
Sepia Mutiny has been most interesting, lately. Ennis points us to the "Kenya sings *" series. For example, Kenya sings India, i.e. Jana Gana Mana. Absolutely fantastic to see a bunch of Kenyans give it a go. National anthems don't do much for us, seeing as we're horribly afraid of nationalism and patriotism, but this is somehow different.
Abhi writes about the Washington Post's much talked about Pearls Before Breakfast experiment (wasn't this on NPR some time back?). The idea:
Writer Gene Weingarten helped orchestrate a brilliant “stunt” on commuters passing through L’Enfant Plaza last January in order to take a stab at settling the debate above. He took one of the most gifted violin players in the world, dressed him up as a humble busker in jeans, and asked him to play his 3.5 million dollar violin on the metro platform. Who would recognize brilliance? Who would even stop?
Go on, read the whole thing. All sorts of questions about art and taste will emerge.
Abhi also has a post provocatively titled Don't let your desi mom read this post.
Especially if you are a smart, attractive, single desi woman.
...
Slate.com recently published, The Eligible-Bachelor Paradox, which makes use of game theory to explain why the best women often end up single and alone if they wait "too long" to get married.
Don't shoot the messenger.
We've either lost or lent out our copy of "A Poem at the Right Moment: Remembered Verses from Premodern South India".
:(
One more trip to Madras. Phew. Time to move? Not much this time by way of audio-visual media. Almost duffilled again, this time in Kavali. Completely forgot that the Madras-Tenali line is a double line, was blissfully waiting for the crossing train to cross, and wham, off she went. Made it back on board in one piece, as you can see. Almost slept all the way through to Hyderabad, luckily the pandemonium at Sec'bad was pandemoniacal.
This picture, of a tired Coromandel Express gliding into Central should soothe you.
.jpg)
The RaamaayaNa is suddenly all over the place. We pointed to one source in funda IV. We come back to find (via this Passion for Cinema post) that there's an animated movie called Mahayoddha Rama that's in the making apparently. The trailer shows a glimpse of what RaavaNa is going to look like. Most disappointing.
There seems to be (i.e. some (mostly North Indian) friends and acquaintances have told us) that this whole RaavaNa-as-a-sympathetic character is a figment of the loony Dravidian chauvinist fringe imagination. How then, to explain, that at least some of mainstream pauraNic Telugu cinema is very sympathetic to the dude? See any of the YouTube clips of Bhookailas, for example. RaavaNa is played by NTR, no less!
Or Falstaff's interpretation, more power to him. And also Nina Paley's (via Samanth).
In 2002, Nina Paley got dumped by her husband, over email. But instead of reaching for the nearest bottle of Prozac, Paley began to sketch. The result: Sita Sings the Blues, an animated retelling of the Ramayana and of Paley’s own break-up, set to the 1920s jazz of Annette Hanshaw.
...
I didn’t understand why my husband had dumped me, or why I still loved him and wanted him back, but apparently Valmiki was writing about such things 3,000 years ago.
The Hackszine has a post on "Relational database using jQuery and HTML tables" i.e. a relational database implementation (joins and all!) that runs inside a web browser thanks to HTML and some voodoo called jQuery! Seems wayy too cool.
There is a somewhat intimidating discussion going on at Space Bar's. Positively terrifying, actually. Wovon mann nicht sprechen kann and all. There's something about writing poetry in a programming language or something that caught the eye, and we beg to drag everyone's attention to Perl Poetry.
Jacob Cass has 2 fantastic posts (1, 2) about "Awe Inspiring Must See Creative Photographs".
Sepia Mutiny has been most interesting, lately. Ennis points us to the "Kenya sings *" series. For example, Kenya sings India, i.e. Jana Gana Mana. Absolutely fantastic to see a bunch of Kenyans give it a go. National anthems don't do much for us, seeing as we're horribly afraid of nationalism and patriotism, but this is somehow different.
Abhi writes about the Washington Post's much talked about Pearls Before Breakfast experiment (wasn't this on NPR some time back?). The idea:
Writer Gene Weingarten helped orchestrate a brilliant “stunt” on commuters passing through L’Enfant Plaza last January in order to take a stab at settling the debate above. He took one of the most gifted violin players in the world, dressed him up as a humble busker in jeans, and asked him to play his 3.5 million dollar violin on the metro platform. Who would recognize brilliance? Who would even stop?
Go on, read the whole thing. All sorts of questions about art and taste will emerge.
Abhi also has a post provocatively titled Don't let your desi mom read this post.
Especially if you are a smart, attractive, single desi woman.
...
Slate.com recently published, The Eligible-Bachelor Paradox, which makes use of game theory to explain why the best women often end up single and alone if they wait "too long" to get married.
Don't shoot the messenger.
We've either lost or lent out our copy of "A Poem at the Right Moment: Remembered Verses from Premodern South India".
:(
Monday, March 24, 2008
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.
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,
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.
Thursday, March 20, 2008
On The Road, Funda The Third
19-March-2008: Painted sign near Secunderabad station, "Entrance shifted to backside."
3 new albums + sundry other songs find their place in the iPod.
Hazaaron Khwaishien Aisi - for baavra mann (the qawwali version, and the woman singing version)
Metro - for the non-remixed songs, all of them
Phir Teri Kahaani Yaad Aayi - for old times sake, and for tere dar pe sanam and aane waala pal
Sundry - Mehdi Hasan (ek bas tuu hii nahin, Farhat Shahzad), Steely Dan (Reelin' In The Years), Simon & Garfunkel (Dangling Conversations - we're told it's bad form to reveal that you like this song, but WTF), Kalyug (tujhe dekh dekh hasna)
Among the things deleted to make way for all this, Def Leppard (Vault - everything except 'Pour Some Sugar On Me' and 'Let's Get Rocked')
1. Higginbothams and Book Point on Mount Road, Madras do not have poetry sections.
2. 4 bookshops in Madras don't have what is more or less considered to be a landmark in modern Tamil literature, neither in the original, nor in translation.
It rained.
Ominous coffee mug in Landmark, seen just before a reasonably important meeting:
"If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Then quit. There’s no point in being a damn fool about it." ~ W. C. Fields
Fuck.
PS Links will be added once the safety of the broadband pavilion is regained.
3 new albums + sundry other songs find their place in the iPod.
Hazaaron Khwaishien Aisi - for baavra mann (the qawwali version, and the woman singing version)
Metro - for the non-remixed songs, all of them
Phir Teri Kahaani Yaad Aayi - for old times sake, and for tere dar pe sanam and aane waala pal
Sundry - Mehdi Hasan (ek bas tuu hii nahin, Farhat Shahzad), Steely Dan (Reelin' In The Years), Simon & Garfunkel (Dangling Conversations - we're told it's bad form to reveal that you like this song, but WTF), Kalyug (tujhe dekh dekh hasna)
Among the things deleted to make way for all this, Def Leppard (Vault - everything except 'Pour Some Sugar On Me' and 'Let's Get Rocked')
1. Higginbothams and Book Point on Mount Road, Madras do not have poetry sections.
2. 4 bookshops in Madras don't have what is more or less considered to be a landmark in modern Tamil literature, neither in the original, nor in translation.
It rained.
Ominous coffee mug in Landmark, seen just before a reasonably important meeting:
"If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Then quit. There’s no point in being a damn fool about it." ~ W. C. Fields
Fuck.
PS Links will be added once the safety of the broadband pavilion is regained.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Lynx Orgy
In which no animals were subjected to violence, cruelty, or other indignities in the making of the post
Since writing original content is so difficult (although a seminal work on the psychoanalysis of pigeons is lurking beneath the surface), we will make do with more links, in no particular order.
News
Our politicians are all getting their knickers in a twist about Sarabjit Singh's impending execution. In particular, it is disgusting that this lot want Sarabjit let off. This is more or less the same lot that has been baying for Mohammad Afzal's blood, even if that case is like a colander. Indeed, no less than the worthies of our venerable Supreme Court think that "The collective conscience of the society will only be satisfied if the capital punishment is awarded to the offender."
Shame, shame, puppy shame. The death penalty is wrong.
Economics
The S.J.Dubner and S.D.Levitt, authors of Freaknomics have a blog at the New York Times. In their latest post, they point you to a video on The "Colbear" Report where the main man himself speaks with Sudhir Venkatesh about his (Sudhir's) experiences as a Gang Leader for a Day: A Rogue Sociologist Takes to the Streets. Venkatesh spent time living with Chicago gangs to understand among other things what makes someone risk their lives and limbs for a minimum wage job. Fascinating stuff.
Teaching
Via Chaotic Utopia, we are led to the Questionaut, an educational game.
The game begins with two friends lazily lounging on a tiny pastoral planet. As you click around and explore, you’ll set off little chain reactions. One of these will lead to one of the friend’s hat being blown away. The other friend promptly chases after it in his hot air balloon. Now, this is where you come in. The little aeronaut needs enough hot air to keep the balloon lifting. As he reaches new levels, he’ll find himself stuck in different environments. The only way to move on is to catch the attention of the local residents. Once they notice the little guy, they’ll start asking a series of questions in areas we ought to all know: geometry, physics, English, biology, and much more. If you answer correctly, they’ll give the balloon a lift.
Utterly delightful and very cute. The audio effects rock! Stage 3 has desi elevator music and all! A must if you were ever a child, or have one of those things yourself.
Books
Forgotten Books, forgotten no more.
Welcome to ForgottenBooks.org! From here you can read thousands of books FREE online (100% viewable) and purchase the books you like as high-quality paperbacks at wholesale prices.
We specialize in historical writings, this includes works such as: classical fiction, philosophy, science, religion, folklore, mythology and sacred texts, in addition to secret and esoteric subjects, such as: occult, freemasonry, alchemy, hermetic and ancient knowledge. Fiction and non-fiction books.
Early days, but promising. Random browsing unearthed "A Christmas Carol" (Dickens), "A Textbook of Theosophy" (Leadbeater), "The Nicomachean Ethics" (Aristotle), "Beowulf", "The Code of Hammurabi" and so on.
Software
The sometimes controversial but always readable Joel Spolsky predicts war.
You’re about to see the mother of all flamewars on internet groups where web developers hang out. It’ll make the Battle of Stalingrad look like that time your sister-in-law stormed out of afternoon tea at your grandmother’s and wrapped the Mustang around a tree.
Strictly for geeks, this is about browsers and standards (or lack thereof).
Music
Some people write fugues. This fellow, for example wrote some passable ones, and made a name for himself. Art of Fugue is very nice we've always thought, especially after Vikram used it so lovelily in An Equal Music.
There is no forced gravitas in her playing. It is a beauty beyond imagining - clear, lovely, inexorable, phrase across phrase, phrase echoing phrase, the incomplete, the unending "Art of Fugue". It is an equal music.
...
I push through the crowded lobby into the rain. I walk a long while, through the streets, the darkness of the park. Once more I stand by the Serpentine. The rain has washed my earlier tears away.
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.
Fugues feature prominently in Gödel, Escher, Bach, and lately we find that this worthy has also begun fugifying.
So, off we went on the Wikipedia-Youtube circuit, in the manner of Esmeralda after truffles and here is what we've uncovered.
Glenn Gould talks about "Art of Fugue". He even plays several of them (this one for example). But the most entertaining introduction to fugue, after you've done your Wikipedia and other due diligence, is to be found in this video. It is splendid! How to write a fugue using Britney Spears' "Oops I Did It Again". Fundastic. So you want to write a fugue? along similar lines is also immensely entertaining.
En passant, we alight on hot woman violinist play "Toccata and Fugue in D minor". What's to not like?
Theology
The Official God FAQ is now available, and pretty much bang on target.
Since writing original content is so difficult (although a seminal work on the psychoanalysis of pigeons is lurking beneath the surface), we will make do with more links, in no particular order.
News
Our politicians are all getting their knickers in a twist about Sarabjit Singh's impending execution. In particular, it is disgusting that this lot want Sarabjit let off. This is more or less the same lot that has been baying for Mohammad Afzal's blood, even if that case is like a colander. Indeed, no less than the worthies of our venerable Supreme Court think that "The collective conscience of the society will only be satisfied if the capital punishment is awarded to the offender."
Shame, shame, puppy shame. The death penalty is wrong.
Economics
The S.J.Dubner and S.D.Levitt, authors of Freaknomics have a blog at the New York Times. In their latest post, they point you to a video on The "Colbear" Report where the main man himself speaks with Sudhir Venkatesh about his (Sudhir's) experiences as a Gang Leader for a Day: A Rogue Sociologist Takes to the Streets. Venkatesh spent time living with Chicago gangs to understand among other things what makes someone risk their lives and limbs for a minimum wage job. Fascinating stuff.
Teaching
Via Chaotic Utopia, we are led to the Questionaut, an educational game.
The game begins with two friends lazily lounging on a tiny pastoral planet. As you click around and explore, you’ll set off little chain reactions. One of these will lead to one of the friend’s hat being blown away. The other friend promptly chases after it in his hot air balloon. Now, this is where you come in. The little aeronaut needs enough hot air to keep the balloon lifting. As he reaches new levels, he’ll find himself stuck in different environments. The only way to move on is to catch the attention of the local residents. Once they notice the little guy, they’ll start asking a series of questions in areas we ought to all know: geometry, physics, English, biology, and much more. If you answer correctly, they’ll give the balloon a lift.
Utterly delightful and very cute. The audio effects rock! Stage 3 has desi elevator music and all! A must if you were ever a child, or have one of those things yourself.
Books
Forgotten Books, forgotten no more.
Welcome to ForgottenBooks.org! From here you can read thousands of books FREE online (100% viewable) and purchase the books you like as high-quality paperbacks at wholesale prices.
We specialize in historical writings, this includes works such as: classical fiction, philosophy, science, religion, folklore, mythology and sacred texts, in addition to secret and esoteric subjects, such as: occult, freemasonry, alchemy, hermetic and ancient knowledge. Fiction and non-fiction books.
Early days, but promising. Random browsing unearthed "A Christmas Carol" (Dickens), "A Textbook of Theosophy" (Leadbeater), "The Nicomachean Ethics" (Aristotle), "Beowulf", "The Code of Hammurabi" and so on.
Software
The sometimes controversial but always readable Joel Spolsky predicts war.
You’re about to see the mother of all flamewars on internet groups where web developers hang out. It’ll make the Battle of Stalingrad look like that time your sister-in-law stormed out of afternoon tea at your grandmother’s and wrapped the Mustang around a tree.
Strictly for geeks, this is about browsers and standards (or lack thereof).
Music
Some people write fugues. This fellow, for example wrote some passable ones, and made a name for himself. Art of Fugue is very nice we've always thought, especially after Vikram used it so lovelily in An Equal Music.
There is no forced gravitas in her playing. It is a beauty beyond imagining - clear, lovely, inexorable, phrase across phrase, phrase echoing phrase, the incomplete, the unending "Art of Fugue". It is an equal music.
...
I push through the crowded lobby into the rain. I walk a long while, through the streets, the darkness of the park. Once more I stand by the Serpentine. The rain has washed my earlier tears away.
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.
Fugues feature prominently in Gödel, Escher, Bach, and lately we find that this worthy has also begun fugifying.
So, off we went on the Wikipedia-Youtube circuit, in the manner of Esmeralda after truffles and here is what we've uncovered.
Glenn Gould talks about "Art of Fugue". He even plays several of them (this one for example). But the most entertaining introduction to fugue, after you've done your Wikipedia and other due diligence, is to be found in this video. It is splendid! How to write a fugue using Britney Spears' "Oops I Did It Again". Fundastic. So you want to write a fugue? along similar lines is also immensely entertaining.
En passant, we alight on hot woman violinist play "Toccata and Fugue in D minor". What's to not like?
Theology
The Official God FAQ is now available, and pretty much bang on target.
Friday, March 14, 2008
On The Road - Funda, The Second
Which is a random roundup of the peregrinations including weddings, campuses, fundamental problems, poultry farms, Satyajit Ray, and how we were almost duffilled
It is a very bad thing to have 200+ blogs in your feed reader, and to go away for 10 days. Had to wade through industrial quantities of posts to clear up the queue somewhat, and the whole "science" category is still waiting...
While we're at it, random facts about the trip. Circuit was Hyderabad-Vizag-Madras-Bangalore-Hyderabad.
In Vizag, went to one wedding and one wedding reception. The wedding was huge. Groom was a hostel mate, and bride happened to be daughter of a Member of Parliament. The entire playground of a Zilla Parishad high school had been commandeered, partitioned in two, and what looked like the whole constituency was invited to the party.
There was a live band ("the Young Stars from downtown Amadalavalasa, Srikakulam Dt."), CCTV cameras monitoring the hordes, fireworks (some exploding dangerously close to the car park), and screens showing videos of the engagement ceremony. Somehow made way through the throng, blessed happy couple, gorged, and scooted out.
The reception was altogether more low key, walking distance from home, and relatively more peaceful and quieter. Alas, had to scoot out early thanks to being self-assigned driver to 2 of the spunkiest little girls in existence. The bride claims that she has no memory of our blessings! Cheating...
5k run on the bestestestest stretch of runnable road in the world (i.e. the esplanade at Vizag), 2 cricket matches, and we were off to Madras on the Guwahati-Bangalore Exp. The train was crawling with people from the northeast. Almost felt apologetic about having to disturb the community atmosphere on board. Nevertheless, bravely soldiered onto upper berth, and got some work done (i.e. played Tetris until the battery ran out on the laptop).
Rajahmundhry happened in the evening, and we stood at the open compartment door, ogling at the splendiferous Godavari, feeling very superior to the northeasties, seeing as it is the longest rail bridge in India and all. Then remembered that where these folks come from, they have a river that is so wide that it's probably impossible to build a bridge across it. At this point, Ludwig saw the approach of Kovvuru and discreetly fell silent.
Madras was a blur of meetings and greetings, including some quality time in ye olde campus. Hung out at the swank Coffee Day that has sprung up next to the old library, and was scandalized by a couple of students coochie-cooing in the middle of the afternoon. Since when? My God, this is the campus where our class of 360 had 20 girls (and that was a record high), where the general algorithm was "boy treats, boy treats, boy treats, boy retreats". What's with the PDA?!! Bah.
The Bangalore train trip was supremely interesting, because we were set upon by one gentleman, who happens to be the head priest at the Andal temple in Srivilliputhur. Said gentleman cornered us as we stood near the door per usual, and launched into a long diatribe against various ills in the world. Much of it was in Kameswaran (of Michael Madana Kama Rajan fame) lingo, and somewhat unparseable.
From Bangalore, scooted by bus to Puvidham where Gaseous Beyondus teaches nowadays. Fundastic place, photos follow. Did some walking, birding, astronomy 101, eating, and lazing about. Some fundamental problems were discussed, including:
* How to teach a child about why negative multiplied by negative is a positive? A related question was why the hell do we need negative numbers? No satisfactory answers.
* What is the fundamental difference between conventional (allopathic) medicine and complementary and alternative medicine (homeo, siddha etc.)? Does it matter?
* Will olives grow in Dharmapuri?
* What are the key differences between amphibians and reptiles?
And so on... As you can see, we were very jobless.
Drove back to Bangalore, met the pink person for an altogether too brief coffee and discussion on chicken and egg problems, and municipal porcine management, borrowed and watched "Snatch" and "Farewell, My Concubine", celebrated the sibling's 30th b'day by having a suitable sombre wake, watched "Aranyer Din Ratri" the next day, and caught the Kacheguda Express back home.
The side upper berth effectively prevented all sleep, so in the middle of the night when the train stopped in some forsaken town, we got off and were stretching our legs. Thanks to iPod booming in ear canal, didn't hear the train whistle, didn't hear the rattle of couplings being jolted out of stasis, and the next thing we knew, the bloody thing was on its way. A very small sprint and nimble, gazelle-ish leap later, we were thankfully back in the confines of S1. Reminded very forcefully of Paul Theroux's "The Great Railway Bazaar" where a certain sad old individual named Duffill is stranded on some obscure Italian railway platform as the Orient Express buggers off, thereby leading to the word duffilled entering the vocabulary.
Back in Hyderabad at a ghoulish 5:30 a.m., and promptly fell back into our cheapskate ways by taking the MMTS from Kacheguda to Begumpet and walking home, instead of taking an auto. What to do, public transport ki jai!
Rebooted home. Defrosted fridge. Got the whole dosai batter thing going. And here we are...
“A beginning is a time for taking the most delicate care that the balances are correct”
- Bene Gesserit coda, "Dune", Frank Herber
It is a very bad thing to have 200+ blogs in your feed reader, and to go away for 10 days. Had to wade through industrial quantities of posts to clear up the queue somewhat, and the whole "science" category is still waiting...
While we're at it, random facts about the trip. Circuit was Hyderabad-Vizag-Madras-Bangalore-Hyderabad.
In Vizag, went to one wedding and one wedding reception. The wedding was huge. Groom was a hostel mate, and bride happened to be daughter of a Member of Parliament. The entire playground of a Zilla Parishad high school had been commandeered, partitioned in two, and what looked like the whole constituency was invited to the party.
There was a live band ("the Young Stars from downtown Amadalavalasa, Srikakulam Dt."), CCTV cameras monitoring the hordes, fireworks (some exploding dangerously close to the car park), and screens showing videos of the engagement ceremony. Somehow made way through the throng, blessed happy couple, gorged, and scooted out.
The reception was altogether more low key, walking distance from home, and relatively more peaceful and quieter. Alas, had to scoot out early thanks to being self-assigned driver to 2 of the spunkiest little girls in existence. The bride claims that she has no memory of our blessings! Cheating...
5k run on the bestestestest stretch of runnable road in the world (i.e. the esplanade at Vizag), 2 cricket matches, and we were off to Madras on the Guwahati-Bangalore Exp. The train was crawling with people from the northeast. Almost felt apologetic about having to disturb the community atmosphere on board. Nevertheless, bravely soldiered onto upper berth, and got some work done (i.e. played Tetris until the battery ran out on the laptop).
Rajahmundhry happened in the evening, and we stood at the open compartment door, ogling at the splendiferous Godavari, feeling very superior to the northeasties, seeing as it is the longest rail bridge in India and all. Then remembered that where these folks come from, they have a river that is so wide that it's probably impossible to build a bridge across it. At this point, Ludwig saw the approach of Kovvuru and discreetly fell silent.
Madras was a blur of meetings and greetings, including some quality time in ye olde campus. Hung out at the swank Coffee Day that has sprung up next to the old library, and was scandalized by a couple of students coochie-cooing in the middle of the afternoon. Since when? My God, this is the campus where our class of 360 had 20 girls (and that was a record high), where the general algorithm was "boy treats, boy treats, boy treats, boy retreats". What's with the PDA?!! Bah.
The Bangalore train trip was supremely interesting, because we were set upon by one gentleman, who happens to be the head priest at the Andal temple in Srivilliputhur. Said gentleman cornered us as we stood near the door per usual, and launched into a long diatribe against various ills in the world. Much of it was in Kameswaran (of Michael Madana Kama Rajan fame) lingo, and somewhat unparseable.
From Bangalore, scooted by bus to Puvidham where Gaseous Beyondus teaches nowadays. Fundastic place, photos follow. Did some walking, birding, astronomy 101, eating, and lazing about. Some fundamental problems were discussed, including:
* How to teach a child about why negative multiplied by negative is a positive? A related question was why the hell do we need negative numbers? No satisfactory answers.
* What is the fundamental difference between conventional (allopathic) medicine and complementary and alternative medicine (homeo, siddha etc.)? Does it matter?
* Will olives grow in Dharmapuri?
* What are the key differences between amphibians and reptiles?
And so on... As you can see, we were very jobless.
Drove back to Bangalore, met the pink person for an altogether too brief coffee and discussion on chicken and egg problems, and municipal porcine management, borrowed and watched "Snatch" and "Farewell, My Concubine", celebrated the sibling's 30th b'day by having a suitable sombre wake, watched "Aranyer Din Ratri" the next day, and caught the Kacheguda Express back home.
The side upper berth effectively prevented all sleep, so in the middle of the night when the train stopped in some forsaken town, we got off and were stretching our legs. Thanks to iPod booming in ear canal, didn't hear the train whistle, didn't hear the rattle of couplings being jolted out of stasis, and the next thing we knew, the bloody thing was on its way. A very small sprint and nimble, gazelle-ish leap later, we were thankfully back in the confines of S1. Reminded very forcefully of Paul Theroux's "The Great Railway Bazaar" where a certain sad old individual named Duffill is stranded on some obscure Italian railway platform as the Orient Express buggers off, thereby leading to the word duffilled entering the vocabulary.
Back in Hyderabad at a ghoulish 5:30 a.m., and promptly fell back into our cheapskate ways by taking the MMTS from Kacheguda to Begumpet and walking home, instead of taking an auto. What to do, public transport ki jai!
Rebooted home. Defrosted fridge. Got the whole dosai batter thing going. And here we are...
“A beginning is a time for taking the most delicate care that the balances are correct”
- Bene Gesserit coda, "Dune", Frank Herber
Monday, March 03, 2008
On The Road - Funda, The First
Which was sparked by a reverie on Falaknuma Express
Long time, no sunset from sleeper class. Friday, between Secunderabad and Guntur, was unspeakably gorgeous. Sun, gold, rocks, water, egrets, fields, stone, blues.
Don't just do something. Sit there.
Long time, no sunset from sleeper class. Friday, between Secunderabad and Guntur, was unspeakably gorgeous. Sun, gold, rocks, water, egrets, fields, stone, blues.
Don't just do something. Sit there.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
The God Particle And Why It Might Be OK For Languages To Die
Physics rocks, and other stuff
National Geographic has a very nice piece on the Large Hadron Collider and the quest for the God particle. Links to one page summaries of the Higgs boson are here.
Quote from the National Geographic piece:
And anyone who thinks these big machines are soulless contraptions should listen to Richard Jacobsson. The LHC is replacing a particle detector he worked with for a decade. He came to know every inch of that instrument. He understood its moods and idiosyncrasies. The day the engineers came to rip it out, Jacobsson was overcome with emotion. "I had tears in my eyes," he said. "When they cut the cables, I thought blood would flow out." Now entire lives are wrapped up in the new machine, which physicists have been dreaming about since the 1980s.
Thank goodness we still live in a world where a physicist wells up when his particle accelerator is dismembered. Some hope remains.
In other news, the excellent Language Log has Geoffrey Pullum's review of a review. A Professor Ronald Butters reviews Language in the USA (ed. by Edward Finegan and John Rickford, CUP, 2004) and "...he seems to be fed up with being pushed around by language-loving sentimentalists." Pullum:
Ever want to see some liberal diversity-loving multi-culti-lefty linguists get slapped about a bit, just so they could taste some of their own medicine? This review is for you!
...
In short, widespread faith in the ideal of linguistic and cultural assimilation should — especially in a democracy — be treated with respect and considered thoughtfully, not snapped at as if it were ignorant bigotry.
Lately, there have been many reports in many places (including NPR) about languages that have been dying out, mostly Native American/indigenous dialects.
An odd coincidence is that in the week that this issue of Language reached me, the obituary of the week in The Economist (February 9th) was about Marie Smith, the last speaker of the now extinct language Eyak. But far from echoing anything like the tough-minded what-economic-benefit thinking that Butters alludes to, the Economist obituarist's discussion of the Eyak language, though well-written and interesting, is entirely devoted to sentimental musing about its many words for trees and roots and spruce needles and resin and abalone and nets and mixing bowls, and the way the word for "leaf" was the same as the word for "feather", as if that were the crucial thing we needed linguistic diversity for.
There's a meta-review of the meta-review here.
National Geographic has a very nice piece on the Large Hadron Collider and the quest for the God particle. Links to one page summaries of the Higgs boson are here.
Quote from the National Geographic piece:
And anyone who thinks these big machines are soulless contraptions should listen to Richard Jacobsson. The LHC is replacing a particle detector he worked with for a decade. He came to know every inch of that instrument. He understood its moods and idiosyncrasies. The day the engineers came to rip it out, Jacobsson was overcome with emotion. "I had tears in my eyes," he said. "When they cut the cables, I thought blood would flow out." Now entire lives are wrapped up in the new machine, which physicists have been dreaming about since the 1980s.
Thank goodness we still live in a world where a physicist wells up when his particle accelerator is dismembered. Some hope remains.
In other news, the excellent Language Log has Geoffrey Pullum's review of a review. A Professor Ronald Butters reviews Language in the USA (ed. by Edward Finegan and John Rickford, CUP, 2004) and "...he seems to be fed up with being pushed around by language-loving sentimentalists." Pullum:
Ever want to see some liberal diversity-loving multi-culti-lefty linguists get slapped about a bit, just so they could taste some of their own medicine? This review is for you!
...
In short, widespread faith in the ideal of linguistic and cultural assimilation should — especially in a democracy — be treated with respect and considered thoughtfully, not snapped at as if it were ignorant bigotry.
Lately, there have been many reports in many places (including NPR) about languages that have been dying out, mostly Native American/indigenous dialects.
An odd coincidence is that in the week that this issue of Language reached me, the obituary of the week in The Economist (February 9th) was about Marie Smith, the last speaker of the now extinct language Eyak. But far from echoing anything like the tough-minded what-economic-benefit thinking that Butters alludes to, the Economist obituarist's discussion of the Eyak language, though well-written and interesting, is entirely devoted to sentimental musing about its many words for trees and roots and spruce needles and resin and abalone and nets and mixing bowls, and the way the word for "leaf" was the same as the word for "feather", as if that were the crucial thing we needed linguistic diversity for.
There's a meta-review of the meta-review here.
Friday, February 22, 2008
Death By RSS
Where we're actually referring to Really Simple Syndication, not that the other RSS is much better
We came to feed reading quite late, we will blame Space Bar for telling us about it and convincing us that it wasn't too hard. So now we have 200 (200!) subscriptions classified into
Business (26)
Design (3)
Movies (12)
Personal (61)
Policy-type-stuff (23)
Quizzing (7)
Science (28)
Software-dev (39)
Stuff (10)
Technology (13)
Writing (10)
Please don't add the numbers and say the sum is > 200, some feeds count in more than one category. Also, the above is the most ridiculous possible classification, need to get more fine-grained ("Sports", "Politics", "Literature", "Arts", "Science", "History" etc.)
By far the most prolific feed is from the GWT Google Group. Don't ask why. Basically every message that gets posted there shows up, >200 per day.
Second, and definitely a candidate for favourite is ScienceBlogs Select feed. Possibly Brad DeLong's is third, although more often than not we don't understand/don't have the time for the stuff there.
So a random sample of interesting things that the feed reader has delivered over the last couple of days:
Conservative physicist and climate change skeptic Luboš Motl on How to Disprove Spoon Bending. Valuable in itself for a description of what it means to be scientific, it leads us to two other very readable articles, one on telekinesis and the other on What I Believe But Cannot Prove at Cosmic Variance, the group blog of a bunch of physicists and astrophysicists. The second post is really very, very useful and worth reading end-to-end and quoting from. The temptation to quote wholesale is overwhelming, but we will cease and desist. But do read the post. In passing, it will lead you to the Edge Question Center which every year asks an interesting question (What have you changed your mind about? Why? in 2007) to a bunch of interesting people (scientists, philosophers, mathematicians etc.) Hours and hours of browsing beckon...
Anand Giridhardas has a post (via Sepia Mutiny?) with a little documentary about how technology is making some professions disappear.
On the lighter side, here's a page whose sole commodity is photos of people proving mathematical theorems in sarongs (though many of the provers simply have the sarong wrapped around their shoulders, which is a clear violation of the Geneva Convention). Side splitting. On similar lines, 41 Hilarious Science Fair Experiments and they're really hilarious ("Crystal Meth. Friend or foe?", "Eww", "Fat man to Mars")!
Kufr should really be on your bookmarks list. He/she has a way of putting things across that cuts through the bovine ordure, smacks you in the face, and grabs your attention wholeheartedly. Fluidity of the Cesspool is one such ("once upon a time, not so long ago, educated hindus found a handy teddy bear in the theory of sanskritization. if a jati can move up the hierarchy by shedding its old, ugly customs and beliefs and adopting sanskritic mores, the caste system can't be so bad, right?...") There are many more.
Via the Delhiwalla, we hear about a Pakistani blogger who shares a name with a very famous poet.
Abel Pharmboy liveblogs his vasectomy, we kid you not. "doc started asking about workplace. told him about [controversial proprietary work] not being popular - he was not amused and asks why anyone is opposed to such a thing. man has now exposed my vas deferens and is cutting it. I will not argue."
What would "Stairway to Heaven" sound/look like, if "The Beatles" did it? Pretty catchily awesome, actually!
And Richard Dawkins tells us that one of evolutions missing links has been found in the Sydney Harbour.
We came to feed reading quite late, we will blame Space Bar for telling us about it and convincing us that it wasn't too hard. So now we have 200 (200!) subscriptions classified into
Business (26)
Design (3)
Movies (12)
Personal (61)
Policy-type-stuff (23)
Quizzing (7)
Science (28)
Software-dev (39)
Stuff (10)
Technology (13)
Writing (10)
Please don't add the numbers and say the sum is > 200, some feeds count in more than one category. Also, the above is the most ridiculous possible classification, need to get more fine-grained ("Sports", "Politics", "Literature", "Arts", "Science", "History" etc.)
By far the most prolific feed is from the GWT Google Group. Don't ask why. Basically every message that gets posted there shows up, >200 per day.
Second, and definitely a candidate for favourite is ScienceBlogs Select feed. Possibly Brad DeLong's is third, although more often than not we don't understand/don't have the time for the stuff there.
So a random sample of interesting things that the feed reader has delivered over the last couple of days:
Conservative physicist and climate change skeptic Luboš Motl on How to Disprove Spoon Bending. Valuable in itself for a description of what it means to be scientific, it leads us to two other very readable articles, one on telekinesis and the other on What I Believe But Cannot Prove at Cosmic Variance, the group blog of a bunch of physicists and astrophysicists. The second post is really very, very useful and worth reading end-to-end and quoting from. The temptation to quote wholesale is overwhelming, but we will cease and desist. But do read the post. In passing, it will lead you to the Edge Question Center which every year asks an interesting question (What have you changed your mind about? Why? in 2007) to a bunch of interesting people (scientists, philosophers, mathematicians etc.) Hours and hours of browsing beckon...
Anand Giridhardas has a post (via Sepia Mutiny?) with a little documentary about how technology is making some professions disappear.
On the lighter side, here's a page whose sole commodity is photos of people proving mathematical theorems in sarongs (though many of the provers simply have the sarong wrapped around their shoulders, which is a clear violation of the Geneva Convention). Side splitting. On similar lines, 41 Hilarious Science Fair Experiments and they're really hilarious ("Crystal Meth. Friend or foe?", "Eww", "Fat man to Mars")!
Kufr should really be on your bookmarks list. He/she has a way of putting things across that cuts through the bovine ordure, smacks you in the face, and grabs your attention wholeheartedly. Fluidity of the Cesspool is one such ("once upon a time, not so long ago, educated hindus found a handy teddy bear in the theory of sanskritization. if a jati can move up the hierarchy by shedding its old, ugly customs and beliefs and adopting sanskritic mores, the caste system can't be so bad, right?...") There are many more.
Via the Delhiwalla, we hear about a Pakistani blogger who shares a name with a very famous poet.
Abel Pharmboy liveblogs his vasectomy, we kid you not. "doc started asking about workplace. told him about [controversial proprietary work] not being popular - he was not amused and asks why anyone is opposed to such a thing. man has now exposed my vas deferens and is cutting it. I will not argue."
What would "Stairway to Heaven" sound/look like, if "The Beatles" did it? Pretty catchily awesome, actually!
And Richard Dawkins tells us that one of evolutions missing links has been found in the Sydney Harbour.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
5 Best Post 1990 "Mainstream" Hindi Movies
Where we return to the fine art of list making
A few hours back, we (= TheEnlightened One Formerly Known As Prince Nitwit, Teen Shark, Jamadagni, Ludwig) had dinner. The food took forever to arrive, and if it wasn't for the engrossing subject we picked, we would've happily strangled the wait staff. A sincere attempt was made to list down the top 5 post 1990 "mainstream" Hindi movies. The rules were simple.
1. Everyone had to have seen the flick.
2. Simple majority needed at a minimum to make the cut.
And the winners (in chronological order) are [fanfare...]
Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar (1992)
Andaz Apna Apna (1994)
Dil Chahta Hai (2001)
Company (2002)
Munnabhai MBBS (2003) - A bit of a con here: We all liked both movies, and picked one, it's like The Return of the King getting Oscars for all the trilogy.
We were unanimous on these, as in all of us agreed that we couldn't think of anything better. Three of us were really keen on Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi (2003), but it was torpedoed by the Teen Shark because he didn't like it, and because it isn't really all that "mainstream".
Other mainstream contenders that were considered briefly but didn't rise into the top 5 - Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa (1993), Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge (1995), Rangeela (1995), Gupt (1997), Dil Se... (1998), Satya (1998), Lagaan (2001), Main Hoon Na (2004), Lakshya (2004), Chak De! India (2007). Mainly because that the Chosen 5 are all individually arguably better (for various reasons which we could elaborate on, if someone is interested) than all of these ones. Unfortunately for him, this means that SRK narrowly misses getting into the top 5.
Darr (1995) and Kaho Naaa... Pyaar Hai (2001) were also considered, but all of us had not seen it.
Maqbool (2003), Omkara (2006), Iqbal (2005), Johnny Gaddaar (2007), and the good Nagesh Kukkonoor movies weren't mainstream enough. Hera Pheri (2000), Raincoat (2004) and Dor (2006) were remakes/derivative (although Shakesepare and older was allowed) and missed out.
Points to note in the main list
1. No Shah Rukh
2. No Madhuri (My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains my sense...)
3. No Amitabh
4. No Mani Ratnam
5. No Govinda (My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains my sense...)
6. Salman gets a back door entry
7. Aamir is all over the place
8. 1994-2000 was very dreary
What say, vox populi? Fair? What did we miss out?
A few hours back, we (= The
1. Everyone had to have seen the flick.
2. Simple majority needed at a minimum to make the cut.
And the winners (in chronological order) are [fanfare...]
Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar (1992)
Andaz Apna Apna (1994)
Dil Chahta Hai (2001)
Company (2002)
Munnabhai MBBS (2003) - A bit of a con here: We all liked both movies, and picked one, it's like The Return of the King getting Oscars for all the trilogy.
We were unanimous on these, as in all of us agreed that we couldn't think of anything better. Three of us were really keen on Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi (2003), but it was torpedoed by the Teen Shark because he didn't like it, and because it isn't really all that "mainstream".
Other mainstream contenders that were considered briefly but didn't rise into the top 5 - Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa (1993), Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge (1995), Rangeela (1995), Gupt (1997), Dil Se... (1998), Satya (1998), Lagaan (2001), Main Hoon Na (2004), Lakshya (2004), Chak De! India (2007). Mainly because that the Chosen 5 are all individually arguably better (for various reasons which we could elaborate on, if someone is interested) than all of these ones. Unfortunately for him, this means that SRK narrowly misses getting into the top 5.
Darr (1995) and Kaho Naaa... Pyaar Hai (2001) were also considered, but all of us had not seen it.
Maqbool (2003), Omkara (2006), Iqbal (2005), Johnny Gaddaar (2007), and the good Nagesh Kukkonoor movies weren't mainstream enough. Hera Pheri (2000), Raincoat (2004) and Dor (2006) were remakes/derivative (although Shakesepare and older was allowed) and missed out.
Points to note in the main list
1. No Shah Rukh
2. No Madhuri (My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains my sense...)
3. No Amitabh
4. No Mani Ratnam
5. No Govinda (My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains my sense...)
6. Salman gets a back door entry
7. Aamir is all over the place
8. 1994-2000 was very dreary
What say, vox populi? Fair? What did we miss out?
Monday, February 18, 2008
The Road to Wigan Pier
Which contains a prescient quote about our lives and times, and more videos
George Orwell is a rather smashing bloke, and he proves it again and again. For many people, he is simply the author of one satire and one dark novel that rail against the Great Satan, communism. 1984 and Animal Farm have been milked for all they are worth whenever a handy anti-left quote is needed. But Georgie Porgie was a lot more complicated than that, he was not the supremely anti-leftist literary genius that left-bashers with no imagination of their own could periodically dip into for a fresh nugget.
His Down and out in Paris and London talks about time spent as a menial in a Paris hotel, and as a London vagabond, and is possibly more valuable as a book than the other two. A Hanging and Shooting an Elephant hit you like a punch in the solar plexus. "A Hanging" makes capital punishment personal, and that perhaps is the most effective argument against it (for the record, the Choultry is against it). "Shooting an Elephant" is merely touching, and about a horrible dilemma faced by a young and sensitive anti-imperial functionary of Empire.
Apart from Douglas Adams, Orwell appears to be the only other person to have written an essay on making tea, both versions (Adams' can be found in The Salmon of Doubt) are delicious. And finally, Reflections of Ghandi(sic) is one of the most well-balanced evaluations of the Mahatma, taking a nice line somewhere between vilification and hagiography.
Anyway, the point of all this is That Man Keynes and His Homosexual Intrigues (TMKAHHI) (who is well known to some of you) points us to the following from The Road to Wigan Pier (1937):
It hardly needs pointing out that at this moment we are in a very serious mess, so serious that even the dullest-witted people find it difficult to remain unaware of it. We are living in a world in which nobody is free, in which hardly anybody is secure, in which it is almost impossible to be honest and to remain alive. For enormous blocks of the working class the conditions of life are such as I have described in the opening chapters of this book, and there is no chance of those conditions showing any fundamental improvement. The very best the English-working class can hope for is an occasional temporary decrease in unemployment when this or that industry is artificially stimulated by, for instance, rearmament. Even the middle classes, for the first time in their history, are feeling the pinch. They have not known actual hunger yet, but more and more of them find themselves floundering in a sort of deadly net of frustration in which it is harder and harder to persuade yourself that you are either happy, active, or useful. Even the lucky ones at the top, the real bourgeoisie, are haunted periodically by a consciousness of the miseries below, and still more by fears of the menacing future. And this is merely a preliminary stage, in a country still rich with the loot of a hundred years. Presently there may be coining God knows what horrors— horrors of which, in this sheltered island, we have not even a traditional knowledge.
Splendid, no?
That's that about Georgie Porgie. Peruse this post at Presentation Zen. It has a bunch of videos from the TED talks.
Al Gore's talk is a hoot, especially the first 4-5 minutes that he spends laughing at himself. The man has changed so much. You would think he would be a shoo in for President in 2009, wouldn't you?
Majora Carter's talk is depressing and inspiring at the same time. If you can watch only one of the videos (each is just shy of 20 minutes long), this is the one. It will hopefully show the links between discrimination, race, crime, poverty, urban stagnation etc. in new ways. Definitely, definitely, check this one out.
Hans Rosling's talk should result in jaws dropping. If there be such a thing as an ideal way to present statistics, it is this, it is this, it is this.
George Orwell is a rather smashing bloke, and he proves it again and again. For many people, he is simply the author of one satire and one dark novel that rail against the Great Satan, communism. 1984 and Animal Farm have been milked for all they are worth whenever a handy anti-left quote is needed. But Georgie Porgie was a lot more complicated than that, he was not the supremely anti-leftist literary genius that left-bashers with no imagination of their own could periodically dip into for a fresh nugget.
His Down and out in Paris and London talks about time spent as a menial in a Paris hotel, and as a London vagabond, and is possibly more valuable as a book than the other two. A Hanging and Shooting an Elephant hit you like a punch in the solar plexus. "A Hanging" makes capital punishment personal, and that perhaps is the most effective argument against it (for the record, the Choultry is against it). "Shooting an Elephant" is merely touching, and about a horrible dilemma faced by a young and sensitive anti-imperial functionary of Empire.
Apart from Douglas Adams, Orwell appears to be the only other person to have written an essay on making tea, both versions (Adams' can be found in The Salmon of Doubt) are delicious. And finally, Reflections of Ghandi(sic) is one of the most well-balanced evaluations of the Mahatma, taking a nice line somewhere between vilification and hagiography.
Anyway, the point of all this is That Man Keynes and His Homosexual Intrigues (TMKAHHI) (who is well known to some of you) points us to the following from The Road to Wigan Pier (1937):
It hardly needs pointing out that at this moment we are in a very serious mess, so serious that even the dullest-witted people find it difficult to remain unaware of it. We are living in a world in which nobody is free, in which hardly anybody is secure, in which it is almost impossible to be honest and to remain alive. For enormous blocks of the working class the conditions of life are such as I have described in the opening chapters of this book, and there is no chance of those conditions showing any fundamental improvement. The very best the English-working class can hope for is an occasional temporary decrease in unemployment when this or that industry is artificially stimulated by, for instance, rearmament. Even the middle classes, for the first time in their history, are feeling the pinch. They have not known actual hunger yet, but more and more of them find themselves floundering in a sort of deadly net of frustration in which it is harder and harder to persuade yourself that you are either happy, active, or useful. Even the lucky ones at the top, the real bourgeoisie, are haunted periodically by a consciousness of the miseries below, and still more by fears of the menacing future. And this is merely a preliminary stage, in a country still rich with the loot of a hundred years. Presently there may be coining God knows what horrors— horrors of which, in this sheltered island, we have not even a traditional knowledge.
Splendid, no?
That's that about Georgie Porgie. Peruse this post at Presentation Zen. It has a bunch of videos from the TED talks.
Al Gore's talk is a hoot, especially the first 4-5 minutes that he spends laughing at himself. The man has changed so much. You would think he would be a shoo in for President in 2009, wouldn't you?
Majora Carter's talk is depressing and inspiring at the same time. If you can watch only one of the videos (each is just shy of 20 minutes long), this is the one. It will hopefully show the links between discrimination, race, crime, poverty, urban stagnation etc. in new ways. Definitely, definitely, check this one out.
Hans Rosling's talk should result in jaws dropping. If there be such a thing as an ideal way to present statistics, it is this, it is this, it is this.
Monday, February 11, 2008
PPP
And no, it's about that party across the border. But first, let us get the random stuff out of the way.
(O)
It rained in Hyderabad this morning. Apres le deluge, hornbills.
(Note besplattered and bedraggled beeeater (?) in the bottom right of the frame.)
These twits are obviously very far away, but rather endearingly bumbling through the wet foliage.
(I)
Mathematical jokes have appeared here before. A variation on the theme is to be found at the "Wild About Math" blog. The "Deferential Equations" one is side splitting.
(II)
The search for the Democratic presidential nominee has now resulted in the creation of two new electoral constituencies whose behaviour psephologists must be falling over each other to understand and predict. With a black man and a white woman as the front runners, black women and white men in the electorate find themselves in the unique position of having been sliced and diced into a "vote bank". How will they vote? Will race pip gender, or what?
The NPR type commentators are positively tickling themselves silly into paroxyms of pleasure trying to figure out what these two demographics will do? A Hillary-Obama (Hilbama?) ticket might just turn out to be solid gold, but it's such a pity it will be wasted because this (of all elections) should be a wrap for the Dems. A scarecrow endorsed by Ted Kennedy should do the trick (although, against that notorious outlier McCain, one must be cautious about making predictions freely).
We live in interesting times, the radio need not be turned off.
(III)
In a seminal discovery made about 3 minutes ago, we realize that mashing up dates (i.e. khajoor) with those Amul cheese cubes (or chiplets or whatever) results in the most delicious and pasty confection ever. Mmm. Try it. Remember, you heard it here first.
Yes, we skipped breakfast, and these two things were all we could find in the fridge that were consumable at short notice. This is how Alexander Fleming discovered pencillin.
(IV)
Long post. Ram wrote us an email pointing to an article (PDF) in the Economic and Political Weekly (EPW). The author is Prof. Krishna Kumar, director of NCERT. The article is titled "Partners in Education" and is apparently about:
Public-Private Partnership in school education is projected as a strategy to distribute the ownership of institutions, rather than tasks within institutions, between private entrepreneurs and NGOS on the one hand, and the government or state on the other. While the rationale for PPP is inefficiency of the government, the means offered to overcome it actually promise no relief or improvement. PPP is not an idea, but rather an ideology which promotes privatisation as a means of reducing the government’s responsibility to increase the number of schools.
Ram wanted some of us (including Melli and Rajni) to comment on how we thought Asha (with which we have all been associated one way or the other) fitted into the NGO scheme suggested by Prof. Kumar. This resulted in Ludwig actually spending a boatload of time reading the article and trying to parse it, and a very, very long email comment, which basically follows, in lieu of the usual insane blog post.
So much for where I think Asha lies in the spectrum of NGOs (i.e. this is my answer to your question!). That being said, I think the article has some problems, mostly to do with the way the argument is presented, which I will try and describe. My basic point is that the article is somewhat confusing and this clouds the argument.
The line of reasoning in the article appears to be as follows:
1. There are valid sounding arguments for why the state should be dislodged from the business of education. Data on teacher absenteeism, dropout rates, achievement etc. proves that state investment in schools is wasteful. On a less quantitative and more rhetorical level, there is the argument that "quality" in state schools is abysmal. The state has failed, therefore a privatized system is needed.
2. One flaw in this argument is that votaries of privatization are seemingly unable to point to a successful model where the state does not serve as the primary education provider. There are no answers to this query, and in any case this question is increasingly never asked.
3. One way to confer increased legitimacy on any argument is to claim that it is a new idea. So the name "public private partnership" (PPP) is invented and touted as the silver bullet.
4. However, the idea of private intervention in education is quite old, and what is being called PPP has been around for many years now, since colonial times at least, in the form of the aided-school model. There are structural weaknesses in this model which have been visible for the last 100 years, but effectively, it continues to be promoted under the new name (PPP).
5. [So far, so good. Here is where, in my opinion, the confusion (textual, logical) starts.] Kumar says:
"Offering solid evidence of the meagreness of structural change in education since colonial days, the state-aided private-initiative model of institutional expansion has earned a renewed and vigorous favour today. And the state continues to feel persistently reluctant to own up to its primary responsibility for educating all its children in ways that would necessitate reforms in the system. This aspect of the meaning of PPP is quite apparent."
This, I confess, is somewhat incomprehensible to me. I'm afraid I cannot fathom what the "aspect of the meaning of PPP" is. Likely, my training (such as it is) is insufficient for me to parse this paragraph. If you can decipher and explain, I will be obliged. Further:
"The meaning which lurks in the zone of opacity has to do with the culture of outsourcing, especially in the context of non-government organisations (NGOs)."
A segue into the NGO section ("NGO Outsourcing") of the article follows (we briefly bid goodbye to the PPP angle). An important point (to my mind) is that no distinction is made between not-for-profit NGOs and for-profit NGOs (businesses).
6. Broad descriptions of the 3 types of NGOs (discussed above, in the context of the Asha position).
7. The NGOs, regardless of what type they are, have contributed to making the PPP argument sound more plausible i.e. NGOs (especially the corporate ones) assert that the state is redundant, run their own school systems, and in some sense "prove" the claim that PPP (in the sense of setting up a parallel system of schooling) works. This is in contrast with the notion of PPP where the private party (HSTP, MVF, for example) aids/supplements existing state school systems.
8. "In the history of private education, philanthropic efforts leading to high-quality education have played a very limited role, while profit-seeking has been an inappropriate (and illegal) goal to acknowledge. Private providers and their supporters therefore continue to succeed in shielding the normal, entrepreneurial aspect of educational ventures." Only the judiciary has so far called a spade a spade and said that these private entities are nothing more than profit seeking enterprises (by saying that setting up schools is part of their "right to occupation").
9. The state's response to pro-privatization claims is increasingly muted, thanks partly to the "speedy spread of the ideological discourse associated with neoliberalisation and globalisation among government officials." From this rises the instrumentalist view of the state where it is just another player in the market, one that merely performs a set of tasks without regard to the long term health of the system. An advantage of this view is that it makes the state look different from a corrupt regime of bureaucracy and less prone to political indoctrination.
10. The state doesn't view existing or past successful PPPs (for that is what they are/were) such as Ekalavya or the MV Foundation programme as a partnership, which is a pity.
11. There are other glaring gaps in the education scenario such as teacher training etc. which need to be addressed in a serious way. We need IIT-IIM style institutions to deal with this. Why don't PPP votaries advocate these things?
Phew. OK, my email is in danger of turning out to be longer than the original article, but it is helping me make more sense of the original. Would it be fair to say that in summary, what Krishna Kumar is saying is the following:
People are advocating PPP in education.
They are doing so claiming that the current state system of schooling has failed, and that PPP will improve the efficiency of the system i.e. improvements in quality and efficiency is the _main_ reason why PPP ('bad' profit seeking PPP) in education should be encouraged.
What they are hiding is that the real reason for PPP is that it might be very profitable. It is somehow politically incorrect to say that PPP is about making a profit and not about philanthropy/improving the system etc. and so they have to resort to the "state has failed, PPP will make things better" argument, to look good.
The activity and attitude of some NGOs (the 'corporate' ones especially) give credence to the PPP argument by repeating it.
An important argument against PPP (i.e the 'bad' privatization and corporatization of education by setting up a parallel schooling system rather than improving the existing system (HSTP, MVF) PPP) is that it hasn't been shown to work anywhere before. Most (all?) nations with advanced levels of education involved considerable state contribution.
So PPP may not work.
OK, so in my view, Krishna Kumar's main gripe is that "(i) PPP votaries claim that PPP is about improving efficiency and not about profit (ii) PPPs (the 'bad' ones) haven't worked historically anywhere".
This really doesn't constitute a solid argument against PPPs (the 'bad' ones) itself, no? At best it is an accusation of hypocrisy/bad faith/whatever against PPP supporters, "You're claiming that you support PPP for one reason, but the actual reason is something else."
If this is the main thrust of the article, I find it a somewhat complicated way to state the case (resulting in even more complicated emails!). On the other hand, if the article is about arguing against PPPs themselves...
Someone of the libertarian ilk will happily concede that "Yes, PPPs are about making money for the NGOs involved we don't deny that, the improvements in education/increased efficiency are side effects of this activity. The fact that there are no instances of a majority PPP driven effort successfully improving the lot of education in a country is neither here nor there, it hasn't been tried so you can't claim it will fail."
In my opinion, a coherent argument against PPPs has not been presented in this article. At the very least, some instances of PPP (the 'bad' ones) based programmes in other comparable parts of the world that have failed totally would have helped. Questions/arguments involving some reasonably basic economics, common sense and straightforward reasoning would have also been great. Some points might be:
How many successful private schools exist in the remote rural areas? (see this)
How can they be profitable and high quality at the same time?
Is it really possible to set up a perfect 'market' like system, where parents can switch kids from a bad school to a good one at will?
If government schools don't work, how do you explain Kendriya Vidyalayas and other such schools? Why do they work?
Of course, these are all very lowbrow for an EPW piece :-) but I am sure it is possible to spin the necessary verbiage around this foundation.
Note that one of the confusions in the original article is that I feel the need to keep distinguishing between the 'good' PPPs (MVF, HSTP) and the 'bad' PPPs (profit seeking), it would've been nice to use different terminology for both, no?
OK, this is long enough. I hope I've made my point clear.
In response, Melli (among other things) said that:
(1) Interesting that you felt that the article does not make the case against PPP strongly. I felt it made the case, but after reading your note I realized it is my bias which influences my thinking - I agree with most of what KK says anyway, so I was not looking for a strong case so to speak. In my mind, education is a state responsibility, simply because "for all, equally" is not something the market can ensure. The market is inherently unequal in my opinion functions on the basis that there are multiple levels. That is OK when it comes to say the transportation system, where one can say "I cannot afford to go in a luxury bus which will go on time, so I will go in this cheaper, standing room only bus". Education, IMHO, has to be "for all" and "equal".
To which we said:
Note that I carefully did not say anywhere that I didn't agree with KK :-) I'm sure I haven't given it anywhere near the kind of thought you all have, but in general even I don't see how PPPs ('bad' PPPs!) will change anything fundamentally. My role in the reply was to try and show that _if_ the purpose of the article was to critique PPPs, that wasn't done too well, and to play a limited devil's advocate role and show what points someone who is a "neoliberal" or "libertarian" or whatever could potentially raise to critique the critique. In general I mostly concur with your #1, with the caveat that I'm open to arguments which will convince me fully one way or the other.
A further point that Melli made was:
Oh, and one more point - I think it is well-worth answering the question of why KVs work and state run govt. schools do not. In past discussions we have come to realize some points: (a) KV has Rs. 6000 per child, whereas a govt. school has Rs. 2000 per child. (b) the quality of hired teachers - maybe because KVs are smaller in number and central govt. jobs are more 'prestigious' they do attract good people - some headmasters/mistresses and teachers are simply excellent at KVs (as a side point we do not have enough excellent teachers to staff all govt. schools in the country, there are some funny stats on that). Additionally, the KV headmaster/mistress seems to have some autonomy, which might make a critical difference (c) KV children are typically _not_ first generation learners, and as Ram says for first generation learners the teacher-student ratio should be 1:5. But this begs the question of why the Navodaya Vidyalayas (KVs in rural areas, introduced in Rajiv Gandhi's time) are doing well. Apparently they are doing quite well. Ram had some thoughts on figuring out these differences, but now he is happily at Puvidham, so we have to wait for him to come back before we can analyze this further :) Seriously, I think we should explore why this is so. KVs and Navodaya Vidyalayas show that govt. institutions can be well run (a Navodaya Vidyalaya near Mandya is apparently extraordinarily good, so says my old school (a KV type school) headmistress). What is their hiring mechanism? Are the students really first generation learners? How much autonomy do they have? (Autonomy clearly plays a role - as we can see from the success of IITs, another state institution, but run autonomously by a board with I suppose appropriate checks and balances).
To which we said:
I think we've had these discussions ourselves before, and pretty much all the points you make are possibly factors. I have a slightly more high falutin' thought behind why KVs work, which is a kind of class based analysis. The children in KVs come from the same socio-economic background (largely) as their teachers, indeed quite often the children of the teachers are _in_ the KVs that their parents teach at. This is possibly a factor in KV teachers/administrators having strong motivation to care of their own. The sense of accountability towards other parents etc. is a lot stronger. We like to take care of our own, and each class watches out for itself implicitly. I really haven't studied the Navodaya Vidyalaya system at all, but what you say sounds interesting.
Basically what we're saying is that a KV teacher/staff member has a degree of empathy with a KV parent (due their congruent socio-economic backgrounds) that results in more accountable behaviour from the teacher/staff member. Your average village or basti schoolteacher or headmistress with a B. Ed. or whatever doesn't have any stake in the lives of the villagers or construction workers whose kids (s)he teaches. Each 'class' looks out for its own.
Anyway, the discussion continues...
(O)
It rained in Hyderabad this morning. Apres le deluge, hornbills.
(Note besplattered and bedraggled beeeater (?) in the bottom right of the frame.)
These twits are obviously very far away, but rather endearingly bumbling through the wet foliage.
(I)
Mathematical jokes have appeared here before. A variation on the theme is to be found at the "Wild About Math" blog. The "Deferential Equations" one is side splitting.
(II)
The search for the Democratic presidential nominee has now resulted in the creation of two new electoral constituencies whose behaviour psephologists must be falling over each other to understand and predict. With a black man and a white woman as the front runners, black women and white men in the electorate find themselves in the unique position of having been sliced and diced into a "vote bank". How will they vote? Will race pip gender, or what?
The NPR type commentators are positively tickling themselves silly into paroxyms of pleasure trying to figure out what these two demographics will do? A Hillary-Obama (Hilbama?) ticket might just turn out to be solid gold, but it's such a pity it will be wasted because this (of all elections) should be a wrap for the Dems. A scarecrow endorsed by Ted Kennedy should do the trick (although, against that notorious outlier McCain, one must be cautious about making predictions freely).
We live in interesting times, the radio need not be turned off.
(III)
In a seminal discovery made about 3 minutes ago, we realize that mashing up dates (i.e. khajoor) with those Amul cheese cubes (or chiplets or whatever) results in the most delicious and pasty confection ever. Mmm. Try it. Remember, you heard it here first.
Yes, we skipped breakfast, and these two things were all we could find in the fridge that were consumable at short notice. This is how Alexander Fleming discovered pencillin.
(IV)
Long post. Ram wrote us an email pointing to an article (PDF) in the Economic and Political Weekly (EPW). The author is Prof. Krishna Kumar, director of NCERT. The article is titled "Partners in Education" and is apparently about:
Public-Private Partnership in school education is projected as a strategy to distribute the ownership of institutions, rather than tasks within institutions, between private entrepreneurs and NGOS on the one hand, and the government or state on the other. While the rationale for PPP is inefficiency of the government, the means offered to overcome it actually promise no relief or improvement. PPP is not an idea, but rather an ideology which promotes privatisation as a means of reducing the government’s responsibility to increase the number of schools.
Ram wanted some of us (including Melli and Rajni) to comment on how we thought Asha (with which we have all been associated one way or the other) fitted into the NGO scheme suggested by Prof. Kumar. This resulted in Ludwig actually spending a boatload of time reading the article and trying to parse it, and a very, very long email comment, which basically follows, in lieu of the usual insane blog post.
So much for where I think Asha lies in the spectrum of NGOs (i.e. this is my answer to your question!). That being said, I think the article has some problems, mostly to do with the way the argument is presented, which I will try and describe. My basic point is that the article is somewhat confusing and this clouds the argument.
The line of reasoning in the article appears to be as follows:
1. There are valid sounding arguments for why the state should be dislodged from the business of education. Data on teacher absenteeism, dropout rates, achievement etc. proves that state investment in schools is wasteful. On a less quantitative and more rhetorical level, there is the argument that "quality" in state schools is abysmal. The state has failed, therefore a privatized system is needed.
2. One flaw in this argument is that votaries of privatization are seemingly unable to point to a successful model where the state does not serve as the primary education provider. There are no answers to this query, and in any case this question is increasingly never asked.
3. One way to confer increased legitimacy on any argument is to claim that it is a new idea. So the name "public private partnership" (PPP) is invented and touted as the silver bullet.
4. However, the idea of private intervention in education is quite old, and what is being called PPP has been around for many years now, since colonial times at least, in the form of the aided-school model. There are structural weaknesses in this model which have been visible for the last 100 years, but effectively, it continues to be promoted under the new name (PPP).
5. [So far, so good. Here is where, in my opinion, the confusion (textual, logical) starts.] Kumar says:
"Offering solid evidence of the meagreness of structural change in education since colonial days, the state-aided private-initiative model of institutional expansion has earned a renewed and vigorous favour today. And the state continues to feel persistently reluctant to own up to its primary responsibility for educating all its children in ways that would necessitate reforms in the system. This aspect of the meaning of PPP is quite apparent."
This, I confess, is somewhat incomprehensible to me. I'm afraid I cannot fathom what the "aspect of the meaning of PPP" is. Likely, my training (such as it is) is insufficient for me to parse this paragraph. If you can decipher and explain, I will be obliged. Further:
"The meaning which lurks in the zone of opacity has to do with the culture of outsourcing, especially in the context of non-government organisations (NGOs)."
A segue into the NGO section ("NGO Outsourcing") of the article follows (we briefly bid goodbye to the PPP angle). An important point (to my mind) is that no distinction is made between not-for-profit NGOs and for-profit NGOs (businesses).
6. Broad descriptions of the 3 types of NGOs (discussed above, in the context of the Asha position).
7. The NGOs, regardless of what type they are, have contributed to making the PPP argument sound more plausible i.e. NGOs (especially the corporate ones) assert that the state is redundant, run their own school systems, and in some sense "prove" the claim that PPP (in the sense of setting up a parallel system of schooling) works. This is in contrast with the notion of PPP where the private party (HSTP, MVF, for example) aids/supplements existing state school systems.
8. "In the history of private education, philanthropic efforts leading to high-quality education have played a very limited role, while profit-seeking has been an inappropriate (and illegal) goal to acknowledge. Private providers and their supporters therefore continue to succeed in shielding the normal, entrepreneurial aspect of educational ventures." Only the judiciary has so far called a spade a spade and said that these private entities are nothing more than profit seeking enterprises (by saying that setting up schools is part of their "right to occupation").
9. The state's response to pro-privatization claims is increasingly muted, thanks partly to the "speedy spread of the ideological discourse associated with neoliberalisation and globalisation among government officials." From this rises the instrumentalist view of the state where it is just another player in the market, one that merely performs a set of tasks without regard to the long term health of the system. An advantage of this view is that it makes the state look different from a corrupt regime of bureaucracy and less prone to political indoctrination.
10. The state doesn't view existing or past successful PPPs (for that is what they are/were) such as Ekalavya or the MV Foundation programme as a partnership, which is a pity.
11. There are other glaring gaps in the education scenario such as teacher training etc. which need to be addressed in a serious way. We need IIT-IIM style institutions to deal with this. Why don't PPP votaries advocate these things?
Phew. OK, my email is in danger of turning out to be longer than the original article, but it is helping me make more sense of the original. Would it be fair to say that in summary, what Krishna Kumar is saying is the following:
People are advocating PPP in education.
They are doing so claiming that the current state system of schooling has failed, and that PPP will improve the efficiency of the system i.e. improvements in quality and efficiency is the _main_ reason why PPP ('bad' profit seeking PPP) in education should be encouraged.
What they are hiding is that the real reason for PPP is that it might be very profitable. It is somehow politically incorrect to say that PPP is about making a profit and not about philanthropy/improving the system etc. and so they have to resort to the "state has failed, PPP will make things better" argument, to look good.
The activity and attitude of some NGOs (the 'corporate' ones especially) give credence to the PPP argument by repeating it.
An important argument against PPP (i.e the 'bad' privatization and corporatization of education by setting up a parallel schooling system rather than improving the existing system (HSTP, MVF) PPP) is that it hasn't been shown to work anywhere before. Most (all?) nations with advanced levels of education involved considerable state contribution.
So PPP may not work.
OK, so in my view, Krishna Kumar's main gripe is that "(i) PPP votaries claim that PPP is about improving efficiency and not about profit (ii) PPPs (the 'bad' ones) haven't worked historically anywhere".
This really doesn't constitute a solid argument against PPPs (the 'bad' ones) itself, no? At best it is an accusation of hypocrisy/bad faith/whatever against PPP supporters, "You're claiming that you support PPP for one reason, but the actual reason is something else."
If this is the main thrust of the article, I find it a somewhat complicated way to state the case (resulting in even more complicated emails!). On the other hand, if the article is about arguing against PPPs themselves...
Someone of the libertarian ilk will happily concede that "Yes, PPPs are about making money for the NGOs involved we don't deny that, the improvements in education/increased efficiency are side effects of this activity. The fact that there are no instances of a majority PPP driven effort successfully improving the lot of education in a country is neither here nor there, it hasn't been tried so you can't claim it will fail."
In my opinion, a coherent argument against PPPs has not been presented in this article. At the very least, some instances of PPP (the 'bad' ones) based programmes in other comparable parts of the world that have failed totally would have helped. Questions/arguments involving some reasonably basic economics, common sense and straightforward reasoning would have also been great. Some points might be:
How many successful private schools exist in the remote rural areas? (see this)
How can they be profitable and high quality at the same time?
Is it really possible to set up a perfect 'market' like system, where parents can switch kids from a bad school to a good one at will?
If government schools don't work, how do you explain Kendriya Vidyalayas and other such schools? Why do they work?
Of course, these are all very lowbrow for an EPW piece :-) but I am sure it is possible to spin the necessary verbiage around this foundation.
Note that one of the confusions in the original article is that I feel the need to keep distinguishing between the 'good' PPPs (MVF, HSTP) and the 'bad' PPPs (profit seeking), it would've been nice to use different terminology for both, no?
OK, this is long enough. I hope I've made my point clear.
In response, Melli (among other things) said that:
(1) Interesting that you felt that the article does not make the case against PPP strongly. I felt it made the case, but after reading your note I realized it is my bias which influences my thinking - I agree with most of what KK says anyway, so I was not looking for a strong case so to speak. In my mind, education is a state responsibility, simply because "for all, equally" is not something the market can ensure. The market is inherently unequal in my opinion functions on the basis that there are multiple levels. That is OK when it comes to say the transportation system, where one can say "I cannot afford to go in a luxury bus which will go on time, so I will go in this cheaper, standing room only bus". Education, IMHO, has to be "for all" and "equal".
To which we said:
Note that I carefully did not say anywhere that I didn't agree with KK :-) I'm sure I haven't given it anywhere near the kind of thought you all have, but in general even I don't see how PPPs ('bad' PPPs!) will change anything fundamentally. My role in the reply was to try and show that _if_ the purpose of the article was to critique PPPs, that wasn't done too well, and to play a limited devil's advocate role and show what points someone who is a "neoliberal" or "libertarian" or whatever could potentially raise to critique the critique. In general I mostly concur with your #1, with the caveat that I'm open to arguments which will convince me fully one way or the other.
A further point that Melli made was:
Oh, and one more point - I think it is well-worth answering the question of why KVs work and state run govt. schools do not. In past discussions we have come to realize some points: (a) KV has Rs. 6000 per child, whereas a govt. school has Rs. 2000 per child. (b) the quality of hired teachers - maybe because KVs are smaller in number and central govt. jobs are more 'prestigious' they do attract good people - some headmasters/mistresses and teachers are simply excellent at KVs (as a side point we do not have enough excellent teachers to staff all govt. schools in the country, there are some funny stats on that). Additionally, the KV headmaster/mistress seems to have some autonomy, which might make a critical difference (c) KV children are typically _not_ first generation learners, and as Ram says for first generation learners the teacher-student ratio should be 1:5. But this begs the question of why the Navodaya Vidyalayas (KVs in rural areas, introduced in Rajiv Gandhi's time) are doing well. Apparently they are doing quite well. Ram had some thoughts on figuring out these differences, but now he is happily at Puvidham, so we have to wait for him to come back before we can analyze this further :) Seriously, I think we should explore why this is so. KVs and Navodaya Vidyalayas show that govt. institutions can be well run (a Navodaya Vidyalaya near Mandya is apparently extraordinarily good, so says my old school (a KV type school) headmistress). What is their hiring mechanism? Are the students really first generation learners? How much autonomy do they have? (Autonomy clearly plays a role - as we can see from the success of IITs, another state institution, but run autonomously by a board with I suppose appropriate checks and balances).
To which we said:
I think we've had these discussions ourselves before, and pretty much all the points you make are possibly factors. I have a slightly more high falutin' thought behind why KVs work, which is a kind of class based analysis. The children in KVs come from the same socio-economic background (largely) as their teachers, indeed quite often the children of the teachers are _in_ the KVs that their parents teach at. This is possibly a factor in KV teachers/administrators having strong motivation to care of their own. The sense of accountability towards other parents etc. is a lot stronger. We like to take care of our own, and each class watches out for itself implicitly. I really haven't studied the Navodaya Vidyalaya system at all, but what you say sounds interesting.
Basically what we're saying is that a KV teacher/staff member has a degree of empathy with a KV parent (due their congruent socio-economic backgrounds) that results in more accountable behaviour from the teacher/staff member. Your average village or basti schoolteacher or headmistress with a B. Ed. or whatever doesn't have any stake in the lives of the villagers or construction workers whose kids (s)he teaches. Each 'class' looks out for its own.
Anyway, the discussion continues...
Friday, February 08, 2008
More Scary Videos
The Five Most Insane Japanese Game Shows - The marshmallow one, the ball-busting one, and the Komodo dragon one are particularly terrifying. Hat tip: TMKAHHI.
If you thought the Japanese were the only "weird" economic superpower, you have another think coming.
Watch Miss Teen USA 2007 as she answers a question.
She should go into marketing. Or become an Indian TV news reporter.
PS Increasingly all we do is post links to other works, isn't it? Sob...
UPDATES (15 Feb 2008):
1. Raj points us to an article in the New York Times ("Dumb and Dumber: Are Americans Hostile to Knowledge?") which bemoans what it bemoans. The Kellie Pickler video referred to in the first paragraph is here.
2. TMKAHHI points us, in the usual manner, to Esquire.
If you thought the Japanese were the only "weird" economic superpower, you have another think coming.
Watch Miss Teen USA 2007 as she answers a question.
She should go into marketing. Or become an Indian TV news reporter.
PS Increasingly all we do is post links to other works, isn't it? Sob...
UPDATES (15 Feb 2008):
1. Raj points us to an article in the New York Times ("Dumb and Dumber: Are Americans Hostile to Knowledge?") which bemoans what it bemoans. The Kellie Pickler video referred to in the first paragraph is here.
2. TMKAHHI points us, in the usual manner, to Esquire.
Tuesday, February 05, 2008
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.
Connect:
The New England Patriots
Roger Federer
India
It's all ending.
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Tag Hammer's Cold
Which is because we've been tagged
Some, are apparently above such things as tags. The same some are also very clever with their post titles. Be that as it may, sum are not. Having been tagged by an agile venomous serpent of African origin, here goes...
Instruccziones: Post 5 links to 5 of your previously written posts. The posts have to relate to the 5 key words given (family, friend, yourself, your love, anything you like). Tag 5 other friends to do this meme. Try to tag at least 2 new acquaintances (if not, your current blog buddies will do) so that you get to know them each a little bit better.
Family: Hmm. Haven't written none. Tangential reference to sibling and maternal unit will be found in this tag post. A couple of travel posts (1, 2) make passing references to sibling's onetime place of work.
Friend: Gah. We haven't written any of these also, it seems. OK, so this experiment in "collaborative worst" was done with a little help from my friends. As were the Odissi odyssey, the Bandipur trip, and the pornographic weekend. We note that Ram was on all these trips, and that the Chickmagalur trip was in the company of That (decidedly repulsive) Man Keynes And His Homosexual Intrigues. Finally, another one wrote the only guest post on this blob.
Yourself: We
(i) Are colour blind
(ii) Can get pretty mawkish and senti
(iii) Like to think we're a runner (1, 2) boobs notwithstanding
(iv) And yet are deliciously kinky.
Your love: ajeeb daastaan hai yeh...
Anything you like: Hah. Maths/science, poetry (although it all tastes like ash nowadays), films, history, quizzing, running, travel, filter coffee, biryaani, books, NPR will all figure somewhere or the other. Posts all over the place.
Who to tag, who to tag...Kenny because she'll have non-trivial links for all the categories, Srini because he's kind of melancholic nowadays and we also want to find out if he's reading our blog, the dolphin because it's been a while and because we're too mortified to apologize properly for various errors of omission and this might be a good way of finding out what the lay of the land is, Madam Secretary because she's written diddly squat for ages but she's probably not reading this blog, and She of the Furrowed Brow That has Hopefully Uncreased (Fedex notwithstanding).
Some, are apparently above such things as tags. The same some are also very clever with their post titles. Be that as it may, sum are not. Having been tagged by an agile venomous serpent of African origin, here goes...
Instruccziones: Post 5 links to 5 of your previously written posts. The posts have to relate to the 5 key words given (family, friend, yourself, your love, anything you like). Tag 5 other friends to do this meme. Try to tag at least 2 new acquaintances (if not, your current blog buddies will do) so that you get to know them each a little bit better.
Family: Hmm. Haven't written none. Tangential reference to sibling and maternal unit will be found in this tag post. A couple of travel posts (1, 2) make passing references to sibling's onetime place of work.
Friend: Gah. We haven't written any of these also, it seems. OK, so this experiment in "collaborative worst" was done with a little help from my friends. As were the Odissi odyssey, the Bandipur trip, and the pornographic weekend. We note that Ram was on all these trips, and that the Chickmagalur trip was in the company of That (decidedly repulsive) Man Keynes And His Homosexual Intrigues. Finally, another one wrote the only guest post on this blob.
Yourself: We
(i) Are colour blind
(ii) Can get pretty mawkish and senti
(iii) Like to think we're a runner (1, 2) boobs notwithstanding
(iv) And yet are deliciously kinky.
Your love: ajeeb daastaan hai yeh...
Anything you like: Hah. Maths/science, poetry (although it all tastes like ash nowadays), films, history, quizzing, running, travel, filter coffee, biryaani, books, NPR will all figure somewhere or the other. Posts all over the place.
Who to tag, who to tag...Kenny because she'll have non-trivial links for all the categories, Srini because he's kind of melancholic nowadays and we also want to find out if he's reading our blog, the dolphin because it's been a while and because we're too mortified to apologize properly for various errors of omission and this might be a good way of finding out what the lay of the land is, Madam Secretary because she's written diddly squat for ages but she's probably not reading this blog, and She of the Furrowed Brow That has Hopefully Uncreased (Fedex notwithstanding).
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Monday, January 21, 2008
Mumbai Half Marathon 2008
Which is about racism...
...as in "road race"-ism, which we periodically suffer from. Staggered through the half marathon at the Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon yesterday. All didn't begin well, thanks to last minute event in Madras, which forced us to take a very late flight to Bombay, resulting in us landing up at Kenny's at around 12:30 in the morning.
Scant 4 hours of sleep, wake up, unmentionables, dozy (but very fast, as the peeking through semi-closed eyelids showed) taxi ride from IIT to Azad Maidan, and we got into the holding area for runners well in time for the start. Points to the organizers for starting bang on time (0645). Didn't realize that the holding area wasn't the real start, so turned on the gizmo a trifle too early. Quick bathroom break (which, in hindsight, looks really funny on the map) and finally made it to the start (VT station).
It was impossible to run, there were apparently more runners in the half here than there were 10kers in Hyderabad! Nevertheless, we jostled and edged our way through the mob, trying to keep a steady trot, and it wasn't before we were well and truly on Marine Drive that we were able to get close to anything like a steady pace. Gizmo revealed alarmingly that at this time our pace was all over the graph.
Right from the beginning, it was evident that there were industrial quantities of doubtless essentially well-meaning but fundamentally cluelessmorons fellow citizens at hand. These ones had no clue about how to last for a long run, and were completely carried away by cameras, RJs with the attitude of varsity cheerleaders, and generally thumping music and tamasha, and were tearing down the beautiful streets of Bombay. To our horror, we discovered that we were also unconsciously playing catch and doing a brisk 6:00ish per k.m. right at the beginning, which was not part of the plan at all!
Deep breaths, and secure in the knowledge that somewhere after the 12-15k mark, a certain separation of milk from water etc. would occur, we took it easy and attempted a more manageable 7:00+ per k.m. It was a good day for running, the first half anyway, and the sights and sounds of Bombay kept us going for much of the time. Just a great feeling to be running in one of the world's great cities.
(Aside: Race log here and map here)
Somewhere near Kemp's Corner (we're estimating), our breaths were taken away by the sight of the elite buggers come hightailing down in the opposite direction at a crazy, insane pace. Much self loathing and inspiration followed. A little further, and very impressively, Milind showed up. The crowd was really good, egging us all along, especially right at the beginning. Of course, some of the more voluble "Run, Mumbai, Run!" freaks got a dose of "Run, Hyderabad, Run!" from us.
By the time we'd hung a U-ie (somewhat before Worli Dairy), the Great Separation had started to occur. Hapless souls floundering on the side of the road, general looks of despair and disillusionment, and this was enough to send Ludwig into rapturous inspiration, and we really started running. Caught up with Dhanraj (i.e. he was doing some stretches and we passed him) and motored along. Found that the ascents were really the best time to kick into gear and overtook hordes and hordes ofmor... fellow citizens.
Ms. Right Knee did start an interesting conversation with Mr. Central Nervous System, intimidating the latter about certain twinges and aches and so on and so forth. HRH Brain instructed CNS to totally ignore RK, and we thundered along, very very very confident that we will end up paying for this in the coming weeks. Nevertheless, there was no time to lose, and so we kept at it.
All was hunky dory until we turned a corner and found ourselves on Marine Drive with the mid-morning sun all ablaze. Took the wind out of the sails for a bit, had to do some slight ratcheting down, drinking, and general self motivation. Can't say that the last 4-5 k.m. were too pleasant, although we didn't slacken pace. Charge of the Light Brigade only...
Right at the end, approximately 20 steps from the finish line, we spotted someone trying to sneak up on us and "win". It is useful to consider some facts at this juncture.
1. We are, in fact, cognizant about the Gebrselassie-Tergat photo finish.
2. We really, really, really HATE people who cut lines and queues.
3. We are not really thayir saadam type.
Taking all this into consideration, there was only one outcome. We sprinted, and judicious pumping of shoulders and elbows ensured that the would be Haile wouldn't be. Hah! We play hard, but fair.
Staggered towards the chip counter refund tent, where we ran into King Julian quite randomly after 6(?) years, which was well met. Alack, we lost him soon enough in the chip return melee, of which the less said the better. Kenny was there thankfully, so timepass was easy. Someone from the class of 96 was randomly run into, which was cause for joy.
The rest of the day happened per Kenny's story. The monster child isn't a monster at all, but really needs to learn to make better faces. We drew a ghastly Mickey Mouse using crayons, something from a Ramsey brothers version of the cartoon, in her rough drawing paper, which was fun.
Lunch, nap, drop to airport, caught up with S (who did the full and had horrible organizational stories to tell) and Y (who incredibly finished the half with approximately zero planning and prep). Late flight, got home by 12:30 a.m.
Phew. We learnt that that Energizer Bunny Dhammo had been spotted during the marathon course, zipping around like a chinkara on steroids. One wonders how the rest of the race was.
Anyway, now these revels are ended, and we're back home with an insane deadline, a wedding reception, and a quiz in the offing.
Onward, Christian soldiers...
...as in "road race"-ism, which we periodically suffer from. Staggered through the half marathon at the Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon yesterday. All didn't begin well, thanks to last minute event in Madras, which forced us to take a very late flight to Bombay, resulting in us landing up at Kenny's at around 12:30 in the morning.
Scant 4 hours of sleep, wake up, unmentionables, dozy (but very fast, as the peeking through semi-closed eyelids showed) taxi ride from IIT to Azad Maidan, and we got into the holding area for runners well in time for the start. Points to the organizers for starting bang on time (0645). Didn't realize that the holding area wasn't the real start, so turned on the gizmo a trifle too early. Quick bathroom break (which, in hindsight, looks really funny on the map) and finally made it to the start (VT station).
It was impossible to run, there were apparently more runners in the half here than there were 10kers in Hyderabad! Nevertheless, we jostled and edged our way through the mob, trying to keep a steady trot, and it wasn't before we were well and truly on Marine Drive that we were able to get close to anything like a steady pace. Gizmo revealed alarmingly that at this time our pace was all over the graph.
Right from the beginning, it was evident that there were industrial quantities of doubtless essentially well-meaning but fundamentally clueless
Deep breaths, and secure in the knowledge that somewhere after the 12-15k mark, a certain separation of milk from water etc. would occur, we took it easy and attempted a more manageable 7:00+ per k.m. It was a good day for running, the first half anyway, and the sights and sounds of Bombay kept us going for much of the time. Just a great feeling to be running in one of the world's great cities.
(Aside: Race log here and map here)
Somewhere near Kemp's Corner (we're estimating), our breaths were taken away by the sight of the elite buggers come hightailing down in the opposite direction at a crazy, insane pace. Much self loathing and inspiration followed. A little further, and very impressively, Milind showed up. The crowd was really good, egging us all along, especially right at the beginning. Of course, some of the more voluble "Run, Mumbai, Run!" freaks got a dose of "Run, Hyderabad, Run!" from us.
By the time we'd hung a U-ie (somewhat before Worli Dairy), the Great Separation had started to occur. Hapless souls floundering on the side of the road, general looks of despair and disillusionment, and this was enough to send Ludwig into rapturous inspiration, and we really started running. Caught up with Dhanraj (i.e. he was doing some stretches and we passed him) and motored along. Found that the ascents were really the best time to kick into gear and overtook hordes and hordes of
Ms. Right Knee did start an interesting conversation with Mr. Central Nervous System, intimidating the latter about certain twinges and aches and so on and so forth. HRH Brain instructed CNS to totally ignore RK, and we thundered along, very very very confident that we will end up paying for this in the coming weeks. Nevertheless, there was no time to lose, and so we kept at it.
All was hunky dory until we turned a corner and found ourselves on Marine Drive with the mid-morning sun all ablaze. Took the wind out of the sails for a bit, had to do some slight ratcheting down, drinking, and general self motivation. Can't say that the last 4-5 k.m. were too pleasant, although we didn't slacken pace. Charge of the Light Brigade only...
Right at the end, approximately 20 steps from the finish line, we spotted someone trying to sneak up on us and "win". It is useful to consider some facts at this juncture.
1. We are, in fact, cognizant about the Gebrselassie-Tergat photo finish.
2. We really, really, really HATE people who cut lines and queues.
3. We are not really thayir saadam type.
Taking all this into consideration, there was only one outcome. We sprinted, and judicious pumping of shoulders and elbows ensured that the would be Haile wouldn't be. Hah! We play hard, but fair.
Staggered towards the chip counter refund tent, where we ran into King Julian quite randomly after 6(?) years, which was well met. Alack, we lost him soon enough in the chip return melee, of which the less said the better. Kenny was there thankfully, so timepass was easy. Someone from the class of 96 was randomly run into, which was cause for joy.
The rest of the day happened per Kenny's story. The monster child isn't a monster at all, but really needs to learn to make better faces. We drew a ghastly Mickey Mouse using crayons, something from a Ramsey brothers version of the cartoon, in her rough drawing paper, which was fun.
Lunch, nap, drop to airport, caught up with S (who did the full and had horrible organizational stories to tell) and Y (who incredibly finished the half with approximately zero planning and prep). Late flight, got home by 12:30 a.m.
Phew. We learnt that that Energizer Bunny Dhammo had been spotted during the marathon course, zipping around like a chinkara on steroids. One wonders how the rest of the race was.
Anyway, now these revels are ended, and we're back home with an insane deadline, a wedding reception, and a quiz in the offing.
Onward, Christian soldiers...
Friday, January 11, 2008
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."
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."
Thursday, January 03, 2008
Riemann Again, HIFF
Which is random
Lev Aizenberg has made a startling (to say the least) claim.
"We present an elementary, short and simple proof of the validity of the Lindelöf hypothesis about the Riemann zeta-function. The obtained estimate and classical results by Bohr-Landau and Littlewood disprove Riemann's hypothesis."
We've written elsewhere about the Riemann hypothesis, and mentioned that it appeared in a list of resolutions. If Aizenberg's proof holds, this is an earth-shattering result for mathematics. Don't know why, but it just is. And coming so close on the heels of Perelman's proof of the Poincare conjecture, it is like watching triple centuries in consecutive test mateches.
Via the Spaniard, the second edition of the Hyderabad International Film Festival is upon us. Any recos?
Lev Aizenberg has made a startling (to say the least) claim.
"We present an elementary, short and simple proof of the validity of the Lindelöf hypothesis about the Riemann zeta-function. The obtained estimate and classical results by Bohr-Landau and Littlewood disprove Riemann's hypothesis."
We've written elsewhere about the Riemann hypothesis, and mentioned that it appeared in a list of resolutions. If Aizenberg's proof holds, this is an earth-shattering result for mathematics. Don't know why, but it just is. And coming so close on the heels of Perelman's proof of the Poincare conjecture, it is like watching triple centuries in consecutive test mateches.
Via the Spaniard, the second edition of the Hyderabad International Film Festival is upon us. Any recos?
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