Selling your soul

A simple procedure to get someone to sell his/her soul:

1. Place the individual in front of a decision problem
2. Keep interest+insecurities+doubts+uncertainties on one side
3. Keep assurance+something routine+a fat wallet on the other side

In most cases, the outcome is very predictable. (but s/he may still end up feeling crappy without the soul)

The Old Man And The Sea

I've been worrying about too many things recently so I decided I should take my mind off things by doing some light reading. So I borrowed the Old Man and the Sea from a friend and it looked like a very small and easy book. IT WAS ANYTHING BUT EASY AND LIGHT. I really wonder whether I was in the right mindset to appreciate the whole book, but I did like it and learned some interesting things. Like for example

'Have faith in the Yankees my son. Think of the great DiMaggio.'
'I fear both the Tigers of Detroit and the Indians of Cleveland'
'Be careful or you will fear even the Reds of Cincinnati and the White Sox of Chicago'

I realise now how close I was to fearing the Reds and the White Sox.

The Internet

The Internet is a truly amazing and powerful place. One cannot imagine doing any literature survey without google scholar (yeah! I love google) or Citeseer nowadays, at least in computer 'science' (I'll tell a story about it sometime). I thought that the Internet reached a new high with Wikipedia, with thousands of articles in various languages. The concept of an encyclopedia that anyone can edit is a very revolutionary idea, and according to Nature magazine the accuracy of Wikipedia is comparable to that of Britannica. But I realised the true power of the Internet when I chanced upon the Uncyclopedia! Why thousands of people from all over the world would bother to create a parody of the Wikipedia, where the only rule is that the articles have to be funny, is beyond me. I guess the real power of the Internet is, like they say about Democracy, with the people, and it is actually true in this case.

As an example, here is what the two have to say about Democracy:
Wikipedia
Uncyclopedia

Google

I am really impressed by Google's services and features, especially its user interface. I wrote this post in google docs and the features like spell check, fonts styles, revision control, auto-saving and collaborative editing are really amazing. It even has a dictionary for adding new words to the spell checker. Even Blogger-Beta is pretty cool, sure it goes down sometimes but the features are really nice. And all this with one gmail account! I have been trying to get people to use these by sending invitations to gmail, but they all say, "So what! Its just another FREE email service". But they don't know! Gmail has almost unlimited storage, at least for how much ever you will be needing, in-browser chat, and lots of other cool features. I am slowly shifting all my Yahoo! services like photo album, groups and mail to their google equivalent like picasaweb, google groups and gmail.

A low trick

I was given A Game of Thrones as a gift by my friend and I feel that it was a very low and dastardly thing he did. I mean, this humongous (around 800 pages), un-put-down-able, compelling fantasy fiction is just part 1 of a 4 part series, and now that I've finished reading it (now I have all of last week's work to be completed), I just have to have the rest. The best thing I liked about the book is that it is strangely a story about men and not about elves and orcs and the rest, like the usual fantasy fiction.

In other news, a new bookstore has been started in campus and now I don't have to go outside campus anymore. Guess given a couple more years, I won't even be able to find my way back from Adyar.

One more thing, if you have time to read all this, then you should definitely read this. It is one of the funniest blogs I've come across.

What about Bollywood then?

The snob in me doesn’t even want to be associated with them. But really if you are objective enough then you'll see that there are good movies here also. It is just our (or am I generalizing from my experience) innate urge to criticize everything that prevents us from ever accepting that they can be good or fun to watch.

Of course, all this is the result of watching Lage Raho Munna Bhai yesterday. I wouldn’t even watch it for free and my friends had to force me to! (What are friends for anyway, if not to teach you things). And I did learn a lot. I learned that it is okay to laugh watching a bollywood comedy, that it is okay to hum a sentimental song (pal pal har pal…), that you are not cool when you criticize Gandhiji and most importantly that Bollywood movies can be fun to watch. (Also it is nice to hear Vidya Balan call "Murali..." with love in her eyes).

So that is my advice to anyone who thinks like me (and I think this applies to you), go watch Lage Raho Munna Bhai.

Sensible hollywood movies?!!

Can there REALLY be!! After watching movies like MI3 (here is what my friend thinks of the movie) and very recently The hills have eyes, you'd think VERY UNLIKELY. But joking aside, I have actually watched a few outstanding movies.

Everyone must have watched Crash by now, and if you liked that then you'll really like American Dreamz. It is a satire about America and shows like American Idol (there is also an Indian Idol now grrr...). I felt it was a lighter version of Crash and I really liked it. The other movie I really liked was Thank you for smoking, which is about the spokesperson for the tobacco industry. These movies though funny are also a little cynical and really gets the point across.

Eventhough it is not a big-budget hollywood movie and doesn't belong here, I also liked Primer. What I really liked about it is that it is about a couple of engineers, and so few movies are. It is as if WE are completely ignored by pop culture. Here is a comic from phdcomics on the topic.

Guess you get some idea about how my "research" is going now.

Development and apathy

Development and apathy are ruining India. This was what Medha Patkar said during her talk yesterday in the campus, to an auditorium filled to overflowing. But how can something like Development be bad for a country! After all, the government does claim that we have moved away from the 'food-clothing-shelter' priorities and it is time now to concentrate on international trade and globalization. We have come a long way and now have infinite choice in almost all products from soaps to cars - it is very easy to forget that 'food-clothing-shelter' is still a major cause of concern for a vast majority of people, sorry like Medha Patkar asked us to remember, to the citizens of of this country. For as she said, we do sometimes forget to consider the homeless and destitute as citizens who have the same rights and privileges as per the constitution of India as the rest of us.

The second half of the lecture was on the government's policy of creating Special Economic Zones (SEZs), special regions allocated to multi-nationals with almost complete autonomy and special privileges like electricity and water at very low cost. The creation of these special zones require land, and she said that whatever be the price, selling land is a tremendous loss. For with the land we are selling all the natural resources and bio-diversity which is often overlooked or as most often happens swept under a carpet of red-tape. This explains her stand and that of Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) on the 'land for land' policy.

But sadly after a captivating lecture of over one hour and half, the first question that was asked was about the involvement of the famous film star, Amir Khan in the activities of NBA. It really proved her point on the apathy of the general public, which is more interested in the sensational than the relevant. Like she said we are indifferent to any disaster unless we are directly touched by it.

Living in a campus, almost completely removed from the real world, it was important for all of us to have listened to this lecture.

IQ

Just finished Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes and really liked it. It is very well written and it makes you feel everything that is happening to the main character, Charlie Gordon. The only flaw I could find in the book is the human testing after testing only on mice. But I guess it should be allowed as artistic liberty. The best thing about the book is that it makes you question whether intelligence is really good for anything. Other than boosting your ego and making you feel supercilious towards others, a high IQ doesn't help you make friends. As a genius or as a retard you can't really relate to others, but you may be happier as a retard since you don't know it. It may be better to be mediocre and blend in.

Here is what my brother thinks about the book.

Building your vocabulary

Well, there are two ways of going about it – the long & easy way and the quick & hard way, but sadly no quick & easy way. The first method may take years but involving nothing, but reading whatever you like. This is a very relaxed and reliable way of improving your vocabulary, you learn new words very slowly but you can be sure that you will not forget them. But if you are preparing for competitive exams like GRE this is an impractical way of doing things. That’s where the second method becomes essential – mugging up a humongous wordlist. It is a very tedious process and involves a lot of hard work, but you do get quick but unreliable results. So that is what I have been trying to do the past week, trying to cram in the Barons wordlist. But as wordlists go, the Barons is not bad, I mean the example sentences do contain a kind of wry humor. It’s almost like watching a Woody Allen movie – very intellectual, taxing and mildly humorous.

Absence and some good books

I took a three week break from college and went to my brother's place. It is so strange that when you are out of the college and facing the real world, things like blogs and emails become so insignificant. When in college I check my email(s) at least every hour, but in the last three week I have checked only twice. But then you are not so jobless when you are outside the college (you actually have to do some work and not just sit in front of the computer and pretend to).

During this time, I finally finished Of Human Bondage and liked it very much. But I think that if you are going to read only one of Somerset Maugham's books then you should read The Razor's Edge because that is a much better book. Never mind all the hype surrounding Of Human Bondage.

I also read Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie which was highly recommended by my brother. It is a very colourful and imaginative tale. I think the author was having a lot of fun while writing it and so it contains lots of amusing lyrics. But in the end, I think it is just a children's book and not one of Salman Rushdie's serious works.

But the best book I read during this time was Not the End of the World by Geraldine McCaughrean which is about what might have actually happened aboard Noah's Ark. The main character in the story is Timna, Noah's daughter, but the book also provides the perspectives of the rest of the family and also of the animals on board the Ark. The book went on to win the Whitbread Children's Book of the Year Award. But I really think that the book is for grownups too. It is very brutal, especially the scene of the birth of the wildebeest calf on board the Ark, and very thought-provoking. By giving the perspectives of the people and the animals on board the Ark, it makes you question whether there is really any difference between them. It is a very short book but will keep you thinking for a long time.

Things ain't what they were...

A friend was telling me the other day, that he was wasting all his time watching Dragonballs. DRAGONBALLS!! Of all things! And it got me thinking of today's cartoons, and how they have become the mindless talking heads and the excessively 'cute n cuddly' creatures. Look at POKEMON, I cant make any sense of it, but all the kids are obsessed with it. There is some kind of card game too. Oh, how I miss Topcat and Bugs Bunny. Those were real cool cartoons. I even like Dexter's Lab and Samurai Jack which are somewhat recent and Simpsons of course (I think it is for grownups). I guess I'm just getting old, but the friend I talked about is older than me :)

The Wisdom of Age

It’s been a nice week, with the new students coming and I being able to delude them into considering me as a wise senior. It is always nice to meet new people; with all their enthusiasm and exuberance. And succeed in getting them to look up to you (wish it would stay that way). I think this year I will extend all my help in making the new students feel right at home, especially the girls and there are quite a few this time.

Also, today I watched some random tamil movie which had Bhavana in it. It made me an instant fan of her. I guess it takes a tamil movie to make a mallu actress appealing. After the movie me and my friend went for a coffee and ended up talking about school, life, love, girls and almost everything under the sun till 1:00 am. 'Twas time well spent (especially when I have one month left for GRE).

Emergence

Why do birds fly in formations? Why do wolves hunt in packs? How does the queen ant direct the activities of the entire colony?

Are birds so very intelligent that they communicate among themselves, decide on a leader and then fly in a specific formation? It has been seen that an individual bird is not capable of planning such a complicated process. These phenomena are nowadays termed emergent behavior, where the individual units are simple, yet the overall system is extremely complex.

The most famous example of an artificially created emergent behavior is the Conway’s Game of Life. You can get an interactive introduction to it on this MIT website. Other examples include the stock market, where there is no single specific global leader or controller and yet the prices remain stable; the internet where any website can be created anywhere and yet they are all reachable from any point. Basically, it has been argued that every complex system can be explained using a simple set of rules.

Another related topic is the Cellular Automata, which is an arrangement of finite/infinite units and the behavior of each unit is decide only by its immediate neighbors. Thus the Game of Life is an example of a Cellular Automation. It has been found that using very simple rules, random numbers can be generated (a very difficult problem for deterministic computer systems) which passes all standard tests for randomness.

These surprising results have prompted people to question whether nature is truly as complex as imagined or whether it is made up of simpler rules which we are unable to find. In his book, A Different Universe: Reinventing Physics from the Bottom Down, Nobel laureate Robert B. Laughlin tries to explain the physical world using these emergent properties. And Stephen Wolfram in his controversial book, A New Kind of Science, studies Cellular Automata and suggests that existing methods of mathematics and the sciences are inadequate to explain certain properties.

For a good introduction to Emergent Behavior and Cellular Automata you can look them up on Wikipedia

Gratification

I got my hands on Wuthering Heights from a friend recently. This classic was such a failure when it was first published that the author Emily Bronte went to her grave believing her only novel to be a failure. It seems like such a terrible punishment to an author, especially when the work is regarded as a masterpiece after his/her death. It brings to mind one of Oscar Wilde’s famous quotes:

There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about

Yesterday, I finally finished A Tale of Two Cities. Even though there were quite a few coincidences in the book, I think it is one of the best I’ve read, and are essential to the tale. Truly, this book has the most famous starting and ending lines in literature. Just before the end Sydney Carton, the most unappreciated character in the book, is said to be at peace and to have enough a sense of being gratified to think:

It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known

But in the real world, the public can be so ruthless, letting a great author like Emily Bronte die unappreciated during her lifetime.

The lesser of two evils

Disclaimer: This post was written when in a non-serious mood. The author would like to state that he does not support terrorism in any way and that he thinks it an unforgivable crime. He would also like to apologize if anyone finds the comments mentioned here offending

Terrorism is bad. It kills a lot of people.

But then again, trains are also bad. They also kill a lot of people. In a year, I am sure that trains kill more people than do terrorists.

So when terrorists attack trains, it is like when Godzilla meets King Kong. Also as in these gore fests, it is always the innocent bystanders who suffer the most.

Cube Life

I live in a cube – 343 – 7³ – that’s my room number. But you can’t complain about the room, it really is a cube (as promised). The walls are at perfect right angles with the floor and the ceiling, and of exact dimensions too. There is just enough space for a bed, two chairs - one for hanging my dirty laundry and the other for draping my towel on (I sit,lie and sleep on my bed), a table and a shelf for my books. Just perfect for your average cubeite. Makes you wish you had some cardboard boxes to decorate the room with, then it would be really picturesque

?!!

In 'A Tale of Two Cities', Mr. Dickens (or Charles but never Mr. Charles) writes,

... I love your daughter fondly, dearly, disinterestedly, devotedly.

This is the first time I have come across a usage of 'disinterested love'. I have heard of disinterested opinion and a disinterested judge but never its usage with love. I don't even know whether it is a nice thing to tell someone, still I like it a lot!

Hey Maugham, what the Dickens?

I had been reading ‘A tale of two cities’ as an e-book on my mobile (hope Mr. Charles doesn’t turn in his grave). But then I went and bought a real book – Of Human Bondage. The temptation of holding a book and reading it (kind of like having a cake and eating it too) was too great for me to resist. Thus I began reading two great books at the same time.

The styles of two authors cannot be more different. Maugham is extremely descriptive and the book is often described as an ‘autobiographical novel’. The characters are so alive since they are written from life. I could really relate to Philip, maybe not his tempestuous, obsessive love, but his shyness, love of reading, obstinacy and vanity. Then again, I found the book very similar to ‘The Razor’s Edge’.

On the other hand, Dickens is full of satiric humor, that is at the same time very thought provoking. I do not think I have understood all that is implied in the book or that I will after a second or third reading. Each sentence seems to have been written after a lot of thought and deliberation. The book makes me feel like I have been sleeping all these years (this is my first Dickens) and makes me want to read all of his books.

In ‘Of Human Bondage’, Mr. Maugham writes,

… there are two good things in life, freedom of thought and freedom of action. In France you get freedom of action: you can do what you like and nobody bothers, but you must think like everybody else. In Germany you must do what everybody else does, but you may think as you choose. … But in England you get neither: you’re ground down by convention. You can’t think as you like and you can’t act as you like. That’s because it’s a Democratic nation. I expect America’s worse.

Makes you really wonder about India if the ‘land of the free’ is so restrictive, or wonder about France and Germany.

The Bookstore

Over the ages, the bookstore has always played a central role in shaping the human society. The place has a certain charm about it. Really when you stop to think about it, you realize that all human activities have been, are and will be associated with the bookstore. A place of desire (when you see a book that you really want) and wonder (when you see its price). But the bookstore also has a soul, only you may have to search for it. Take yesterday for example, I went to this great bookstore (quite near the college too), and saw ‘Of Human Bondage’ which I’ve always wanted to read. When I looked at the price I was literally shocked - Rs. 508. Hmmm… how can I ever square it off with my conscience? But I was in luck yesterday, I found a low cost edition of the same book (after a lot of (soul?) searching) for Rs. 120 which I can explain to my conscience. So that’s my story - the soul of a bookstore.

hmmm... maybe I should go out more often and go some place other than a bookstore or a library.

ps. I haven’t started the book yet. Been reading ‘Tale of Two Cities’, my first ‘Dickens’. Still, better late than never.

Depression

Some made the long drop from the apartment or office window; some took it quietly in two-car garages with the motor running; some used the native tradition of the Colt or Smith & Wesson; those well-constructed implements that end insomnia, terminate remorse, cure cancer, avoid bankruptcy, and blast an exit from intolerable positions by the pressure of a finger; those admirable american instruments so easily carried, so sure of effect, so well designed to end the american dream when it becomes a nightmare, their only drawback is the mess they leave for relatives to clean up

These are from 'To have and have not' by Ernest Hemingway, I guess it is to be expected from an author who later does the same thing, but this time uses a shotgun. I was trying to figure out which was the most depressing literature I've read, I guess it has to be 'Love' by Toni Morrisson (even though there were quite a few close contenders like 'Mrs. Dolloway', 'Catcher in the rye' and it even beat 'Desperation' by Stephen King). 'Love' is about a dying resort town and the two women who live there, but really the book is about depression.

Proof

'Proof' is one of the best movies I've watched recently. The movie is about this great mathematician who goes a little crazy and dies. Now his daughter, Gweneth Paltrow, brings out a notebook containing a proof on some theorem on 'prime numbers'. But no one would believe that she did actually write the proof. The best thing about the movie is it doesn't become trite or over simplified. What I mean is that usually when there is a movie on a technical topic, they just show a bunch of formulae or when they show a hacker, he types a lot of stuff on the keyboard and hey presto the security system is breached. The only complaint I have is in the choice of 'prime numbers', aren't there hundreds of important unproved theorems in mathematics? Its always prime numbers in movies take 'PI' another excellent movie but still its on 'prime numbers'. I guess that is the most accessible mathematical conundrum that everyone can identify

Not so great

I've been reading 'Inkheart' by Cornelia Flunke (suggested to me by a friend as a great fantasy fiction). Well he was wrong, Inkheart is not such a great book (too kiddish and girlie) . The thing is, I do like fantasy - not only great stuff like TLOTR but also new works like the Inheritance trilogy. Maybe the book wasn't ment for me, but I really did not like it. As with any other book once I start, I can't stop until I finish it. So it was a complete waste of time. But then again I found this quote at the begining of a chapter

A strong and bitter book-sickness floods one's soul. How ignominious to be strapped to this ponderous mass of paper, print and dead man's sentiment. Would it not be better, finer, braver to leave the rubbish where it lies and walk out into the world a free untrammeled illiterate Superman?

With books like these I do see some point in the quote

The world according to Marcus Aurelius

There is a passage in "The World accordint to Garp" where Garp reads the following quote of Marcus Aurelius in a bookstore in Austria,

In the life of a man, his time is but a moment, his being an incessant flux, his sense a dim rushlight, his body prey of worms, his soul an unquiet eddy, his fortune dark, his fame doubtful. In short, all that is body is as coursing waters, all that is of the soul as dreams and vapours

and comments that he must have written it when in Austria. That seems to summarise everything about the book. Even the most profound (and depressing) passages are painted with a twist of humour. Like everything about the book, every sentence, seems to have a multitude of meanings and emotions attached with them. I want it to go on for ever. All the small stories and the dreams of the characters within these stories. Everything is so vivid. Like it says in the cover, 'the book makes you laugh, makes you weep and above all makes you think' and its TRUE. This is one of the most readable and also a must read book I've come across.