Angels and Demons

Science is a differential equation. Religion is a boundary condition.
-Alan Turing

Watched Angels and Demons yesterday. Our original plan was to watch Watchmen, but we foiled that shadyantra (Rabbitt's word) to create our own :). I had read the novel as an undergrad and loved it, and was eagerly waiting for the movie, but again, a bit apprehensive because The Da Vinci code had not lived upto my expectations. But not so with this one. This is a must watch!!

The movie opens with scenes inside the LHC. You might have already seen the photos, but watching it on a big screen is a different experience altogether. The movie is fast paced, and the cinematography is awesome. Especially the scenes inside the Sistene Chapel, one actually feels the grandeur of the great structure. Of course, the entire book won't fit in a 2 hour movie, but I think they've done a good job, and you will be able to enjoy it even if you haven't read the novel (my friends did). The explosion scene towards the end is, well, for lack of words I'll say Awesome.. but let this be clear, it's way better than that.

And then there are the dialogs, about Science, about Religion, and about their interplay. Deep and Insightful. Especially some of Camerlengo's lines. Proponents of both sides make their points with force and eloquence, but there is no final conclusion, and I don't think there ever will be. Personally I cannot agree that there can be some No man's land for science, like the moment of creation. All the how the world works type of questions are better left to Science. Maybe there are things that Science will not be able to help us with, but at least we can do without artificial barriers. What we choose to do with that knowledge is a different question. We have both Angels and Demons inside us. Exactly who does what is, as I said, our choice.

Enjoy!!

The morale...

Unix started out its life as a pun on MULTICS, a very serious multiuser time-sharing system that didn't like being made fun of, but then went on to leave its serious rival in the dustbin of history. Unix almost completely dominated the market for scientific workstations and servers before being neatly replaced by a work-alike clone called Linux, which started out as a pun on Unix. The moral of the story? Puns can be powerful things.

[Found here. Might not be completely True, but I like the conclusion :p. Read the complete article (I am doing the same), and you'll know the difference between FAT and VFAT, besides many other things].

Enjoy!!

Puneri Paati...

You must've seen the mails. Discovered this gem while out on a team lunch. This fella is really trast, as they say in Marathi. I mean, people park in his place, throw kachada, and even abuse the poor guy when he complains. Totally Unfair, I would say..

For lots and lots more, go here.

[Many Thanks to Sabhtarsha for helping me transfer this image. My phone just won't work with any other laptop. He helped with images in the last post too. Thanks man..]

Enjoy!!

What do you see?

Pareidolia: n. The tendency to interpret a vague stimulus as something known to the viewer. [Courtesy: Wiktionary]

Take a look.

I see a mouse. I showed it to a friend, and she saw a dog.

Now take a look here.

I see a dinosaur. A friend saw a turtle. Another saw a cake.

OK, let me tell you what they are. Cracks in a wall!!
The grand conclusion? Brain is a wonderful thing [OK, nothing new, I admit].

[A lot more at Bad Astronomy].

So tell me, what do you see?

So long and Thanks for all the fish Douglas...

"Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?"

Douglas Adams (11 March 1952 – 11 May 2001)

Happy Towel Day!!

I am sure I am a bit late

in writing this review of Me Shivajiraje Bhosle Boltoy; I mean, the movie was released almost a month ago, but I watched it today only and will try to keep this short. Most of my friends had already watched it, so when Sharma suggested this movie, I thought Kaun aaygea.. But our options were limited anyway, with Angels and Demons postponed to 29th and T4 I don't know when. So I agreed. The thing that surprised me was the theater was full. Hadn't expected that. And here's the grand conclusion, the movie is good and enjoyable, but is strictly a one time watch. Maybe the very positive reviews I got from friends had set my expectations a bit too high. The picture it paints appears overly simplistic, sometimes even at the cost of believability. But the point it makes is both simple and important, that you can not blame your failure on someone else. You need to take responsibility. DJ makes a similar point in RDB, "Zindagi jeene ke do hi tariqe hote hai; Ek: Jo hota hai hone do, bardasht karte jao. Dusara: Jimmedari uthao usako badalane ki".. Makrand Anaraspure's (Rayba) one liners are amazing. Sachin Khedekar rulez the movie!

But there's more. I think the appeal of the story is its simplicity. The real world is very very complex, and simple stories provide an escape. One final comment, as we're leaving the hall, a friend heard someone saying. "pach vela pahila, next time anashil tar marin..". Couldn't help but smile. I wish this multiplex problem sorts itselfs out soon. We want our movies.

TGIF (22/05/2009)

Amit's birthday. We have a surprise planned for him. A part of it is me and MD fetching him early morning from his place while the rest of the gang waits at Wadeshwar. We reach his place and the big lock on the door greets us with a surprise. No option but to call him. The fella is visiting somebody in Chinchwad and apparently we missed him just by 15-20 minutes. We return to Wadeshwar and munch on Sabudana wada, Misal Pav, Medu wada and whatnot. Amit joins some time later. Cake follows. Some nice snaps are clicked. Another part of the surprise is the gift. I won't go into the full details, but rest assured, I don't think Amit is gonna forget the gift, ever.

After a morning bash, it's a big pain to come and work. And especially when small nagging issues keep popping up where yesterday everything had seemed so fine. I whine endlessly to anybody who cares to listen :p. I manage to sort them out (somehow, might I add?), but have to cut into the snack hour, a sacrifice I am generally unwilling to make :p.

We have another bash planned in the evening. After much discussion (and a many, many jokes :) we decide to have our dinner at Mocha, Law college road. I've heard a lot about Chocolate Avalanche, and it does not disappoint. Another dish I liked but don't recall the name right now. Then we hit Scream, surprisingly it is uncrowded, so we have most of the floor to us. It was fun (I would have appreciated more bollywood numbers though). Thank you guys!! Have to pick my bag (and my headphones) so I drop at office on my way home. I wonder if I can finish my work then, but 2:15AM is hardly the time to commit anything, let alone code, so decide to go home. I am fast asleep within 10 minutes.

Now eagerly awaiting the next Friday and the next bash..

Enjoy!!

Anticipatory Plagiarism

Anticipatory plagiarism occurs when someone steals your original idea and publishes it a hundred years before you were born.

-Robert Merton

Now you know :p.

It's official: I am a Jeffrey Archer fan now!!

Well, if you know me, or read my blog, you know I have read exactly one book by Mr.Archer, a collection of short stories called A twist in the tale, which Charuta was kind enough to share with me. So why sudden change of heart? Well, for those who don't know, Mr.Archer was here in Pune yesterday (at Landmark, Mondelina Moledina road) to promote his new book Paths of Glory, and I was fortunate enough to attend. And by the time it ended, I had turned into a Jeffrey Archer fan.

It all began with a message. A message from Landmark, announcing the visit. I dutifully forwarded it to JA fans I knew, but could not immediately make up my mind about whether I wanted to go. As I said, I had read exactly one book, and had liked it, but did not consider myself a fan yet. Later a friend was coming to visit, and I pretty much shelved the plan. But that visit plan itself got postponed, and I found myself at Landmark at 6:19PM with Abhishek (my roomie). Bought a few books (8 new additions :), which included a couple of tantalizing finds.

Mr.Archer arrived by about 7:20PM, and there was this huge round of applause. Again, for those who don't know, Jeffrey is a delightful speaker. I mean, he talked for about one-one and a half hour, and we're standing this whole time, compressed by the crowd, and did not feel a bit. He began with an introduction to his new book (Paths of Glory), which is a historic fiction. He talked about his experiences as a writer (his first book Not a Penny more, Not a Penny less was turned down by fourteen publishers). He talked about his new projects (he has recrafted Kane and Abel, which will be released sometime soon (3rd oct IIRC)) [Trivia: Kane and Abel was originally called The Protagonists]. Plus he's writing a short story collection. He delights in calling himself a storyteller, not a writer, and he made it abundantly clear that people read Dickens, not some Nobel prize for Literature winner. He shared some invaluable advice for new writers, the most important bit was I guess to never give up, just keep going. He talked about India, and his favorite Indian author (R.K.Narayan). And he dispelled one prevalent myth, that there's a book inside every one of us. As per him, there might be a story inside every one of us, but the book thingy is rubbish [I am not sure I understand this fully]. Overall it went very well. Then came the book signing session. Jeffrey kindly agreed to stay until the last book was signed. Got my copy of Paths of Glory signed. It feels wonderful. Take a look

So Mr.Archer is busy working (that's my copy of the book he's signing) and I am just loitering around. You may safely conclude that everything is normal :).
[A tip o' the hat goes to the unknown fella who clicked this image for me].

Enjoy!!

How times change..

[Found this one in my old drafts].

Old times:
Ask a question and you are a fool for a minute; Don't ask a question and you are a fool for the rest of your life.

New times:
Don't ask a question and you are a fool for the rest of your life; Ask a question and
a) You are perceived to be a fool for the rest of your life.
b) You are a fool for the rest of your life because all you get is patronization (which you deserve cause you're a fool anyway), and no answer.

Morale:
It's OK to be dumb. It's OK to be curious. It's (probably) NOT OK to be both simultaneously.

Enjoy!!

What bored engineers do? Part II

Again on a Friday evening.

First, one of them has to buy an awesome bike (Congrats MD!), so they can escape to the parking lot.
One of them makes a discovery, a hard disk which someone clearly threw away.
They discuss the cool keychains you can make out of the PCB.
One of them takes it all seriously, and starts looking for a way to open the harddisk (Someone suggests a hammer).
The serious fella actually returns with a screwdriver and stuff. Others, being the engineers they are, enthusiastically join in.
Then open the harddisk, decide to make a keychain out of the read-write head. Someone wonders if a gramophone can be made with the motor and the disk. But they could not agree on the best way to cut the PCB.
They discover something called 'buttons in HA' in the room (three buttons controlling a single lamp, but could not again decide why it is so. Is the 3 button unit standard? but why then have all them wired to the lone lamp, why not leave two of them alone. To get some flavor of the kinds of debates, read the ever helpful xkcd).
There is so much laughter in the room that somebody protected by two glass doors has to come and ask them to shut up.

[Later someone writes a blog about what bored engineers do on a Friday evening, Part II].

FTP!!*

Enjoy!!

*full form in Part I

Now Playing...

.
.
After my dreaming
I woke with this fear
What am I leaving
When I'm done here
.
.

-"Leave out all the rest",
Minutes to Midnight, Linkin Park.

Is Philosophy for Laymen?

Philosophy consists of footnotes to Plato.
-Alfred North Whitehead*

Says Yes Mr. Bertrand Russell. Today I stumbled upon his essay 'Philosophy for Laymen' and having known something about the great man, decided to give it a try. I was not disappointed. It's good. Really, really good. But instead of me trying to summarize it (an impossibilty), let me give you the flavor of the essay in Russell's own words..

He explains what Philosophy is..

'Philosophy' means love of wisdom.

The pursuit of philosophy is founded on the belief that knowledge is good, even if what is known is painful.

He tells us how it works..

If philosophy is to serve a positive purpose, it must not teach mere skepticism, for, while the dogmatist is harmful, the skeptic is useless. Dogmatism and skepticism are both, in a sense, absolute philosophies; one is certain of knowing, the other of not knowing. What philosophy should dissipate is certainty, whether of knowledge or of ignorance.

Then he tells us why it is important..

It is not enough to recognize that all our knowledge is, in a greater or less degree, uncertain and vague; it is necessary, at the same time, to learn to act upon the best hypothesis without dogmatically believing it.

For the learning of every virtue there is an appropriate discipline, and for the learning of suspended judgment the best discipline is philosophy.

And finally, probably why you should do it..

Philosophy.. makes possible the nearest approach to serenity that is available to a sensitive mind in our tortured and uncertain world.

I think that's enough to whet your appetite. Go ahead, read it.

*Russell seems to disagree with Whitehead (his teacher and later collaborator on Principia Mathematica) on this.

What bored engineers do?

On a Friday evening.

First they chat about random topics.
One of them then has the idea of playing rock-paper-scissors-lizard-spock.
They develop new rules for how to do things in parallel.
They calculate probabilities of things like everybody making a different sign, and debate whether something is nP1 or nC1.
They create a new game, with rules like 'Customer kills tech support' in place of 'rock crushes scissors'.
They fill their whiteboards with graphs showing the rules of the new game, and then photograph it for later reference.

[Later at least one of them writes a blog about what bored engineers do on a Friday evening].

FTP !! [FTP: Full Time Pass]

Enjoy!!

Some new additions

To my personal library. I had stopped buying books recently, maybe at some unconscious level I had realized that I already have enough on my plate to last for the next few years. Entered Crossword reminding myself to just check for a magazine (and then get out) but could not resist a little wandering around. Non fiction shelf was a big disappointment, but bought two works of fiction. I guess that puts to rest the popular misconception than I don't read fiction >:). But I am a bit intimidated now. I mean, I have these stacks upons stacks of wonderful books at home, and I keep adding to it, and it just grows, hardly shrinking, and if that, only by a little. I did some back-of-the-envelope calculations to see how much time would it take to finish and came up with the same conclusion mentioned in my second statement :). I think I can need to do something about my reading speed (Advice, suggestions are welcome). Also need to look for some large timeslots in my schedule, currently, max I read is for something like 1hr. Gtg fellas, lot to do :p.

Ohh, as for what I bought, take a look here and here. And I did not find the magazine. The guy at the counter told me that they order only one copy, and clearly someone else beat me to it.

Enjoy !!

Long weekend cometh

3 days. No plan. I'll try to keep scribbling here. So based on what happens, and when and if I come online, you might see something, nothing, or a lot of things at the end in this space.

Listening to radio. Some really good songs they are playing today. Glad that there are more than one stations. The receiver gives trouble sometimes though. 01/05; 12:53PM

Random reading. Biography to Fiction to Classics. Number of pages read in each, very limited. 01/05; 2:51PM

Uninterrupted, dreamless afternoon sleep. Feeling Good. 01/05; 6:12PM

Trying to read a book about markets. Must learn some FinanceSpeak. Once again, suggestions? 01/05; 10:05PM

Call from home. Mom:Pura weekend so ke hi nikal raha hai kya? :-). 01/05; 10:16PM

A friend forwarded me this link. Funny. Best one, "Always go to other peoples' funerals; otherwise they won't go to yours." 01/05; 10:41PM

When the only writing you do is a blog, your sentences invariably come out longer than would befit something like twitter or sms. Every medium needs some relearning. 02/05; 12:13PM

History of communication, SC style. 02/05; 2:41PM

Read some short stories from A twist in the tale. My first book by Jefferey Archer. Liked 'The perfect murder'. 02/05; 6:55PM

Just watched TBBT (S02E21). Best line: Homesick. 20 ft or 20 lightyears, doesn't matter. Plus Are you spock? best hota. 02/05; 8:11PM

Drifting trajectories of life. You begun at the same place and now look, how different have you become. 02/05; 8:25PM

Good article about API design @ CACM. 02/05; 9:34PM

Watched Baazigar on DD1. One of my favorites. Was a big break for the time when it was released (93 I guess). 03/05; 12:45PM

Read some more stories by J.A. Liked Just Good Friends. 03/05; 2:10PM

Three hours nap. Long weekend has spoiled me. 03/05: 5:54PM

Long walk at teatime. I likes it. Later Chocolate delight at Mongini's. I likes that too. 03/05; 6:55PM

Monday Morning. Looking back over the weekend, I see nothing unusual. But I guess that is the point. Three days spent doing nothing. Reminds me of Good old school summer holidays. Signing off. 04/05; 10:53AM