A review of Kurt Vonnegut's novel "Slaughterhouse Five" in Amazon.com (I burst out laughing reading it)
This without a doubt ranks up there with the WORST books I have ever read. Pointless, poorly written, and incredibly dull.
If you want some great writing, try Ayn Rand.
Few days ago, Spielberg's movie 'Munich' was on STAR TV. Its a fictional, I stress fictional here, about Israeli's response to the 1972 Munich Massacre. (The Munich massacre occurred during the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, West Germany, when members of the Israeli Olympic team were taken hostage and eventually murdered by Black September, a militant group with ties to Yasser Arafat’s Fatah organization.) I mean, the response was real, but movie's depiction of the response is fictional. These were the movie-lines for the Gold Meir, who was the Israeli prime minister when the Massacre happened. Remember, this is fictional Golda Meir, taken from the script of the movie. You can get a soft copy, if you google it.
"It is a disgrace that Spielberg compares Golda Meir to terrorist leaders in Lebanon. For quite a lengthy period Golda rejected our proposals - of the Mossad, Military Intelligence and the Shin Bet [security service] - for operations against terrorism in Europe. She hoped the Europeans would be vigilant and would take action themselves against Palestinian terrorism aimed at Israel. ... "
I will say only that the whole issue of whom to strike at was given meticulous consideration and the probable consequences were evaluated. What guided us was [the need] to strike at the infrastructures of terrorism and at those who might attack Israelis in the future.That is more insightful than the rhetoric of our politicians and the drama of 24-hour news channels.
A 60% real - 40% fictional conversation.
She: Why did you fall in love with me ?
He : If you think about it, it is all about survival. Human beings for the matter of the survival of their genes, need to find mates. Driven by such a survival instinct, they choose their mates, have kids, and pass on their genes. Did you know, scientists have found that the activity in brain when you fall in love, is similar to the activity of a person on Cocaine ?
She : Well, that sounds true - you laugh and cry without any reason. But my question is : Why did you choose me ? Why not some one else ?
He : Again, scientifically, there are many reasons - First, the sense of being physically attractive. We tend to think that by choosing attractive people, it can lead to a better chance of survival of our progeny. Studies have shown that one of the most common trait of attractiveness is symmetry.(Think: Survival) Second, there are other non-physical traits like kindness. We tend to see these traits, because, physical attractiveness may be faked. Any kind of difficult experience would make us more mean. Kindness is a trait that has a better chance of survival. Third, bandwidth of risk. Empirical studies have shown that we are likely to choose some one in a high-risk environment than in a low-risk environment. We tend to believe that some one with a higher bandwidth for risk has a better chance for survival.
She : Is this your idea of being romantic ? OK. I will humor you. There are scientific reasons for you falling in love with me. But, Why are you still stuck with me ?
He : Well, after making a choice, there is a need to stick together until our progeny is able to survive on its own. It is all hormones all the way from there.
She : You are disgusting.
He : No, science is disgusting.
I read a great quote today by Randall Jarrell,
"I think that one possible definition of our modern culture is that it is one in which
nine-tenths of our intellectuals can't read any poetry."
When I was in School, our teachers work hard to make sure that I rather read maths and science and not poetry. How un-interesting-ly young had I been !
If you are fan of photography, I am sure you already subscribed to the Big Picture web site. This recent installment of Yann Arthus-Bertrand's photographs are just breath taking.
A real conversation.
He : "You make me happy."
She : "Don't ever forget that. OK ?"
He : "If you can make me happy all the time, I don't have to 'remember' that. You know ?"
She : "Ah! Smart Ass!"
You know, there are some days, when some one sends you a link to a blog, and you spend the whole day reading all the posts since its inception - spending 8 hours straight. Well, today is one such day for me and the blog is bhOndOO's life at IISc. bhOndOO is an research student "earning" his Ph.D in IISc, Bangalore, and the blog is all about his life. The posts - coffee with shami, mobile in the lab and jn tata and unix are just three of the many hilarious anectodes. Go, Read it.
This is something I wrote to a friend just two weeks ago.
It is quite a common a site in India, especially in South India, to be hugging and holding hands in groups of men. The symbols, that would probably be indication of a Gay group in USA or Europe, is very common in India. I think, when we hang out together, it was no different from how girls hang out together. I mean, if a group of girls hug and hold hands togeather, it would NOT look lesbian in any part of the world. But a group of guys somehow become 'Gay' in the eyes of a Westernized observer.
This might also explain some characteristics of Indian Men, that most commonly observed among Gay men - certain likes, dislikes, behaviors. But a majority of them are heterosexual males. This also might explain certain tendencies - how men and women in India tend not be in extreme stereo types, but some where in the middle. In US, I saw these stereotypes very strong - like there is a stark difference between how a heterosexual man should behave; and any sign of a female sense within a man would be considered being 'gay' like watching romantic movies or listening melodramatic music. They call these chic movies and chic music. I was really surprised to see that how Men and Women are like from totally different planets there.(in US) And God help you if you are a transvestite living in US. (or for that matter any country in the world).
It looks as if personality differences between men and women are smaller in traditional cultures like India’s or Zimbabwe’s than in the Netherlands or the United States. A husband and a stay-at-home wife in a patriarchal Botswanan clan seem to be more alike than a working couple in Denmark or France. The more Venus and Mars have equal rights and similar jobs, the more their personalities seem to diverge. ... The biggest changes recorded by the researchers involve the personalities of men, not women. Men in traditional agricultural societies and poorer countries seem more cautious and anxious, less assertive and less competitive than men in the most progressive and rich countries of Europe and North America.
Google Chrome is a new web browser released by Google. I might switch, if I could get zotero on it. Just try it!
A few thoughts, I had written down from time to time. I have intentionally left out the context.
The most difficult thing in being a parent: It is easier for the kid to "pretend to be" that to "really be".
I understood this just by observing a few parents(including mine) and kids(including me). And since I am not a parent, I don't know how it feels like to be one. But I believe, this is a serious impediment to understanding.
But you know what ? It is easier of the parent too, when the kid is sold to the idea of pretension.
Do you really wonder, how much time you spend each day browsing Wikipedia ? -or- Lolcats ? Do you want to control the time you spend at Orkut or Facebook ? Yes, you can. There is a Firefox plugin for you at 8AWeek. It adds a toolbar in firefox, with which you can configure which sites you want to restrict and the time you want to spend with restricted sites. And at the end of the day, it produces a graph something like this.
The ones in red color are my restricted sites. It also gives grades based on the how well you group your browsing, % Restricted, and Overtime. My grade report looks like this.
Nah, I am not really proud of that, but I get a feel about what kind of online grazing I do. Now, if you want to expand such an analysis to your desktop - Yes, there is an application for that too. Recuetime is desktop application, that keeps track of the time you spend on each desktop application. Unlike 8AWeek, you have to signup on their website. It gathers information and sends to rescuetime.com servers, where you can analyze the your desktop habit stats. This is how my dashboard looks like.
Of course, there are a lot of options in RescueTime - such as rating your tags, setting up productivity goals, which I haven't explored. Still, I find the application very useful.
I can't say I am productive using these applications, but I can say they have changed the way I work. Now, I no longer wonder, where did all the time go. The answer is right there on these pretty bar charts.
Often, we come across situation we some terminology is blatantly misused, probably because of mis-understanding of the terminology. But sometimes, we come across creative use of certain terms. I was reading this report, an appending to the Rogers Commission Report on the Space Shuttle Challenger Accident.
In spite of these variations from case to case, officials behaved as if they understood it, giving apparently logical arguments to each other often depending on the "success" of previous flights. For example. in determining if flight 51-L was safe to fly in the face of ring erosion in flight 51-C, it was noted that the erosion depth was only one-third of the radius. It had been noted in an experiment cutting the ring that cutting it as deep as one radius was necessary before the ring failed. Instead of being very concerned that variations of poorly understood conditions might reasonably create a deeper erosion this time, it was asserted, there was "a safety factor of three." This is a strange use of the engineer's term ,"safety factor." If a bridge is built to withstand a certain load without the beams permanently deforming, cracking, or breaking, it may be designed for the materials used to actually stand up under three times the load. This "safety factor" is to allow for uncertain excesses of load, or unknown extra loads, or weaknesses in the material that might have unexpected flaws, etc. If now the expected load comes on to the new bridge and a crack appears in a beam, this is a failure of the design. There was no safety factor at all; even though the bridge did not actually collapse because the crack went only one-third of the way through the beam. The O-rings of the Solid Rocket Boosters were not designed to erode. Erosion was a clue that something was wrong. Erosion was not something from which safety can be inferred.
Well, You are in this really neat restaurant - one of those where the waiters wear uniforms and you have your water in glass(!) cup. Of course, You are hungry and need something fast. Naturally, for some reason, - may be, because the kitchen is as dimly lit as your table - the Chef takes way too much time to get your "Hyderabadi Prawn Biriyani" done. Now what do you do ? Apart from offering a Phillips energy-saving light bulb for the supposedly dimly lit restaurant's Kitchen, you can of course yell at the waiter three or four times. But this is not really going to make things better. Every one seem to expect this reaction, especially those restaurants, where it is a habit to serve you late. They have grown insulated to such yelling. I guess, may be, even dancing won't work there. So, my answer is Origami!
Yes, really. They have paper napkins on every table in such restaurants - at least in the restaurant I went to.(If its not there ask for a few paper napkins.) Do origami with paper napkins. Well, the only thing I know how to make out of a paper is the lame 'Origami Boat'. So, I start to make boats out of paper napkins, and place it every where on my table. (I was planning get down the floor, when the table fills up -or- Ask for more paper napkins from the next table). It worked! Probably the waiter was worried about cleaning the mess I am happily and willfully generating. I saw him head for the kitchen at my 4th boat. And Tada! There is my Biriyani. Try it(Of course, I didn't mean the biriyani. Not that I don't want you to have Biriyani) and let me know, if it works for you.
This is probably old news. But I just found it today on BBC : Hindu gods get summons from court. As the story goes
Judge Sunil Kumar Singh in the eastern state of Jharkhand has issued adverts in newspapers asking the gods to "appear before the court personally".
The two Hindu gods have been summoned as the defence claimed that they were owners of the disputed land.
"Since the land has been donated to the gods, it is necessary to make them a party to the case," local lawyer Bijan Rawani said.
கற்றத்து தமிழ் திரைப்படம் பார்த்தேன் - சுமார் ஒரு வாரத்திற்க்கு முன்பு. படம் பார்த்து முடிந்ததும், சினிமா விமர்சகர் ரே கார்னி திரைப்படங்கள் எவ்வாறு இருக்க வேண்டுமென்று இங்கு சொல்வதைப் போன்றதொரு உணர்வு. இதோ அவருடைய வார்த்தைகள்..
Truth is messier and more complex than a trick. Art doesn't give us pre-cooked, pre-digested experiences, but raw, rough, unclassifiable ones. Real emotions defy verbal summaries. And they leave us more confused than analytic. In fact, if you can say what emotions you are feeling while you watch a film, you probably aren't having an emotional experience in the way I mean."உங்களை கல்லாக்கும் உணர்வுப் பொய்களை (emotional lies) வெளிக் கொண்டுவிடும்" என்று சொல்கிறரர் ரே. படம் பார்த்து எழுந்த சிந்தனைகள் பமுறுத்த செய்தன. எவ்வளவு தான் நீங்கள் தாங்குகிறீர்கள் பாக்கலாமென்று என்னைக் கேள்வி கேட்டன.
I wrote GRE, the Graduate Record Examination, an year and half ago. Recently, some one asked via e-mail, for advice and tips. I started to write the reply, but it turned out to be too long. I thought it would be better if I put this somewhere on the web, and send the URL, so that it would be useful later. So, this is my place on the web, and here is my GRE story. Skip this, if you don't care about GRE. And I wrote this in the blog, so that if someone thinks I am blockhead for writing this or whatever, they can do so in the comments section.
So, What is my score ?
Yes, I should tell my score first, so you know the credentials I have to talk about the Exam. Verbal was good : 660 (93 percentile) Quans was, lets say, "not bad" : 730 (78 percentile). Analytical writing was pathetic : 4.0 (32 percentile). Having written GRE qualifies me to write advice for every one else. And hence for the benefit of everyone writing GRE, here are my pearls. (Of course, If the pattern changes, this is useless). That also induced me into thinking that I would write all these standardized exams just to pass on advice and tips. Yeah, seriously... (only,if some one could give me money)
My preparation was just 3 months, well actually 3 months and 2 weeks (Because my car radiator burst three days before my initial GRE's date. So, I had to re-schedule.)
Plan of Study:
To make the plan of study, I used Google Calendar. I, probably, did not stick to my calendar like 40% of the time. But at least, it would be there in my face - questioning those things I do, not suggested by the calendar. I try to keep the plan as rigid as it was possible, and as flexible as it was needed. I used three books - an used Kaplan GRE prep book/CD, a new Barrons GRE prep book/CD and a used Kaplan GRE verbal workbook.
I was trying to write the exam, while I was working full time. Work was 8-5 every day, and doesn't usually exceed that. Hence, on week days, I planned 2 hours in the morning, 2.5 hours in the evening for word list learning, and a 15-min flash card session in the afternoon just after the lunch (Courtesy: Flash Card Exchange ). In the weekends, I mostly do math exercises, and verbal practice tests. In the beginning, I also learnt word lists during weekends, but later I just had revisions. I am almost certain that, I never worked more than 14 hours of study each weekend(Sat and Sun), and that includes time for practice tests.
I used my work as my distraction for GRE prep. I felt work was a better distraction. In other words, I felt my work helped, rather than, hurt my preparation for GRE. So, lets start with...
Mastering the word list.
Mastering the word list is useful for Analogues and Antonyms. This task alone consumed around 70% of my preparation time. I felt, there were three issues/caveats in mastering the list.
இது ரொம்ப சின்ன போஸ்ட்...
தமிழ மொழிபயர்ப்பு பல நெரங்களில் கொஞ்சம் காம்டியாத்தான் இருக்கு. இரு தின்ங்களுக்கு முன் சுட்டி டி.வி.யில் கேட்ட வார்த்தை - "வாழைபழ மாவு உணவு". அது வேற ஒன்னும் இல்லீங்க. இது தான்!
அது தான் இங்கிலிஷ்ல : Banana Pudding!!!
