musings of a different kind

The Museum of Modern Art

2011-08-10T06:23:00.000-07:00

I just visited the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York yesterday. I have been in NY for the past week and while vacation time here is usually better spent in more epicurean pursuits, I like to take a detour into the museum scene in the city every now and then.

I am not a big connoisseur of modern art, to be honest. I am not very keyed in to the newer trends in art and I often have trouble understanding modern art because I'm seldom able to put these works into context. It is easy for someone in my position to dismiss a lot of modern art as pretentious twaddle from a bunch of hipsters. I wanted to keep an open mind and see if I could learn and appreciate something new in MoMA.

On the first level, the most prominent exhibit was the sculpture garden. Even though the exhibit was closed due to rain, we could see the sculptures through the glass walls. There were abstract pieces coupled with more concrete ones in intriguing arrangements and I really wish I could have had a closer look.

On the second level, there was an exhibit by an artist named Harun Farocki which was essentially based on audio visual depictions of war. There was a darkened room with four videos in a loop which showed footage of American soldiers training in simulated warlike conditions using virtual reality and similar technologies. I was not sure about the artistic merit of this exhibit per se, but it was quite intriguing to watch. It was also a bit disorienting to have four different audio streams interfering with each other, but this was an interesting exhibit nonetheless.

There was also a reasonably large section devoted to contemporary art, which consisted mostly of what people usually associate with modern art. Here, many of the works were as much about using a new medium in interesting ways as they were about expressing ideas. Most of the work in this part puts the onus of interpretation squarely on the shoulders of the viewer and points to a different kind of artistic experience. This should not be so surprising because every bit of communication that bombards us during our lives requires different levels of involvement from us as the audience. Metaphor and suggestion are probably as old as language itself and art has always shared these roots with language as a means of expression. Modern art is a bit more forthcoming about this, even if the end result is often confusing to the uninitiated.

At the third level, there were exhibits about architecture and design, drawing and photography. Each of these genres has its own conventions and its own history in the arts, and these exhibits would require a lot of time to explore carefully. There was also another special exhibit devoted to artistic connections with modern technology. To me, this was very interesting because it was very different from what I would expect from an art museum. There were displays that were very technology oriented in nature, like a pyramid of distractions which essentially graphed various communications technologies in terms of how distracting they are versus how effective they are as communication tools. Such a display is not something to be taken literally (even though I agreed with the IPad as the most distracting device). It is more an oblique commentary on how we are so easily distracted in such a well connected world.

There were other graphical displays, such as one which contrasted federal spending versus media coverage of various departments, displays of the amount and spread of campaign contributions to both Obama and McCain and other items with a political slant. There was also weird inventions, such as a bunch of micro-robotlets (a term I made up just now) which could be assembled like lego blocks to make actual robots, and replicas of commonly seen items that do unusual things. There was a lot of creative energy in this exhibit, and it blended art and technology in ways I could never have anticipated.

The fourth and fifth levels were devoted to more "standard" artistic fare. There were works by artists who were precursors to many modern movements, such as Monet, Van Gogh, Gauguin and the like. There were also famous works by people like Picasso, Lichtenstein, Jasper Johns, Duchamp, Matisse, Warhol and so on. A veritable cornucopia of stuff that used to be the vanguard but is slowly inching its way towards classic status. These parts are a treat, even if the odd painting doesn't look like anything more than a bunch of squiggly crisscrossing lines.

Overall, it was an interesting experience and I must say I enjoyed myself a lot in MoMA. While modern art often allows for very fluid interpretations, the very act of viewing it and trying to decipher the works can be quite tiring and exhilarating at the same time. The trip to MoMA was a great one and I might revisit it sometime in the future to see if my views of modern art change with time.

Trust me, I'm a doctor.

2011-07-09T19:43:00.000-07:00

Yep, that's right. I defended my Ph.D. successfully on Thursday. I'm still letting it all soak in and taking some time to relax and enjoy and moment while it lasts.

I'll try and resuscitate the blog while I have some time. I'm thinking of writing some posts about my Ph.D experience as a whole. It is likely to be a series of posts as I feel I have quite a bit to say. Stay tuned.

An interesting article from the New York Times.

2009-08-07T20:30:00.000-07:00

I found this interesting article on reddit today, about a woman's efforts to save her marriage when her husband appeared to be trying to end it. It's called Modern Love - Those Aren't Fighting Words, Dear.

The article is interesting primarily because the woman's responses are so unusual. I might come back to this post later and maybe elaborate on some things which I found particularly interesting and intriguing.

Visit to Cedar Point

2009-08-04T22:10:00.001-07:00

I have been in South Bend for four years and I had never been to Cedar Point. My friends were always saying that Cedar point was world famous and that I should visit it at least once, being only three and a half hours away. Last Saturday, a few of my friends found out that our university was arranging to take a busload of us there, and we decided to join in.

The bus ride from South Bend to Cedar point is nothing to write home about. We were more interested in what lay in store at our destination. My friends had actually researched a few of the rides and made a mental list of the unmissable ones. I was going there for the roller-coasters. I had seen something on the travel channel which mentioned Cedar Point in glowing terms and I wanted to experience it for myself.

As we approached the place, we could see tall steel structures in the distance. Weirdly twisted girders and loops and arches which would be scaled by caterpillar like cars. The closer we got, the more we realized how crowded the place was. It was a Saturday, a day when everyone and their kids seemed to be here to have fun. The serpentine queues were everywhere. We had reached the place at noon and we had till 9 PM to do whatever we wanted.

Our first ride was called power tower. It is the one where they lift you up vertically and then let you free fall for 2/3rds of the way to the ground. It was a brief but nice start to the whole experience. The feeling in the pit of your stomach when you are in free fall is quite weird at first, but the whole thing lasts barely two seconds. It was almost like an appetizer.

Our next ride was the one they called Top Thrill Dragster. This was quite a daunting one to watch even from a distance. The entire ride lasted maybe 7 seconds. We could see that there was one huge upward climb (of 420 feet, although we found out this exact number later) , followed by an immediate vertical drop. The cars would accelerate to an almost bullet like speed of 120 mph in order to climb the ascending part of the ride. If we had given ourselves time to think about it, we might have got cold feet and backed off. However, we decided to leap first and look second, and we have no regrets.

We waited in line for almost an hour to get into the ride. I was seated in the second row with my friend Sunil. I remember my heart pounding from the excitement and the anticipation. Just like a dragster race, they have lights that go from red to orange to green. The few seconds before the ride starts are absolutely pulse pounding.

The initial burst of acceleration is indescribable. Imagine going from 0 to 120 mph in about 3 seconds. You are like a deer in the headlights. If you had the time to collect your thoughts, you would be afraid, but the whole world is such a blur around you that you don't think anything meaningful. You entire body is pinned to the seat by the incredible acceleration and you stare ahead because there is no time for anything else. At the base of the climb, the acceleration eases just in time for you to catch your breath. The vertical climb followed by the vertical drop were a total adrenalin rush and unlike anything we had ever experienced before.

Of course, one might think I'm crazy to rave like this about a 7 second ride, but this was unlike anything I had even been on before. No other roller coaster accelerates like this. All other coasters try to build tension by starting with a slow climb, followed by a steep drop and other twists and turns. The dragster takes you completely by surprise right at the beginning. On a scale of 5, I would rate the dragster a 10 :D

Of course, after such an exciting start, I was afraid the others would be underwhelming, but I was wrong. The next one we went on was the Millenium Force. This is more of a traditional ride, starting with a slow climb and 300 foot drop followed by twists and turns galore. Where the dragster was all speed and power, this one is over two minutes of sustained thrills and spills. This one gets a 5/5 from me.

The wooden roller coaster, aptly named mean streak was also another attraction which promised to be different. By the time we got on this, we were anyway tripping on adrenalin and the smaller roller coasters simply would not be thrilling enough. The ride on this one was unfortunately very bumpy. It was like a horse drawn cart on an Indian gravel road, only ten times more intense. The climbs and drops were not bad, but the roughness of the ride made it less enjoyable. This ride gets a 3/5 from me.

There is a roller coaster called the mantis which is unique in that you are in a standing position all the time. This also has more loops and twists than average and is quite thrilling to ride on. Imagine going through several vertical loops in a standing position and you can see why this one was an instant hit with us. This ride gets a 5/5.

Lastly, we went on the raptor. usually, the raptor is the first one people ride because it is close to the entrance. We unfortunately kept this to the last and we did not feel to excited by it. The other rides were so overwhelming I could have dozed off on the raptor. However, it is still a good ride and I would give it 4/5.

There were a couple of other minor rides we went on, but Cedar point is worth visiting mainly for the roller coasters. I remember falling into a deep sleep that night when we got back home. If I visit Cedar Point again, I'll make it a point to go on some of the other rides for comparison.

The Seventies and Eighties are Dying Out

2009-06-25T20:26:00.000-07:00

Apparently, Both Farah Fawcett and Michael Jackson died today.

Correction. Three celebrities who were famous in the Seventies and Eighties died today. I forgot about Ed McMahon.

What is the first thing that comes to mind about Farah Fawcett? I can remember the bright smile, blond hair and a very attractive face. Not to forget posters of her in swimwear, showing off a very attractive figure. I guess i'll stick with those images, rather than recent pictures that showed a weak and sickly person who was at death's doorstep.

While Farah Fawcett's death was probably expected, Michael Jackson's was totally out of the blue. It is unfortunate that he will be remembered for the alleged child abuse and his general all round weirdness rather than being an icon in the world of pop music.

Is it fair for him to be remembered in this infamous way? Life is sometimes unfair to celebrities and no one can change that. Michael Jackson is a pretty easy target even without the child molestation allegations. One cannot defend his brand of weirdness easily. Anyone trying to defend him on the basis of the fact that he was found "not guilty" by a jury will be pointed to O. J. Simpson's trial and acquittal as a rebuttal. Such is the nature of the American judicial system.

One cannot say for sure whether Michael Jackson was guilty or not. Doubtless, some people are glad that he has kicked the bucket and some are mournful at the loss of an idol in the realm of pop music. One can only wonder what his legacy will be 20 years from now.

All my rambling about aging celebrities aside, I wonder if anyone else is curious about the number of people from the seventies and eighties who have died over the past few days. First it was David Carradine, now it is Farah Fawcett and Michael Jackson and Ed McMahon. I just hope Mr. T and Michael J. Fox aren't next.

President Barack Obama

2008-11-05T20:34:00.000-08:00

The news of Barack Obama's election to the highest office in the USA has been out for less than 24 hours now and the response the world over has been overwhelmingly positive. It is not only the rest of the world, but a majority of the Americans as well who are celebrating not merely the end of the Bush era, but the beginning of what will hopefully be a time of rebuilding and renewal. As one black comedian succinctly put it, I'm sure many Americans are smiling inwardly while asking themselves - "Damn, did we just elect a black guy to the white house?"

I for one, am relieved that the enormous political circus surrounding the campaigns and this election is finally over. I'm happy that America has indeed voted for the better man this time around. For the past several months, there have been numerous political ads on TV (which I have done my best to avoid). There has been so much discussion on all kinds of trivial (and a few non trivial) issues in the media. I was hoping for an Obama win not merely because of the symbolic significance of having the first non white american president, but also because this is a turbulent time in American politics, and turbulent times call for a rational mind at the helm.

I am mentioning rationality because that has been a hallmark of the Obama campaign, in complete contrast to the trainwreck that the McCain campaign had become in the weeks following the selection of Sarah Palin. The McCain campaign was starting to look childish, vindictive and too eager to engage in mudslinging and FUD tactics. The Obama campaign did occasionally hit back at the incessant republican attacks, but did it in a way that was much classier and more effective.

Of course, now that the republican menace has been temporarily repulsed, the democrats have quite a bit of work to do. They have inherited a huge mess from the republicans. The economy is in tatters, American involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan is bleeding this anaemic economy dry and the political landscape does not look like it can generate solutions. Obama's administration is in for a hellish first few months on the job. While I'm not overly optimistic about the ability of one man to clean up such a huge mess, I hope Obama can somehow generate the political will to at least get started on solutions to such problems.

One wonders what the future of the republican party is going to be. Is it going to be taken over completely by the evangelical nutcases and the extreme right wing bigots who seem to love and embrace Sarah Palin's idiocy without reservation? Will the moderate republicans (if they still have any voice within the party) actually be able to reclaim it before it metamorphoses into the american fascist theocratic party? Will the neoconservatives who have championed a lot of the extremism of the last eight years finally be routed? Will the party undergo a period of deep introspection and emerge from it like a butterfly after pupation?

I do not know the answer to these questions and I cannot forecast anything about the future of the Republicans, but the Americans probably know deep down that the fight isn't really over. There is some hushed talk in many circles about Sarah Palin running for president in 2012. Although I think she represents the worst of both America and the Republican party, I think Americans are finally ready to reject her brand of narrow divisive politics as completely and thoroughly in 2012 as they have done today. Americans can be happy that their democracy is at least not in as much danger as it appeared to be in. There is a new hope in the air. A hope that the divisiveness and the ugly partisanship of politics in the past two decades of America's polity is coming to a close, to be replaced by a system which finally works for the people. The future of American democracy just appears a little brighter than yesterday, and I'm optimistic that it will stay that way.

The Great American Political Circus Part 2

2008-09-01T21:06:00.000-07:00

Even though few Americans know enough about cricket and the terminology associated with it, I cannot resist describing senator McCain's latest political ploy as a googly. However, one must also watch with bated breath to see if this googly flummoxes his democratic opponents or whether McCain will be hit for six. I'm referring, of course, to his bizarre choice of an unknown from Alaska, Sarah Palin, as his running mate.

At the face of it, his choice makes absolutely no sense at all. For the past year or so, all the republicans have been attacking Obama's inexperience and used it as the reason why Americans should not vote for him. Now, they go and choose someone that has been Governer of Alaska for a mere 20 months. That's less than the time since McCain started campaigning to be president!!
How does this make any sense given the rhetoric of the McCain campaign all along about his experience and wisdom and all the other jazz which comes with being an old white guy in American politics?

Its interesting too see that while Obama chose Biden as his running mate in order to complement him and bring some more experience into his platform, McCain chooses an unknown and his only way to justify his choice is to say that he wants a change from the old style of Washington politics!!! While this dual volte face of sorts is fascinating in itself, it is unlikely to work to McCain's advantage.

First of all, Sarah Palin is an absolute unknown and it appears that McCain met her only once before he selected her. In other words, this choice seems to be a cynical politically motivated one which also appears to be made on a personal whim(Some of McCain's Staff were as shocked as the rest of America). Secondly, Alaska has a population of a little under 700,000. Being a 20 month Governor of a state whose population is smaller than Detroit is far from impressive. This doesn't stop people from touting her other credentials, such as being the mayor of a town with less than 9000 people and being in PTA (WTF!!) and a couple of other silly organizations. Overall, her supporters look desperate to justify her candidacy but they seem to be grasping at straws.

There are also a couple of scandals plaguing her barely a week from her nomination. It looks like the internet is feverishly doing what John McCain should have done before choosing her. There has been frenetic activity on the internet highlighting the scandals associated with Palin.
One of the scandals is about a possible abuse of gubernatorial power by Palin. The other major scandal is about the pregnancy of her 17 year old daughter. Her supporters are spinning her daughter's pregnancy as a confirmation of her pro-life credentials that she didn't insist on an abortion but it also highlights her stupidity for opposing sex education in the first place. Incidentally, Palin herself had a baby only four months ago, which is supposed to prove her pro-life credentials further. This looks like something from the script of a badly written soap opera, and I don't see this helping the McCain campaign much. There are some other rumors floating around the internet which are much racier but I'll refrain from mentioning them until more evidence turns up.

However, there are a couple of constituencies where this cynical decision might help McCain. After all, there are a few disgruntled Hillary supporters who might vote for Pain because she is female (even though they would be shooting themselves in the foot by voting for her). I'm not sure this is a big vote base because it is a bit of an insult to Hillary supporters but McCain apparently thinks it has some payoff potential.

The one constituency where her selection might really help McCain is with the evangelicals. These people are usually single issue voters who think abortion is a major travesty and might vote for Palin on the basis of her position on that issue alone. These people might actually have sufficient levels of cognitive dissonance not to see the hypocrisy of a party which apparently stands for moral and family values nominating a woman whose daughter clearly doesn't practice what her mother preaches. This is probably the only thing democrats might have to worry about but its far from a big problem.

All in all, the whole thing looks like it will blow up in McCain's face. The way things are developing, the democrats should comfortably get into the white house in January. It looks like McCain's "strategic" googly might end up being an own goal.

The Great American Political Circus

2008-08-30T22:14:00.000-07:00

If there is one thing I've realized after three years of living in America and observing American politics, it is the undeniable fact that American presidential elections are always going to be an all out publicity circus. In fact, one might occasionally wonder if P.T. Barnum's indomitable spirit has suddenly possessed the major players in this chaotic circus act that leaves even its spectators tired. There is so much salesmanship, so much posturing and so many empty words and promises all mixed in and fed to the electorate that getting the hard facts is sometimes like searching for a needle in a haystack.

In the midst of all this, I sometimes ask myself how on earth American democracy could possibly work? It is painfully obvious to almost anyone with any knowledge of politics that democracy is not merely allowing people to vote every few years. In the absence of any reliable sources of information, democracy is meaningless. Right now, I just don't see where Americans get their facts. After all, 90% of the stuff they see in mainstream media outlets is either useless fluff or outright lies. There is so much misinformation out there that you wouldn't know the truth even if it smacked you right in the face. Is this the reason why a poor excuse for a human being like Bush won two elections?

I have some strong views on the state of American politics. To be specific, I have strong views on what I think is wrong with the entire American democratic system, but that will have to wait for later. Right now, I too seem to have been caught up in the tide of what TV pundits (derisively) call Obamania.

The recent democratic convention, where Obama's nomination for the presidential race was made official was quite the publicity circus, but it was extremely successful in giving Obama and Biden a major boost. It culminated excellently with Obama's acceptance speech. I am quite the cynic when it comes to political speeches but I must say I was impressed with Obama's speech. His speech not only said the right things (not merely from a political standpoint but also from a rational standpoint), but it also sounded extremely sincere and most importantly, it had emotional appeal. If there is one thing that an American presidential candidate must remember, it is that one must never appear too intellectual during the presidential race. The American people overwhelmingly prefer appeals to the heart over appeals to the mind. I was impressed at the way Obama managed to avoid looking too high brow and intellectual without sounding like a vapid airhead. That is a balancing act that is hard for an intelligent guy to perform in the present era of 10 sec soundbites and moronic talking heads on TV. I must say that I have been looking at Obama favourably for the last few months and given that the choice is between Obama and McCain, Obama is a no-brainer for me right now.

There is of course a lot more going on behind the scenes and of course, the electorate don't know all the stuff going on in the background but the democrats have now taken the fight to the McCain camp and are counting on the momentum generated during the convention carrying them into the white house. This is going to be a very interesting presidential election, and I personally hope that at least this time the democrats win, so that the whole world will be spared the trauma of another republican administration in DC.

The Sub-Prime Crisis Simplified.

2008-07-23T15:23:00.000-07:00

Ever wonder exactly what it was that went wrong ion the whole sub[rime lending crisis? How did a (somewhat small) bunch of people fiddling around with some financial instruments and transactions contribute to the dismal state of the American economy as we see it today? Is there an explanation that will be comprehensible to someone who doesn't have an advanced degree in Economics/Finance?

The answer to all of these questions (and maybe some more) is given in a rather poorly drawn series of cartoons I found today which is called "The Subprime Primer". While it is poorly drawn, it does manage to illustrate the reasons for the housing collapse quite well.

George Carlin Deceased.

2008-06-23T17:24:00.000-07:00

George Carlin, stand up comic extraordinaire and one of the wittiest observers of the absurdities of life in general and American life in particular, passed away yesterday. The reason I write about this here is that the man wasn't merely a humourist, but also a guy who could be brutally honest and forthright about some of the key issues that face America today. The guy was never known for political correctness. He probably ticked off a large number of people in his life. However, he was never one to mince words and he always told things as it was, without any sugar coating. He probably had the biggest cojones of anyone involved in the entertainment business in America, and that is saying something.

I could probably give a longer, better worded tribute to him, but I think that my words wouldn't really do justice to him. Instead, I give you a sample of some of his most famous stand up performances.

R.I.P. George.

How I Became a Self Taught White Hat Hacker for a Week

2008-05-30T10:41:00.000-07:00

As I have mentioned previously in this blog, I am graduate student in Electrical Engineering. As a result, I am sometimes considered to be a "whizkid" at least among some of the elder members of my family. They often assume that I should be able to fix just about any kind of mess involving new and not so strightforward technology (most of the time this means computers). While I can help with basic queries, I am not really a big "computers guy" and I avoid giving any such impressions as far as possible.

They say that necessity is the mother of invention, and I found myself having to upgrade my computer savviness by a notch this week. Two of my lab computers were infected by trojans and spyware and he situation was becoming intolerable. Apparently, the infection had taken place while I was in India, and my labmate Krishnan had carefully kept the infected computers untouched until my return. By implication, I was supposed to try and fix these things while Krishnan took his one month break. The trojans were of the pesky variety that kept opening random popups when the user was browsing other websites. Most of the pop ups would open in internet explorer even if one used only firefox. As a result, not only were browsing speeds reduced, but CPU and memory was also being overused.

The first of these computers I managed to fix after a long protracted process that involved me scanning the system multiple times, posting logs on an online forum dedicated to helping hapless victims of malware and waiting for instructions from the resident hackers. The whole process took 10 days but at the end of it, the computer was rid of its trojan and things became normal. I must mention of course that both the computers in my lab are somewhat old and therefore, were as fast as a tortoise on crutches when they were infected. It was a relief to get one of these PCs healthy and I was looking forward to cleaning up the other one as well.

Unfortunately, the guys at the forum did not respond to my second request for help, which was a bit strange. I waited two weeks for a reply and did not get one in spite of repeated bumps. There wasn't anything else I could do because those guys on the forum were volunteers and were giving tech support for free. Given my lack of options, I decided to try and fix everything on the second PC by myself.

I started out by running a complete scan of the system using one of the numerous scanning software available for free. The program produced a log that pinpointed the locations of all the files related to the trojans (and there were a helluva lot of them). I just had to delete the files while making sure I did not screw up any system files along the way.

The more perceptive reader will surely be able to see where this is headed. Among the files that the scanning software pointed out, there were many windows registry entries. The windows registry is something like the heart and soul of the OS. In general, tampering with the registry is a bit like doing brain surgery with a hacksaw. It is something that only an expert should attempt (as a last resort) because there is simply too much that can go wrong. However, I was desperate to fix the machine and so I went ahead with my slash and burn style of cleaning up the PC even though I knew a misstep could cause the PC to crash.

I was really pleased when I had removed all traces of the spyware from the PC without causing a meltdown. However, I was shocked a little later when I realized that I simply could not connect to the internet anymore. After a little investigating I found out that while manually cleaning things up, I had somehow screwed up the TCP/IP settings in the registry. I had a different mess on my hand than what I started with and I felt bad for screwing up this way. So I immediately went to google and tried to search my way out of my predicament. I will not go into the details, but I will say that Windows XP does not intend its users to go around fixing stuff by themselves. There were a few sites which listed some simple steps I could take to "reintialize" the TCP/IP registry keys but these steps were all ineffective. I needed to do a complete reinstallation of the TCP/IP protocol to make things work again but XP explicitly considers TCP/IP to be a core of the OS and doesn't allow any user to uninstall it.

After a lot of time spent on google, I finally came across a web page which offered a brilliant hack to fix this whole mess. This link actually specifies how you can change the permissions in order to make XP allow you to delete TCP/IP and then do a full reinstall. Some people might view this as a vulnerability in XP (since the user does something he should not be able to do), but in my opinion, it is one of the best examples of hacking. If you want to explain the essence of hacking to a layman, this would be a very illustrative example, as it shows a very innovative and non obvious solution to a hard problem.

That, in a nutshell is how I almost became a white hat hacker this week. I had great fun tampering with the registry entries, even though the whole thing nearly blew up in my face. The only thing left for me to do now is to get a T-Shirt saying "I Hacked the Windows XP registry and I Loved it". Any idea where I can get one of those?

Facebook Poker Experiences

2008-03-30T07:51:00.000-07:00

I have been playing poker (Texas Hold Em) on Facebook for close to three months now and the experience has been a good one overall. If there is one good thing about playing poker online, it is the fact that a novice has many more opportunities to gain experience online than in a live scenario. Facebook poker is not played using real money, which makes it more attractive as a novice has nothing to lose.

The system in Facebook is that each player starts with about 400 chips and is supposed to play his way up the rankings and chip tallies. Facebook is very liberal with chip bonuses, giving each player either 200 or 500 chips (depending on player level) when they log in first time each day. There are also bonuses for passing certain landmarks (e.g., a 5000 bonus for crossing 50k chips, along with a 5 star ranking and the right to call yourself a shark :))

This post is starting to look like an endorsement for Facebook poker, which wasn't my original intention, so I'll get right to the point. I have felt my approach to poker change a lot after playing online for these three months. I had written about this in an earlier post, but I'll recap a few points. I feel that many people approach poker the wrong way. They simply treat it as another form of gambling, much like roulette or craps, and this attitude reflects in their gameplay. The truth is that poker is a game with a significant component of skill that goes with the luck. Some professional players (yes is it indeed possible to make a living playing poker, but is isn't the life of a gambling addict) say that it is 80% skill and 20% luck while others give different numbers, but the undeniable fact is that skill goes a long way in playing the game. Facebook poker is unfortunately filled with a large number of novices who play a very risky and amateur game where they simply throw in chips with crappy hands in the hope of getting lucky and striking gold. I don't expect everyone to play solidly and I know that unpredictability is a useful attribute in poker but there should always be a method to the madness. In some cases, the sheer stupidity of certain plays is so aggravating that it can get me steaming, which is the exact opposite of the way a good player should play.

A cursory google search for poker strategy will yield so many results that it isn't possible for me to compactly explain what it is about these novice gambling wannabes that gets me so riled up. Instead, I will try to illustrate my point by narrating a few bad beat stories. I know that most pros hate hearing such stories, but then again, a pro wouldn't be learning anything new from my post :).

My first bad beat story deals with a sit N go where I was short stacked with 490 chips. The guy to my left was an aggressive character who would put a lot of pressure on me by reraising every time I entered the pot. I had folded only three hands and I was suddenly down from 1000 to 490 chips with 5 players left. The guy to my left had abut 3000 chips. I got AK suited, which is a really strong hand and so I raised to 4X the big blind by putting in 200 chips. The guy to my left raises to 500 chips, which is puzzling to me because it is a move that indicates a monster hand like pocket aces. Surprisingly one other guy called the raise. At this stage I had to go all in as I knew my AK stood a good chance of winning. The aggressive guy managed to bully the other guy out of the pot and it turned out that he had 4 6 offsuit!!!. Of course, dame luck was her fickle self and he caught a 6 on the river to win all my chips and knock me out of the tournament.

My analysis here is simple. Even aggressive players need to respect raises by other players, especially with junk like 4 6 offsuit. This guy should have folded to my raise of 200 chips because
a) His cards were junk and b) he could not possibly bully me off the pot when I was short stacked. In short he was playing like a brainless schoolyard bully and deserved to give me his chips. While his play wasn't the most braindead play I had seen on facebook, it was a pretty stupid play. Unfortunately, he got lucky and got the better of me.

In poker parlance, people who play this way are referred to as either fish or donkeys, but a comparison to a wild gibbon randomly throwing fruit your way hoping to hit you is also apt. I had another such encounter in the gibbon infested habitat of facebook when a guy made it a point of raising and calling my reraises with clearly inferior hands. In one case, I had AQ and he and something like J4 and caught a 4 on the river after calling my all in bet on a flop which didn't help him. I had raised preflop with AQ to give others a chance to get away from the hand without any trouble, but this fellow was the kind of fish who falls in love with a picture card. Even the call preflop is tolerable, but not folding to a sizeable bet on the flop is something which puzzled me and further confirmed to me that the guy really had no clue. Of course, the moron got lucky and took over 1500 chips from me. This was not a tournament and so I restacked with the idea of making him pay the next time he blundered. Unfortunately, it was a similar situation five minutes later when I had AK and he had K6 and he caught a 6 on the river to win again.

My last story is a weird one because of the betting patterns of one of the players. I was playing a table where few people raised preflop, but almost everyone would call. I raised with AK in mid position, and had a lot of callers. The flop came A 8 9, which made me very happy. It was checked to me and I fired a good sized bet. Many guys folded but there were still two more guys who called and one guy was before me. The turn was a Q. First guy checks, I put in anther big bet, third guy folds and first guy calls. I feel that the first guy's behaviour is very suspicious because he was calling without any hesitation as if he was confident he was ahead. The river was a J. The first guy checks and I check as well because I had by now become more wary of the way these people played. I was expecting him to have two pair or trips.

Imagine my surprise and shock when the guy showed 10 7 offsuit. The guy had played like a drunk man, chased a draw in a highly suspect manner all the way to the river, made a straight on the river and did not bet on the river!!! I have seen bad poker players and worse, but that had to be one of the most braindead plays ever. The reason I am so harsh is because betting on the river was a win win for him. If I had called, he would have got more chips from me and if I had folded, he didn't have to show the table the junk that he was playing, which would have been to his advantage. Instead, by checking, he allowed me to get away scot free (although I was sorely tempted to fire a bet on the river).

Of course, the rest of the table congratulated the guy on his hand, which was proof that I was in gibbon central here. Still, it is always preferable not to berate inferior players at the poker table. I say this because by berating them, you will be educating them and making them play better, which automatically reduces your chances of extracting chips from them.

To sum up, poker isn't like chess, where the better player always wins. Sometimes making the right moves and decisions alone isn't enough. I am convinced that there will never be a Bobby Fischer of poker due to the sheer variance involved with amateur players who don't know when to fold. However, in the long run, patience and superior skill should catch enough luck to become profitable.

Back in India

2008-03-28T06:24:00.000-07:00

I'm back in India and it feels wonderful.

I arrived here on the 18th, and it really surprises me how time just flies. I've been here for 11 days now and it still feels like I got off the plane just yesterday. I remember how it all felt the last time I landed in India after a year and a half in the US. It almost felt like I had never left. is time things are just a little bit different. Chennai has changed a lot since my last visit and it took me just a while to get things straight. Still, home always feels good and I'm glad I'm here. The last couple of months in grad school were a real grind and I was really looking forward t this break.

Now that I'm here, I realize that it is a lot harder to meet up with old friends face to face. Everyone is busy pursuing their dreams and careers and only a few people visit Chennai regularly. I hope to meet up with as many people as possible before I leave (on April 15th) but I also need to spend quality time with my family. My mother has been especially happy to see me, and has been spoiling me with nice home cooked food. My sister was writing her 10th board exams and she was very happy to get some help from me for the science exam (10th standard seems almost like a lifetime ago, but I still remembered enough to make a positive contribution).

Of course, now that my sister is done with her exams, there are vacation plans in the offing which will keep me busy the first week of April. I was toying around with the idea of a trip to Bangalore to visit a few friends who are there, but it looks like that plan will be shelved. However, one has to make the best use of one's time and I hope to completely soak up whatever I can of India before I leave for the grind of Grad school.

Poker @ Notre Dame

2008-02-02T17:48:00.000-08:00

I first played poker (Texas Hold Em to be precise) about two years ago. That was my first year here at ND and it was one of those late night cards sessions with friends. We usually played simpler games during such sessions but then again, poker didn't look too complicated at first glance and so I gave it a shot.

I remember doing pretty badly in my first few attempts at the game (no surprise there). At any rate, I didn't get much practice because we were all rookies and it was rare for us to get enough people together and play poker anyway. Recently however, Facebook came up with an application for playing Texas Hold Em online and that renewed my enthusiasm for the game. I added the facebook application sometime in early January and it is the only thing that makes me log on to facebook these days. I must confess to being hooked on to poker right now and I've improved quite a lot in the last month or so.

If you are unfamiliar with poker, you can get a quick start with the rules of Texas Hold Em. The game has an interesting history as well.

When I first familiarized myself with the rules, I thought to myself that poker was just a game of luck. After all, there is a lot of uncertainty that the players deal with and things get messy when you try and predict what your opponent might have. It all looked like a lot of madness and almost no method. Besides, I had played Bridge when I was in IITM and that is one game that has almost zero luck associated with it. Bridge is like the chess of card games but poker seemed to be nothing like that.

If you feel the same way about poker after initially looking at the rules, you would be dead wrong just as I was. I won't deny that luck is an important and useful aspect of the game, but there is a lot going on in poker besides that. Your luck is something you have no control over and you accept that early on but the most important skill that I have learnt in the last month is patience. Think of it this way: You cannot be unlucky all the time. You must get decent hole cards at some stage. Your object should not be to try and play aggressive just to win the majority of the hands. You must instead attempt to maximize your profits when you have good cards and minimize losses when you have bad cards. You can do this only if you are patient. This is where a very fundamental maxim of poker comes in: a good poker player must know when to fold.

In the one month of online poker playing, I played a lot of hands, won many, lost many, folded a lot, bet a lot and ended up with a good stack of chips at the end of it. It was all very nice to be playing online but I wanted a chance to test myself in a live match against other players. I got a chance to do this recently in a poker tournament held at ND (in Legends). It was a free entry tournament, with each player starting with 300 chips and starting blinds of 5/10. The blinds were being increased periodically. An experienced player will see that such a format doesn't bode well for the patient and slow player because the blinds will themselves eat away at the chip stack unless you win something fast. I didn't have great luck that day and lasted about 45 minutes (the tournament itself was only 2 hours and 15 minutes long so I was there for 33% of it). Still, it was a good feeling to play live poker. I'm looking forward to more of that.

Today I played a nice poker game on Facebook. Unfortunately I just have to describe the game from memory. It was a nice tournament game because I changed playing style three times in the course of it and it pretty much proved how important timed aggression can be in poker. The following paragraphs have a lot of pokerspeak in them, so watch out!!

It was a starting table of 9 people, with 1000 starting chips. Blinds increased periodically and people who busted were eliminated from the table. I initially played slow and cautious, waiting for good hands and picking the time to push in forcefully. I was trying to be tight and showed aggression in limited bursts.

However, after there were only 4 of us left, I started getting a bit adventurous. I remember a couple of bluffs that worked out well. A good bluff is an amazing experience in poker, but it isn't easy to pull off against good players. I was quite pleased with myself for bluffing my opponents and getting a bit cocky. After the 4th guy was eliminated, I got even more aggressive with my betting. The other two guys were not too aggressive and I thought I could blow them away. Unfortunately, they called my bluff twice and nearly eliminated me. I was gone from chip leader to short stack in two bluffs.

An experienced poker player would have seen stuff like this too often to keep count. However, I decided to tone down and play safe and tight for a while. The other two guys could have used this situation to be more aggressive with me and try to force me out, but instead they were still very cautious in their gameplay. To give an analogy, I had dug myself into a deep hole and they were earlier providing me rope in the hope that I would hang myself. What they did not expect me to do was to wait for the right moment and actually climb out of the hole in one piece.

I must admit I was a bit lucky to not be eliminated because the blinds were pretty high at that stage. At one stage I had 320 chips and they had over 3k each. However, my opponents also did a couple of silly things like folding to me when I was in the big blind. That merely meant that even though I had a junk hand that only a madman would hope to win with, I still gained chips. They would sometimes have a go at each other when they got strong hands and I would get out of the way.

I had waited for some luck and soon enough I got a couple of good hands. When I got the good hands, I again tried to follow my usual bluffing pattern and made them call me, which resulted in me tripling up once. I then had to double up only one more time (which I was lucky enough to be able to do) and I was back in business. It was not long before I was calling the shots and eliminated the other two to finish first.

So, how did I win when both the other players had over 10 times my chips at one stage? Luck is only part of the answer. I feel that well timed aggression was the key because my opponents gave me life on more than two occasions by not pushing hard enough. In the long run, well timed aggression is a great weapon to bring to the poker table.

Overall, I must say I'm having fun playing poker and I'm improving slowly but surely. I hope to put a few poker updates whenever something exciting comes up.

Turning a Sphere Inside Out

2007-12-12T17:36:00.000-08:00

Smale's Paradox is one of those mathematical results from differential geometry/topology that makes people do a double take when they first see it. In layman's terms, it says that it is possible to turn a sphere inside out in a 3-dimensional space with possible self-intersections but without creating any crease. I've heard of this result before and I initially thought of it as another reason why I'm glad I'm not doing a PhD in pure math. Some things in math are just too weird when viewed through the lens of common sense/everyday experience.

However, I saw a video on google that explains the paradox in slightly better than layman's terms (by precisely defining what kinds of transformations are allowed in order to bring about the sphere eversion). This is a top quality instructional video that just blew me away. It is the best demonstration of an advanced mathematical concept I have ever seen. Period. I think this would be a good video to show to students who are interested in advanced math because it explains a rather complicated topic in simple terms by providing a good way of visualizing the problem before diving headfirst into a bunch of equations. I hope you enjoy this video and the concepts it illustrates.

Incidentally, it seems Stephen Smale had proved the existence result in 1958 by using a nonconstructive proof (i.e., you could not have made any useful video based on the way he proved the result). The construction apparently came much later. This is not very unusual in modern mathematics, where people often prove the existence of things much before they can actually conjure it up for you.

Ray Bradbury's Coda

2007-10-31T12:40:00.000-07:00

Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 is one of those books that provokes a certain amount of thought when you read it at first. It is a dystopian novel, but not quite in the same mould as the other great dystopian novels of the 20th century. It is essentially a book about censorship, but not censorship as carried out by an organised government for the suppression of unpopular ideas, but censorship as an endemic practice within an anti intellectual society which in interested only in the most superficial things.

In my opinion, the book is a must read for everyone because one can clearly see how present day society is exhibiting some of symptoms that are described in the book. However, in recent editions of the book, Ray Bradbury has also included a small section called Coda, where he describes the exquisite irony of his book being subjected to the kind of censorship that he warns about within its pages. I recently saw the text of the Coda online.

I personally found the Coda to be a really inspirational piece of writing. It is short, precise and bluntly truthful in a way that is really refreshing. It captures not only the spirit and passion of a writer dedicated to his art, but also the way a writer needs his freedom to practice his art. As Bradbury says,

"There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches. Every minority, be it Baptist / Unitarian, Irish / Italian / Octogenarian / Zen Buddhist, Zionist / Seventh-day Adventist / Women's Lib/Republican, Mattachine/FourSquareGospel feel it has the will, the right, the duty to douse the kerosene, light the fuse."

This statement unfortunately holds true even today. Writers are usually the ones who are best positioned to highlight uncommon and unpopular ideas and are therefore in the vanguard of all intellectual movements. Yet not all topics or points of view are open to a completely free and frank intellectual discussion in society today. To cripple writers in any way would be to cripple society as a whole and Ray Bradbury's Coda is a very poignant warning of this.

Finally, the last lines of the coda are simply brilliant.

"In sum, do not insult me with the beheadings, finger-choppings or the lung-deflations you plan for my works. I need my head to shake or nod, my hand to wave or make into a fist, my lungs to shout or whisper with. I will not go gently onto a shelf, degutted, to become a non-book.

All you umpires, back to the bleachers. Referees, hit the showers. It's my game. I pitch, I hit, I catch. I run the bases. At sunset I've won or lost. At sunrise, I'm out again, giving it the old try.

And no one can help me. Not even you."

Edit: Today I came across a "letter to the editor" in the ND newsletter (which is called The Observer) which shows that Bradbury's Coda isn't in danger of becoming irrelevant even within the confines of Notre Dame. It was about a suggestion by a mother daughter pair who apparently had a problem with the ND fight song (The Notre Dame Victory March). The song was written a long time back (the 1920s), when Notre Dame was a College for men only. Consequently, there is a gender specific reference to "Her Loyal Sons" in the song but these women wanted it to be changed (presumably to "her Loyal Sons and Daughters") to reflect the present scenario. Of course the University is itself referred to in the feminine gender throughout the song :). Talk about exquisite coincidence and irony.

Technology, Entertainment, Design

2007-10-24T19:04:00.000-07:00

Today, I made a really interesting discovery. I discovered TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design).

Before you think I've flipped my lid, I must clarify that TED is an annual conference whose invited speakers are some really amazing people and whose talks are some of the most interesting ones I've ever heard. I happened to stumble upon their website today and I must say I was impressed with some of the talks. As an example, check out this talk by V. S. Ramachandran, who is a leading authority on brain and cognitive science research. I remember hearing about his work on "phantom limbs" a few years back. In this talk, he gives details about phantom limbs and a couple of other things. This is a must watch for all science enthusiasts/geeks.

Of course, not all talks are about science. For example, the following is a talk by Steven Pinker who argues that contrary to what most of us think, we actually live in a much less violent society than at any other time in human history. The talk is apltly titled "A Brief History of Violence".

As a finale (at least for this post), there is the talk by Steven Levitt, who presents some insightful analysis about crack cocaine dealers and the pressures they face in their day to day "business". It is one of the funniest talks I've ever heard.

These talks pretty much made my day. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did. For more please visit their website.

Al Gore Wins the Nobel Peace Prize.

2007-10-12T20:13:00.000-07:00

When I saw this headline today on google news, I had quite a mixture of thoughts going through my head. To say I was surprised would be an understatement. It made me wonder about the purpose served by the peace prize, and what the considerations are when people are considered for it.

Al Gore is a bit of a celebrity in the US. He is the face of the global movement to increase awareness of global warming. He is definitely a superstar activist who commands respect in liberal circles and controversy and disdain in conservative/neoconservative circles. However, I was still not sure if his work till date warranted a peace prize, and whether there was any other reason for the prize being given to him.

Somehow, a campaigner for global warming awareness doesn't really seem worthy of a peace prize. Firstly, for every attempt at creating awareness, there are at least ten smears by the slimeballs at Fox news, which naturally limits Gore's success. Secondly, the politicization of issues of a primarily scientific nature is so pervasive in the US that Al Gore's message regarding global warming is always interpreted with political overtones by "pundits" on TV. Consequently, I seriously doubt if his efforts are making any kind of difference in the average American's attitude to global warming (the administration certainly doesn't appear to be bothered in the least, with Bush putting on his usual act of paying lip service and doing nothing concrete). In essence, I thought that a Nobel prize required more than just good intentions and well meaning activism. I would have thought that the committee would want the recipient to have made more substantial progress. In that sense, the reasons for Al Gore winning the prize seem a bit unclear.

Of course, I am aware that climate change could affect the lives of people in ways most of us have trouble imagining. As an example, one important aspect of the conflict in Darfur is the control of precious water resources, which are scarce because of decades of drought. On June 16, 2007, the UN released a statement which proposed that the drought in Darfur was partly due to man made global warming. This is one example of how climate change and peace may be connected.

My view of the Nobel committee's decision is that they are making a statement here. In Norway, which is one of those "evil socialist european countries", global warming is taken seriously as an issue. By awarding the prize to Gore, they are indicating the importance of global warming as an issue affecting the future of mankind and trying to force it into the limelight a little more. It is both a recognition of Gore as well as a well crafted statement of what the Nobel committee feels should be in the spotlight.

I for one do not grudge Al Gore any of the success he has had recently. One could describe the past year as a second coming for the beleaguered ex-vice president. Although I wasn't here in the US in 2000 when he lost the presidential elections to Bush, I can still see the aftereffects of the media witch hunt that was as brutal as it was clinical in destroying Al Gore's credibility. I don't need to remind people of the sordid details of how the media ripped him to pieces back then, but let me just say that perhaps the media should have at least a bit of remorse for what they did. The reason I say this is because the benefit of hindsight seems to indicate that if Gore had won instead of Bush, he wouldn't have made any of the enormous blunders this present administration has committed. Unfortunately, the americans were suckered into rejecting a well qualified, sensible, mainstream candidate and it doesn't look like Gore will give them a second chance.

In fact, why should he consider running for president again? He has been enormously successful as the crusader against global warming. He is both an Oscar winner and a Nobel Laureate. Why would he want to get back to the mudslinging and vitriol of a presidential bid when he has everything going for him right now? Given the state of American politics right now, it makes sense for him to stay right out of it and put all his efforts into something where he at least has a small chance of making a change.

ITW 2007 @ Lake Tahoe

2007-09-10T07:20:00.000-07:00

As a grad student, one of the important things I have to worry about is getting research publications accepted both in conferences and in journals. However, until recently, my list of publications was, well, empty. It was only a little over a month ago that I got the news that one of my submissions to the IT (information theory) workshop at Lake Tahoe was accepted, and I went to Tahoe to present my work last week.

It seems almost axiomatic that for a conference to attract a good audience and a lot of submissions, it must be held in a place that most people would just love to vacation in. Lake Tahoe is a helluva beautiful place and is the ideal vacation destination. I'm sure many people would have jumped with joy when their paper was accepted at ITW. In essence, I was hitting two birds with one stone.

I flew to Reno on the 2nd and from there went to Tahoe city with another friend (Lei Xiao) from Notre Dame who was also presenting there. The conference was from Monday to Thursday. I had to present a poster(which I conjured up at the last minute) on Wednesday, which meant I was free on the first two days. I also met up with a couple of ex-labmates (Teng and Mei) and we made a tentative plan of action. On Monday, we were going to stick around at the conference and try our best to attend as many talks as possible. Tuesday was going to be our day off. Wednesday was all work again and Thursday was anyway the last day. There was a plenary talk by an invited speaker each day that we did not want to miss, but otherwise, we would decide on the fly about the talks we would attend. For both ease of reading and brevity, i'll just breeze through what we did through the rest of the conference.

Monday:

Attended the plenary talk by Alon Orlitsky, which dealt primarily with the estimation of probability distributions of sources with large alphabets (You might think this sounds like gobbledygook, but trust me, it actually made some sense).
Orlitsky's presentation style was also very engaging, which cannot always be said of plenary talks in such conferences in general.
Attended a few regular session talks but nothing too interesting. Still, one has to at least try before giving up.

Tuesday:

Effectively a day off :D.
Attended the plenary by Giuseppe Caire - the talk touched upon a number of different issues in communications, and possible ways of tackling them.
Went for a hike with Teng, Mei and Lei immediately after the plenary.
Climbed up a rocky path, slid down another path, lost footing a couple of times, arrived at the conference hotel in one piece just in time for lunch :).
Went to Emarald Bay immediately after lunch. Mandatory pic tells much more than mere words could.

What more can I say? Emerald bay was more than worth the half hour drive from Tahoe City. It was a sight for sore eyes.

Wednesday

Plenary talk by Pascal Vontobel dealing with some coding theory (specifically Iterative decoding, pseudocodewords and LP decoding). It was an impressive 2 hour marathon of a talk. In case you are interested, the presentation is available here in pdf form.
Attended a few talks, but I was actually thinking about my poster presentation.
I was a bit surprised to see quite a few people show up at the poster session, as I thought people would be a bit sluggish in the after lunch slot (when it was scheduled).
Had a few interesting interactions with a few well known names (including Caire, Shamai, Krishna Narayanan and others). Things went pretty smoothly (phew!).
Attended a couple of other talks, then on to dinner.
The day ended with a performance by comedian Don McMillan, who claims to be the only comedian to use Powerpoint in his routine!
Don McMillan was the highlight of the day without a doubt :)

Thursday

The conference was effectively over, but I attended a few talks anyway.
Lei had his talk in the afternoon coding theory session. Attended the talk to give him some moral support.
Went to Reno and stayed there overnight. Returned to South Bend the next day.

If you actually had the patience to read this long post, then you deserve a pat on the back. I went to the conference between the 2nd and 6th of september and it's now the 1st of october. For a post that was nearly an entire month in the making, I suspect most people will think it wasn't worth the time. However, I don't usually abandon these things halfway, so here is the end result.

A Rather Surreal Comic Strip

2007-08-23T11:34:00.000-07:00

I found this cartoon a couple of days back when I was trawling the web randomly in the hope of coming up with something that would make my procrastination seem worth it. I found this amazing comic strip. This is about as interesting and out of the box as comic strips get. Hope you enjoy it.

A society of Anti-Intellectuals.

2007-08-15T11:28:00.000-07:00

I saw a nice article in Esquire, Titled "Greetings from Idiot America". It is worth a read, as it provides an accurate analysis of the anti intellectual movement which is very strong not only in America, but also in many other parts of the world. The only difference is that in most other parts of the world, anti-intellectualism isn't as well entrenched politically as in the US.

If you are an American, you might be a little sad/pissed off with the article. The article is from 2005, but nothing has really changed in two years. At any rate, it is time for the educated Americans to acknowledge one basic fact: Your country has a problem on its hands. A few quotes from the article make this point quite well.

"My earliest memory," Hodges recalls, "is watching John Glenn go up. It was a time that, if you were involved in science or engineering--particularly science, at that time--people greatly respected you if you said you were going into those fields. And nowadays, it's like there's no value placed by society on a lot of the observations that are made by people in science.

"It's more than a general dumbing down of America--the lack of self-motivated thinking: clear, creative thinking. It's like you're happy for other people to think for you. If you should be worried about, say, global warming, well, somebody in Washington will tell me whether or not I should be worried about global warming. So it's like this abdication of intellectual responsibility--that America now is getting to the point that more and more people would just love to let somebody else think for them."

The fact that intellectuals or experts in the US sometimes face a level of distrust that is shocking for a developed country is also noteworthy.

The rest of the world looks on in cockeyed wonder. The America of Franklin and Edison, of Fulton and Ford, of the Manhattan project and the Apollo program, the America of which Einstein wanted to be a part, seems to be enveloping itself in a curious fog behind which it's tying itself in knots over evolution, for pity's sake, and over the relative humanity of blastocysts versus the victims of Parkinson's disease.

"Even in the developing world, where I spend lots of time doing my work," Hodges says, "if you tell them that you're from MIT and you tell them that you do science, it's a big deal. If I go to India and tell them I'm from MIT, it's a big deal. In Thailand, it's a big deal. If I go to Iowa, they could give a rat's ass. And that's a weird thing, that we're moving in that direction as a nation."

Of course, the article talks about this malaise affecting America, but one can see similar trends almost everywhere else. To quote Einstein, only two things are infinite, The universe and human stupidity. I've never thought of ignorance or stupidity alone as a big deal. Ignorance isn't a problem when there are things like apathy to contend with. However, when stupidity is often disguised as a virtue and intelligence and rational thought almost subconsciously associated with evil, one wonders how such a situation can be remedied or where it will all end.

The end of the Harry Potter Saga.

2007-08-09T12:11:00.000-07:00

As almost everyone knows, the seventh Harry Potter was released less then a month ago, to be eagerly lapped up by fans all over the world. In fact, it was quite hard to go anywhere online without coming across articles filled with spoilers. Even though I am not a diehard fan, I did not want to imbibe the story in nibble sized spoiler chunks that these innumerable reviewers were carelessly throwing around. Thankfully, my friend Sai had bought the book and finished it in a couple of days, and he allowed me to borrow it.

I'm actually not writing a review about the book or the series. My idea is to provide something of a retrospective and somewhat critical glance at the whole series. There are a small group of serious literary critics who feel that the entire series is way too overrated and that its success doesn't imply any literary value per se. I'm going to play the Devil's advocate and present a case for some of the complaints of the literary critics.

One of the things literary critics dislike about the Harry potter is the rather formulaic way the entire thing is constructed. This refers to things like the depiction of Harry's relationship with his uncle's family, the rather one dimensional nature of most of the characters, the fact that the magical imagery and motifs used are a bit cliched and the sometimes pedestrian nature of the narrative style and writing itself. Rowling also has a somewhat annoying habit of using Deus Ex Machina narrative twists very often. Deus Ex machina, in a nutshell is a kind of plot device where a very improbable external agent/circumstance/technicality is used to extricate the plot/characters from a situation which the author feels is undesirable. Discerning readers will immediately notice a number of situations in the Harry Potter series where Harry is extricated by Rowling from especially thorny situations by using a technicality which seems to be constructed explictly to make Harry escape. Most literary critics don't like excessive use of this technique as it is a sort of last minute escape act by the author.

I have recounted in the previous paragraph the main criticisms that a literary type of person would throw at Harry Potter. I must say I agree about the one dimensionality of some of the characters (although Rowling does make an attempt in the later books to remedy this). The complaint about the use of Deus ex Machina is also a very valid one, especially because Rowling uses this even in the seventh book, where I was hoping for a more careful handling of the matter as it was the last book of the series. Given these and other literary misdemeanours, I don't think the Potter series will ever be viewed by literary critics as serious literature.

Is it possible the literary critics have got it all wrong? Is it fair to look at a children's book through the critical lens which is often reserved for works of a much higher stature? Shouldn't the critics just get a life and allow the fans to read the book just for fun instead of nitpicking? The answer to these questions is, I suspect, that the critics often feel a need to explain away the fact that books which do not conform to their expectations of great literature still do very well. It is as if the fundamental truth that the commercial success of a book hardly depends on its literary merit is lost on them. I'm surprised that they don't seem to realize that as a work of fantasy, people are more concerned about the author's construction of the magical wizarding world and its inhabitants. People will forgive literary misdemeanours as long as the fantasy world is constructed to give the readers the feeling of a temporary escape into unreality which they crave. After all, let's not forget that the books were intended for children, who could identify and maintain interest in simple plots and characters with which they could easily identify.

Personally, I felt reasonably satisfied with the way the saga was ended. There were no obvious inconsistencies or goof ups. Most of the outstanding "issues" were resolved and the ending was probably what the fans would have expected and hoped for. Overall, it was a bit of a relief to be done with the series. I have often felt that the most important thing for a writer is not just to know how to write or how much, but also when to stop and bring the story to a close. The Harry Potter Saga is now over and I'm quite happy with that. It's time for me to get back to the real world now.

An example of curve fitting that's quite a "stretch".

2007-07-16T11:25:00.000-07:00

I found this interesting article about the way a right wing economist would do curve fitting. It is basically a way if fitting a Laffer curve curve onto data points plotting Corporate Tax rates vs Government revenue as a % of GDP. The way the Wall Street Journal used their innovating curve fitting technique, I really wonder if things will be any worse if the WSJ were to be acquired by Rupert Murdoch (this is at par with the way Fox News regularly embarrasses itself). From what I can understand of the Laffer curve, it appears to be a bit of scam that right wing economists seem to love because they can quote it as a justification for their Supply Side Economics ideas (or Reaganomics based ideas, if you are a Republican/Neocon). It is a shame that the so called Wall Street "Journal" publishes such crap and gets away with it so easily.

The Rushdie Knighthood Imbroglio.

2007-06-22T11:10:00.000-07:00

The story of Salman Rushdie being offered a knighthood by the British government has gained a lot of popularity for all the wrong reasons. Apparently, people in Pakistan and Iran have still not forgotten about the Satanic Verses and feel that Britain's Knighthood to Rushdie is a slap in the face of Islam and muslims everywhere.

There was controversy over Pakistan's religious affairs minister Ijaz ul Haq saying that a suicide bombing to kill Rushdie would be justfied. If that in itself was a ludicrous comment that the said minister has tried to explain away, others in pakistan have to come up with a new tit for tat.

Of course, one could question whether Salman Rushdie is deserving of a knighthood on the basis of being a critically acclaimed novelist and one could even decry the entire knighthood business as a farce. In fact I'm tempted to agree with the latter, since the knighthood doesn't seem to be awarded any more for outstanding services rendered to the nation. Instead, it is more like an official recognition of figures who have long been in the public eye (Mick Jagger is a case in point). All of this would have been valid criticism. Instead, the so called Pakistani scholars who have "honoured" Osama bin Laden as a sort of knee jerk reaction to Rushdie's Knighthood end up looking like the biggest fools in this whole business.

I just don't get it. How does honouring Bin Laden help them in any way? Is this supposed to be their way of getting back at the west by honouring its biggest enemy? Is this the official recognition by Pakistan (which is incidentally an ally of the US in the "war on terror") of Islamic terrorism? This is is the kind of moronic behaviour that makes these Islamic fundamentalists so hated all over the world.

What is even worse is that I haven't really heard any moderate voices from anywhere in the Islamic world calling for some sense of reason and sanity. Maybe the educated and secular muslims don't really have any prominent outlets for voicing their own opinions but I wonder if any of the others who are calling for Rushdie's murder have ever read any of his books? I suspect that if they took the trouble to read his writings, they might actually form an unbiased and appreciative opinion, but that would require too much independence and skepticism for the average person on the street. People are content for their superiors to point to the religious blasphemers so that they can wreak vengeance in the name of religion.

It is always a sad day when a writer is forced to fear for his life on the basis of something he has written. The fact that Salman Rushdie has to suffer this much for merely trying to hold a mirror up to Islam is a crying shame, but he isn't entirely alone. I am also reminded of Naguib Mahfouz, the Egyptian Nobel Prize winner who was stabbed in the neck by fanatics for his writings in 1988. That he lived until 2006 is proof of his tenacity in the face of such blunt hostility. The real pity is that these novelists could be a force for change if only the people were willing to think critically and evaluate the impact of their work for themselves. Maybe that is the true aim of those who try to censor such writers - to ensure that a sizeable number of muslims are never capable of independent critical thought that would bring about much needed changes to their society.

Tommy Chong on MSNBC!!

2007-06-17T21:01:00.000-07:00

Those who have watched episodes of "That 70's Show" would remember a guy who played the eternally doped, bearded hippie Leo. That is none other then Tommy Chong. I wasn't familiar with his body of work as a whole, but this guy does a good job of looking eternally doped in real life as well.

In my opinion the Paris Hilton arrest story has been garnering too much attention in the news channels. It's almost like a godsend for these news networks by giving them an excuse not to focus on the real news. However, I can't imagine what could have possessed MSNBC to invite Tommy Chong to present his views on the whole story. Talk about asking for trouble :). This clip from the Colbert Report is absolutely Hilarious.

Norman Finkelstein denied tenure.

2007-06-10T20:48:00.000-07:00

Norman Finkelstein is a controversial figure in political science circles. Of course a number of people wouldn't have heard of him, so I'm giving the link to the Wikipedia entry about him.

The tenure process is without doubt one of the cornerstones of academia. The idea of the process is that any applicant for a post of professor or associate professor at any university is first accepted on "tenure track", which means he is on probation and will not be given the post unless he demonstrates a strong record of teaching and research. The probationary time period is usually a few years and at the end of it, what usually happens is that a committee of faculty members of the concerned department vote on the matter. If they vote to grant tenure, the person becomes a tenured faculty member at the university which is practically a guarantee of employment for life.

One can see that tenure is granted based on the opinions of one's peers and there is supposed to be no outside pressure that can be brought to bear on the process. In other words, a person cannot and should not be denied tenure for any controversial political views he might hold. The only valid reason for denying tenure is that the candidate doesn't measure up academically to the standards that his peers expect. Another reason for tenure is to guarantee academic freedom. A person granted tenure can be as truthful and blunt as he wants to be without any fear of repercussions.

Of course, being denied tenure hardly means that a person isn't talented or scholarly. In fact, the competition for academic jobs is cutthroat and it is expected that only a fraction of the applicants will survive the process. The process is often cruel and requires a lot of mental fortitude on the part of the applicant. However, all this would be justified if the system resulted in the best and most qualified people (as judged by peer review) getting the job.

Now please take the time to read this article about the denial of tenure to Norman Finkelstein.

The most shocking thing about his denial of tenure is that the Political Science department and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences both voted in favour of giving him tenure!! It was the President of DePaul University and the University Board on Promotion and Tenure who denied him tenure. The worst part is that there is evidence that they were influenced by Alan Dershowitz with whom Finkelstein has had a long running feud (and who ironically is a tenured faculty member at Harvard Law School).

The reason I find this whole thing alarming is that Finkelstein was considered fit by his peers to receive tenure. That should have been the end of the story. The reversal of this decision is a shocking blow to academic freedom in general and the credibility of DePaul University in particular. It is indirectly saying that if you want tenure in DePaul, you had better toe the official line or face the consequences. Academic freedom indeed!!!

A lot of people might not agree with Finkelstein's ideas or the way he expresses them. However, academic freedom is all about allowing people with unpopular opinions to be able to conduct scholarly work without let or hindrance. I feel really sorry for Finkelstein himself. This episode confirms that even in the US, there is no true freedom of speech when your views are contrary to what the Jewish Zionist Lobby espouses. I think Finkelstein's only option might be to try for a faculty position somewhere in Europe, preferably the UK. At least there he will not have to worry about the likes of Alan Dershowitz and other rabid Zionists.

Hatred of Atheism - some observations.

2007-06-05T13:11:00.000-07:00

Atheism. One word that could evoke a wide range of emotions among theists, ranging from pity to condescension to pure hatred. If you are an atheist in America, you are definitely in a minority. By even the most conservative estimates, more than 75-80% of Americans would consider themselves to be religious (I suspect many are quite devout). However, some sections of American society have always been very gung-ho about wars, not just against other countries, but also against different points of view. It is not really surprising that atheists are easy targets in such a religious country, but I just can't resist siding with this minority on certain issues. I'm not going to make this post a waxing tribute to either theism or atheism. I just wish to point out a few fallacies on the part of the theists whenever atheism is discussed.

A few months back, CNN devoted a lot of airtime to a "debate" about atheism. I don't watch CNN too often, but I caught one particular instance when they had three theists and one atheist on the panel, and they were more often than not talking past each other rather than discussing things. One of the panelists, who was a pastor of some sort, made this peach of a statement "We believers get our morals from God. Where do you atheists get it from?".

Now just think for a few seconds about that assertion. Think slowly and carefully.

That assertion is completely, utterly WRONG!!!!

I'll say it again a thousand times if I have to, nobody gets their morals from God. Nobody has ever seen God or actually carried out a conversation. Some people think they do but such individuals are usually either delusional or trying to exploit gullible people by such shabby deceptions.

Of course, other people might say that they get their morals from religion rather than from God directly, as a way of presenting a more viable case for the good influence of religion while at the same time attacking atheism by the implication that without religion, morality is not possible.

However, even that statement is disingenuous. The most that one can say is that a person can get his sense of morals by an appropriate interpretation of religious scriptures/texts. Note how I mentioned "appropriate" interpretation. The history of mankind is full of examples of how a fundamentalist interpretation of religion can result in untold suffering and the most barbaric cruelty. Right from the crusades, to the Spanish Inquisition, to the conflict between Catholics and Protestants in Ireland, to the explosive situation in the Middle East, to Al Qaeda, there are innumerable examples where religion was used to justify and promote violence and barbarism on a large scale. Mind you, I'm not saying that religion caused all of the above, but that religion can very easily be used to justify and perpetrate such atrocities by subtle misinterpretation.

I often hear people talk about how Stalin and Hitler were atheists and how they were responsible for the deaths of millions (In truth, Hitler was never a proclaimed atheist, but that is a different story). All these people again make the basic logical error of assuming that their atheism was the cause of the atrocities they perpetrated. Like Richard Dawkins once said, both Hitler and Stalin had moustaches, but one wouldn't argue that their moustaches were the cause of their cruelty.

In fact I would even go a bit further. I feel that both Hitler and Stalin built up a political system which was more like hero worship, built on unquestioned faith and devotion to the national leader. There was also a lot of personal sacrifice expected from the common man in the service of the national leader and the nation. I would argue that they put in place systems similar to organized religion in structure and hierarchy, but without any of the good things that religion usually entails.

To get back to the question of interpretation of religion, homosexuality is often condemned as a mortal sin by Christians based on passages from Leviticus, which is a book of the Old Testament. I came across an interesting article titled "Why can't I own a Canadian?", which brings to light how selective people can be in their literal interpretation of religious texts to reinforce and justify their prejudices. In one interview, Richard Dawkins said that he hoped that people do not get their morality from organized religion, because a literal reading of many religious texts would justify such inhuman practices as slavery, stoning as a punishment for adultery and other such abominable things which simply do not have a place in a modern society.

So it seems fairly obvious that people often quote scriptures very selectively to justify their moral viewpoints. In other words, true morality doesn't just magically arise from the study of scriptures or by blind religious faith. So where does morality come from?

The question of morality is something that has troubled philosophers for ages. Right from the dialogues of Plato to the long winding essays of postmodern philosophers, the question has been grappled with from a number of different points of view. I personally feel that morality probably arises from a feeling of empathy more than anything else. If you can put yourself in the shoes of another person, you will not do anything to him if you know that your actions will cause him any harm or suffering.

The story of Rabbi Hillel is particularly relevant here. In the time of King Herod, Hillel and Shammai were two famous Jewish religious leaders. Shammai was known to be very strict in his interpretation of the scriptures while Hillel was very flexible. When a gentile approached both of them asking them to teach him the truths of the entire Torah while he stood on one foot, Shammai simply pushed the man away, while Hillel said "Do not do unto others as you would not have them do unto you. That is the whole Torah. The rest is all commentary. Go and learn."

I suppose we would all do well to follow Rabbi Hillel's advice in our religious matters. That would result in religion actually serving it's purpose instead of creating more problems for the world.

More about Evangelicals.

2007-05-27T09:58:00.000-07:00

I found a couple of interesting rants by a member of an evangelical christian organization. I had earlier talked about Jerry Falwell, but I stopped short of mentioning other similar scamsters in the evangelical community. A few other notable names in this rogues gallery of religious nutcases are Pat Robertson and James Dobson.

The rant comes in two parts: part 1 and part 2 . This article gives a slightly better perspective of what is actually wrong with the evangelical movement because a) the author is an insider who has seen how the system works first hand and b) He cares a lot about the way an originally well intentioned movement has been hijacked by politically minded con artists in the guise of religious leaders. It should serve as a warning not to let extreme religious conservatives (irrespective of which religion we are talking about) get too much power too easily.

Jerry Falwell: Six Feet Under

2007-05-26T14:15:00.000-07:00

I was hesitant to write something bad about Jerry Falwell at the time of his death. I'm a bit old fashioned when it comes to maligning the dead, but he was buried two days back. I don't see any reason to maintain a false attitude of respect towards him after he is six feet under, so here goes.

As Christopher Hitchens wrote on the day of Falwell's death, Jerry Falwell was living proof of the fact that one could get away with any number of racist, inflammatory, derogatory and plainly ridiculous statements as long as one had the title Reverend before one's name to legitimize it. I had given a link in my previous post which had listed some of his most insane statements. Of course, some of his supporters might argue that he is a man of religion and had done some good work for some people. I would argue that the evil he has done far outweighs any miniscule amount of good that might have unintentinally come out of it.

The first great evil he committed was in being instrumental in breaking the wall separating Church and state. Of course, the wall isn't completely broken (the US isn't yet a fascist theocracy), but he has been responsible for a huge dent in it nonetheless. For those who think the separation between church and state is not a big deal, one has only to look to the Bush administration and their tendency to place religious and political loyalties above talent and qualifications to see how damaging it can be. Right now, the US is a place where people of many religions and ways of life can hope to lead a peaceful and secure life. Jerry Falwell would have loved to see this tolerant and diverse society crumble and be replaced by a monolithic Christian oriented political system where being a Christian would be your only hope of salvation both in this life and the next.

He was also at the vanguard of the primarily political movement to mobilize the evangelicals in order to force their agenda on US policy on various issues. They are the leaders of the anti-science anti-intellectual brigade which places too much emphasis on blind faith and too little on reason. They were supporters of the Reagan administration, which was very much like the Bush administration in terms of it's anti intellectual leanings, but which was nonetheless comparatively lucky in avoiding the debacles of the present administration. I know that Reagan is supposed to be a demigod for American neoconservatives but I don't share that view. I feel his administration was the one which set the trend of allowing these evangelicals to play politics and gave them increasing amounts of power in Washington D.C.

As the founder of Liberty University, Falwell has ensured that his nauseous ideas and policies will live on in spite of his death, which to my mind is the worst thing possible. Somehow, this trend of right wing nutcases founding their own universities to brainwash students into acting for narrow political interests should have been a cause for alarm long back. Liberty University and Regent University are two egregious institutions that have too many of their graduates working in the present administration (which would explain why the administration keeps coming up with failure after failure in their public policies). There is an urgent need to cleanse American politics of all this cronyism, nepotism and pandering to fundamentalists. Falwell gets his fair share of the blame for creating this mess.

To sum up, Falwell was a vicious man with a political agenda couched in religious language which preyed on the genuine faith of people for both personal gain and advancement of his ideology. He was a pest and a parasite.

However, a quote by a commenter on Reddit is more apt in describing him. It was in response to an article about how a student at his university was preparing napalm bombs to torch any protestors at his funeral. The commenter quipped "Napalm epitomises Falwell. Not very Christian, but highly inflammatory".

Can a Free Press be Treasonous?

2007-05-22T20:09:00.001-07:00

When you look at the topic I have chosen, you might think I'll be referring to an incident in either in a country under a military dictatorship or a theocracy. If so, you would be dead wrong. I'm referring to an article on an ABC news blog, titled "Bush Authorizes New Covert Action Against Iran". Please read the comments carefully. This is right from the heart of the Land of the Free.

In essence, the commenters are accusing ABC news of committing treason by reporting on Top Secret classified information. A few excerpts from the article might help shed some light on whether this really is the case.

The CIA has received secret presidential approval to mount a covert "black" operation to destabilize the Iranian government, current and former officials in the intelligence community tell the Blotter on ABCNews.com.

If current and former officials of the intelligence community speak so freely to a journalist, the journalist would simply assume that the information he is getting isn't going to do any harm if disseminated. Besides, is it really news to anybody that the US is trying to destabilize Iran? I think the Iranians would have known this without the help of ABC news.

The sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the subject, say President Bush has signed a "nonlethal presidential finding" that puts into motion a CIA plan that reportedly includes a coordinated campaign of propaganda, disinformation and manipulation of Iran's currency and international financial transactions.

Of course, the sources being anonymous is the usual practice in such a situation and it turns out to be advantageous to the government as well because in the worst case, the government could deny the whole thing quite safely. They will be able do this because ABC would be hesitant to reveal sources (such a revelation might create a scandal which wouldn't help ABC). The government right now is not confirming anything officially. I'll just assume that there is some truth to the article right now.

This at least puts to rest any fears that the US is contemplating a military invasion of Iran. Instead, they are following their usual approach of propaganda, disinformation and other "softer" tactics. I don't think this is a secret to anyone familiar with how the CIA usually works (A few movies have been made about this. Should the directors be tried for treason as well?).

One must also note that there aren't any crucial details about how all this is supposed to be carried out.

A National Security Council spokesperson, Gordon Johndroe, said, "The White House does not comment on intelligence matters." A CIA spokesperson said, "As a matter of course, we do not comment on allegations of covert activity."

Maybe the unnamed officials who spoke to ABC should have followed Gordon Johndroe and the CIA spokesman and just said nothing if they thought the information was sensitive. After all, it is their judgement call.

The "nonlethal" aspect of the presidential finding means CIA officers may not use deadly force in carrying out the secret operations against Iran.

Still, some fear that even a nonlethal covert CIA program carries great risks.

A valid concern, but not something that is sensitive or secret by any stretch of imagination.

"I think everybody in the region knows that there is a proxy war already afoot with the United States supporting anti-Iranian elements in the region as well as opposition groups within Iran," said Vali Nasr, adjunct senior fellow for Mideast studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.

My point exactly. No secret here.

U.S. officials deny any "direct funding" of Jundullah groups but say the leader of Jundullah was in regular contact with U.S. officials.

American intelligence sources say Jundullah has received money and weapons through the Afghanistan and Pakistan military and Pakistan's intelligence service. Pakistan has officially denied any connection.

This reminds me a bit about how the Mujahideen in Afghanistan were originally sponsored by the US (the Reagan administration) to fight the Russians. Today the Mujahideen have links with many terrorist organizations and America is their main enemy. The Jundullah groups could be the next monster that the Americans are creating and may become a huge problem in a couple of decades time. I feel it is a good thing that ABC news are bringing this critical piece of news to the people as it could help shape public discourse in the future (if people remember about it that is).

This article as a whole reminds me of a nice quip from the british political comedy "Yes Prime Minister", one of the finest political satires ever. Sir Humphrey Appleby tells the Prime Minister in the very first episode

"We must always tell the press freely and frankly what they could easily find out some other way".

In other words, when it comes to secret CIA information, the press really have no clue about what's going on unless some officials say things under the protection of anonymity. If there is a case to be made for treason (which there doesn't appear to be), it would not be against the press, but against those who spoke to the press in the first place.

Of course my arguments would make sense to people who are used to applying logic in their everyday lives. The neoconservative commenters are only reinforcing their lack of logical reasoning yet again. So to answer to them I'll have to adopt a more emotional stance. Don't worry guys, the article doesn't give any useful information to the Iranian government and will probably not affect the CIA's plans in the least. You can all sleep soundly in the knowledge that the CIA will leave no stone unturned and no suspect untortured in it's bid to protect you.

Jerry Falwell dead.

2007-05-16T08:58:00.000-07:00

Jerry Falwell died yesterday. For those who do not know about him, here is the wikipedia article on him.

I don't really believe in maligning a person who has recently died, but one surprising thing about Jerry Falwell's death is that I've seen a lot of people (online of course) who have expressed satisfaction that he is gone. I personally never had any respect for the man himself or any of his views when he was alive and I see no reason to change my mind at his death. However, I will desist from attacking him outright. After all, there are probably a reasonable number of people grieving over his death.

Ultimately, it is for posterity to decide exactly where a man like Jerry Falwell lies in the large scheme of things. In the meantime, you might want to read some of his most foolish quotes, just to get a feel for why people hate him with such vigour.

Iraq for Sale: A documentary that's too good to miss.

2007-05-11T19:34:00.000-07:00

I found the entire documentary "Iraq for Sale" in google video. The entire thing!

In a nutshell, it is a documentary about how a select few companies are profiteering from the Iraq war in way very few could imagine. They are profiteering not just from the suffering of the Iraqis, but also from the suffering of American troops and civilians there. If yout think this is just another rant that can be ignored, you are dead wrong. This is a thoroughly researched documentary which clinically catalogues the increasing influence of civilian contractors in obtaining lucrative contracts for the so called "reconstruction" of Iraq and the extremes to which some of them have gone to make a few million dollars more. The video can be accessed HERE.

I must mention that the director of the documentary is Robert Greenwald, who is widely perceived as a liberal. Of course, neoconservatives recoil from anything liberal as if it were cyanide, but I feel that this is a documentary which needs to be seen by as many people as possible. It clearly indicates that the people of America desperately need to bring in a new broom and throw out all the garbage that has accumulated in their political sphere. Robert Greenwald is doing Americans a great service by producing and directing a documentary like this. If this documentary doesn't make you think about the monstrosity that is ruling over the US now, I don't know what will. At the end of this documentary, one wonders what Bush has done to even deserve a 35% approval rating. If the world were a rational place, he would probably have a 5-10% rating (that would be on account of psychopaths, sociopaths and others who either don't have a conscience or don't want to develop one). Then again, the world isn't a rational place and all that, but I hope that those who chance upon this page will take the time (1 hour and 15 minutes of it) to view this documentary and see some of the disastrous effects of letting a government (especially a neoconservative one) have too much power.

A Must Watch Interview.

2007-04-29T21:10:00.000-07:00

My previous posts were primarily about attacking the indefensible in journalism, viz. Fox News. However, I might have been unclear in my earlier rant when I equated the mainstream media as a whole with the news networks (as a visitor kindly pointed out to me). Let me attempt to remedy that.

Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert don't consider themselves to be journalists in any sense of the word at all, but their contribution to "news" is invaluable even though their shows are aired in Comedy Central, which is the antithesis of the serious and stuffy looking news networks. Jon Stewart was recently interviewed on PBS by Bill Moyers and this is really a must watch. PBS is one of those networks that is really dedicated to honest, sincere and relevant journalism (an extremely rare combination), which probably explains why they aren't as popular as the other big shot networks. This post is my contribution (however miniscule it may be) to getting more people to watch the interview. I was tempted to include an advisory warning due to the extreme honesty of the interview, but I'm sure a little honesty and frankness would be refreshing once in a while.

2007-04-23T16:30:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, people just aren't satisfied with simple explanations. The Virginia Tech shootings were an unfortunate tragedy, but the flurry of "explanations" and "analyses" that followed it were tragicomic in themselves. The cartoon captures most of the standard reactions. The reactions ranged from calls for stricter gun control to calls for leniency in gun control. Some people felt the existing laws needed to be enforced more thoroughly while others felt new ones had to be enacted.

There was also the usual post tragedy psychoanalysis of the shooter himself (most of it crap in my opinion). People were speculating about his childhood. The fact that he spoke very little and was shy became big news. Some idiots suggested that violent videogames and movies were directly responsible (which is a bit condescending, given that the guy was 23 years old and would have known that what he was doing was for real). The shooter had sent tapes of himself and a letter to NBC, giving reasons for his action (apparently, the tapes showed him brandishing weapons in a manner similar to some Korean action movie). There were the usual nutcases from the religious right who claimed that such killings were god's way of showing his wrath at our decadent ways (maybe it's time they faced some human wrath for a change). Since the shooter indicated a hatred for American society in his tapes, there was a bit of introspection in certain circles about whether American culture was at fault.

It is usually easy to think of a number of such silly explanations for random violent acts like this. I feel it is disrespectful to those who died to try and fit such artificial explanations to their demise. The only facts that emerge from this entire muddle is that of a deranged young man who felt depressed and alienated enough to decide to end his life and take the lives of 32 others before him. It doesn't make any sense from any point of view and it isn't fair, but that's the way it was. The best that society can do is to try and give the families of the deceased some privacy and respect for their grief. All the accusations, counter accusations and political manuevering based on this unfortunate event can wait. This is a time for healing and we would all do well to acknowledge and respect that.

How to refute standard creationist and ID arguments.

2007-04-19T22:01:00.000-07:00

I have been thinking about writing a post about evolution, or more specifically a post about why evolution is much much more likely than all the creationist and intelligent design stuff floating out there. Right now it is quite fashionable in the US to be scornful of science in general and evolution in particular (even though modern technology would be impossible without science in the first place but that's a different story).

However, there are many others who have done a really great job of presenting the case for evolution. I'll just make a few comments on the article and about science in general.

The first pseudoargument, that evolution is "only" a theory is indicative of how the same word can mean different things to a scientist and a non-scientist. To the common man, the word theory may be synonymous with conjecture or postulate or hypothesis. However, a true scientific theory is more than that. It must offer either experimental or an observational approach to test its predictions and thereby, allow a chance for the theory to be falsified.

This whole business of falsification was of course started by the philosopher Karl Popper. His point of view was that in science, one could never completely prove a theory to be true but one could definitely falsify a theory by showing experimental/observational evidence that contradicts it. However, most scientists also believe in a second principle, which is often not explicitly stated, namely that the more experiments confirm the predictions of your theory, the more confidence you have in it. In the case of evolution, the evidence is pretty overwhelming (it has been collected from Darwin's days) . There were stages in between when certain aspects of the theory had to be modified or when new discoveries (like DNA and the way genes are passed from parent to offspring) provided new insights. The theory was able to accomodate these new discoveries without any significant change and it stands today as a theory that almost all biologists have accepted on the weight of all the evidence in its favour.

Science is full of theories which have died a slow death after being falsified. Someone who really wants to know why evolution has survived would also like to look at Lamarck's theory of evolution to figure out why it did not gain popular acceptance.

There is also the standard argument that misstates the second law of thermodynamics. What the creationists do often is to first state the law incorrectly, then wrongly connect thermodynamic entropy to (Shannon's) information theory and for good measure, confuse (Shannon's) information theory with algorithmic information theory. I don't quite feel up to the task of explaining each of these individual topics and showing their differences separately (These topics could be explained in detail in three different books). I'll just be content to say that these three can't be interconnected as easily as one would think. People who try to mix them together are extremely unlikely to get their arguments right as it is a potential minefield of logical and mathematical mistakes waiting to be made.

As for the other points, I'm sorry to say that from a scientific point of view the creationist case was extremely weak from the very beginning. The trouble is, they just can't bring themselves to accept that they might have got it wrong, which is what distinguishes them from scientists in the first place.

Fox does a faux story on Vonnegut

2007-04-17T21:41:00.000-07:00

If my earlier posts showed scant respect for Fox news (or for that matter any news channel that's associated with Rupert Murdoch), you haven't heard anything yet. Fox has taken a cheap shot at Kurt Vonnegut just a day after his death and thereby shown that they don't even have that basic redeeming quality that you could expect in a human, namely decency.

I mean, for the love of every damn thing they hold sacred, how can they be so blatantly disrespectful of Kurt Vonnegut just a day after his death? They call him irrelevant, they call his books depressing and they are dismissive of him without even understanding any of his works or what the man stood for. They don't seem to understand that beneath the sarcasm and acerbic wit, was a secular humanist who probably was doing his best to make sense of this mad world we live in. Someone who had to fight depression and disappointment for decades as he strove to tell the truth about not just the horror of war, but also the contradictions and apparent absurdities of human existence. That such a writer has to endure mudslinging from these apes in human form at Fox News is a bit thick really. These partisan hacks at Fox News aren't fit to lick his boots, much less dismiss him offhand in this supercillious manner.

I know the previous paragraph sounds like a lunatic rant, but I stick to every word in it. Fox News represents the worst in journalism that I can think of. A news channel that cannot pay an honest obituary to one of America's greatest writers simply doesn't deserve a viewership.

Rest in peace, Mr.Vonnegut. Your writings will probably never lose relevance as long as humanity continues down it's present path (namely the one-way road to destruction). In fact, I think you will increase in relevance with every coming day, given the state of things. I just hope mankind can show some of that spirit of kindness and goodness that you so greatly admired, but saw so little of in your lifetime.

American Idle?

2007-04-16T18:44:00.000-07:00

Reality TV is a pretty screwed up thing in general. From a somewhat intellectual point of view, it is based more on exploiting the abilities of a few otherwise normal people to make fools of either themselves or other participants in an unnatural competitve environment. American Idol more or less follows this pattern, especially the initial episodes of each season, which focus on the worst of the worst performers - people who probably have no reason to audition in the first place and who serve no purpose other than to drive Simon Cowell crazy and provide some schadenfreude to all the viewers.

This particular approach seems to have worked very well with American Idol, with increasing ratings and viewership over the past few years. It was therefore a surprise to suddenly find people lamenting over the impending death of the show due to (surprise, surprise) the presence of an Indian in the final few.

The guy who has caused this uproar is Sanjaya Malakar. He is of Indian origin and is supposed to be the most talentless participant on the show right now. Before I go any further, I must mention that I have heard a few songs of his on the show and I completely agree that he isn't a great singer.

Of course, all that a singer needs is a good voice, musical training and practice. American Idol is not looking for just a singer. They are looking for a performer - someone with that intangible thing called stage presence. Sanjaya isn't too blessed in that department either. He is pretty skinny, has a smile that might win over teenage girls and he looks like he might suddenly be swept off stage by a gust of wind.

Indeed, it seems that too many people are marvelling at the fact that he is still there, and what is worse, act like it is such a great disaster. There are several news articles conjecturing that the reason Sanjaya is still around is because there is this website called votefortheworst.com which is trying to make a farce of the show by getting people to vote for the worst. There was also a conjecture that Howard Stern was asking people to vote for Sanjaya as well (to ruin American Idol) and people are simply complying. Howard Stern is unlikely to be a big factor because he right now has a show only on satellite radio which isn't as widespread or popular as convential radio. To put it in a nutshell, people think there is some conspiracy out there which should explain Sanjaya's presence.

Let me take what might appear to be a digression at this point. The basic "flaw" of democracy, is that it almost never results in the most talented or most appropriate person being selected. It is usually the guy who appeals to as many different constituencies as possible who wins the most votes. Would anybody in his right mind today think of George W. Bush as more deserving than John Kerry of the american presidency? Never. Yet people voted for him in the last election simply because
a) They apparently felt he would be a better war president
b) He seems like a good guy, the kind of regular guy who might even be your neighbour (God help me if I get a neighbour like him).
c) Many of them identified with him and whatever he was saying.

This example in itself should be proof that democracy doesn't always result in the talented guy being elected. However, let me take it to another extreme. Is it ever possible for an absolutely honest politician to be elected to high office? I think the answer is "Almost Never". The reason being, when you are honest, you are bound to infuriate or alienate many people. A politician running for high office simply cannot afford that. I repeat, a politician cannot afford to be too honest.

Coming back to American Idol, all those who complain that Sanjaya still being around is fundamentally wrong are simply being idealists. They are the ones who think American Idol will end with the most talented person winning. I'm sorry to break your sensitive hearts but life isn't that way. All previous winners had some talent but I suspect there were other qualities besides their singing/performing which came into play.

There was a female performer(whose name I've forgotten) who was apparently one of those "badass" rocker types. She was booted off the show maybe a week or two back. Some of her fans were complaining that her being kicked out while Sanjaya was still around was a travesty. I heard one of her songs and I was sorely disappointed. But then again, I know what real hard rock sounds like. I usually think of Iron Maiden or Pink Floyd or Led Zep or Deep Purple or other such bands when I think of Rock. Someone should have warned me not to have such high standards. To put it into a nutshell, she was really bad in her rendition of a song by Evanescence. I was surprised that Simon Cowell was relatively nice to her (I wouldn't have been as kind if I were in his place). She did not have the vocal range of a rocker, end of story. Besides, how do you get votes in American Idol by attempting hard rock? I'm sure Bruce Dickenson wouldn't survive too long on a show like American Idol even though his vocal abilities are waaaaaay beyond what any idol participant is capable of. American Idol and hard rock don't mix too well. Her fans should stop griping about her exit (which in my opinion was deserved) and maybe stop taking American Idol seriously (or maybe they could also think about whether she deserves fans in the first place).

The most hopeless thing I saw online was a group of people who claimed they were going to fast (unto death presumably) until Sanjaya was eliminated. I don't want to wish death upon these guys but seriously, is this the only cause for which these specimens want to go on a hunger strike? I could name a few other more worthy causes which lack such enthusiastic participation. That way, if these guys die, they will at least be remembered for something more noteworthy.

Besides, I saw the video of Sanjaya first auditioning for the show and the three judges were appreciative of his singing at that time. They thought he had talent and potential. They have themselves to blame in part for the situation right now, not just the voters.

Some people think American Idol will never recover if Sanjaya wins. I don't think it will be that bad. It will lose a lot of its viewership, which might be a good thing, so that they don't get too complacent in future seasons. Maybe they might make judging standards a bit stricter and even (dare I say it?) eliminate the voting farce altogether. Simon Colwell has gone on record saying that he will never come back as a judge if Sanjaya wins. I'm sure many people will be happy if he leaves. As for Sanjaya, even if he does win, it still doesn't mean anything. After all, it is upto you to decide if you want to buy any of his music in future. Right now he is just enjoying his fifteen minutes of fame like the other participants.

Update: Sanjaya has been eliminated from American Idol, much to the glee of gloating fans. All seems to be well in wonderland again.

Journalists vs Bloggers

2007-04-13T11:57:00.000-07:00

Based on the title of this post, I suppose people might think this is just another rant by another blogger about the mainstream media. I do have a few problems with the way the mainstream media functions these days, but it doesn't have anything to do with the fact that I am a blogger (or specifically any of the topics I usually blog about).

In fact, I think there has been gradual acceptance of the reach and the power of these "invisible" bloggers by the mainstream media. I would even go so far as to say that the mainstream media sometimes feels threatened by bloggers. There have been many cases (not just in the USA but all over the world) where bloggers have stumbled upon and blown open important stories that the media giants missed. This could be one reason for this sudden fear of the blogosphere in media bigwig circles, but I doubt if it is as simple as that.

Let me put it this way. Some journalists probably feel that even acknowledging the contribution of bloggers to the dissemination of information somehow undermines the mainstream media outlets. Indeed, if the bloggers are able to provide reliable information, why would people bother with news corporations at all? The unfortunate truth is that bloggers aren't yet a big enough force to trouble these giants. This is because only a small fraction of bloggers bother about actual news in the first place. Most blogs out there are about much more mundane or specific things that only a handful of people will be interested in anyway. Surely CNN, MSNBC and Fox (and other networks) should be willing to look at blogs as a supplement to mainstream news networks rather than as competition.

There is one thing that blogs are really good for, and that is to broadcast opinions. By using the Internet in a constructive way to both air their opinions and initiate frank online discussions, bloggers are doing something most news networks have been trying to do, but not as successfully. In that sense, news networks may feel that bloggers are getting more than their fair share of the limelight.

However, as someone who tries to follow both the blogs and the news networks, I have one major grudge against the mainstream media. They often tend to focus on trivial or comparatively unimportant news to the detriment of the really important stories. For example, I have learnt a lot more about the goings on in Iraq from blogs than the mainstream media. These blogs almost always provide links to reports by media outlets which are seldom heard outside of a narrow constituency, but which are nonetheless committed to honest journalism. In recent weeks, all the mainstream news outlets have provided much more coverage of Anna Nicole Smith's death and the paternity disputes over her baby than necessary. By contrast, Kurt Vonnegut's death was just lightly touched upon yesterday by most mainstream news corporations. It was the bloggers who did a lot more justice to him by reflecting on his work as well as his relevance to this crazy, messed up world that we live in.

I would say that there is something to be concerned about in a world where Anna Nicole Smith's death garners a lot more press coverage than Kurt Vonnegut's. It is indicative of the mainstream media's systematic dumbing down in recent years. It's true that tabloids and yellow journalism have been around for ages, but these big news corporations should be more focused on keeping their viewers informed by giving unbiased, balanced and relevant news coverage. Hardly any mainstream outlet provides all of these things. The only way out for the average person who wants to be better informed is to check out the world of blogs and to pick and choose the blogs focusing on the relevant and pressing issues of the day. Hopefully, the blogs will continue to fill in the gaps left by the mainstream media until they decide to clean up their act.

Postmodernism and soccer? (How does that ever work out?)

2007-04-06T20:32:00.000-07:00

When you want a quick, simple and easy to understand definition of a technical sounding term, what is your best option? I would say that you could either look it up in wikipedia or try using Google. Just type define: in google and you would get answers from different sources.

When I tried to use google for postmodernism, I found 14 different answers, and surprisingly, no two answers sounded like they were saying the same thing!! My conclusion was that postmodernism is something that is probably obscure enough that different people interpret it in widely different ways.

When I then saw an article claiming that soccer was a postmodernist game and therefore(!!!) could never be popular in the US, I knew these guys were at best being disingenuous. A few excerpts make this exceedingly clear.

It's the quintessential expression of the nihilism that prevails in many cultures, which doubtlessly accounts for its wild popularity in Europe.

Our country has yet to succumb to the nihilism, existentialism, and anomie that have overtaken Europe.

Another reason why soccer will never enthrall Americans is that the game is contrary to nature. What is it that is unique to the physical makeup of human beings that sets us apart from the animal world? Two things: Our large brains and our grasping hands with opposable thumbs. Our big brain is why we're called homo sapiens, thinking man. And our ability to use our hands to grasp and manipulate objects is why one of our early ancestors was designated homo habilis, handy man. Human beings are thinking toolmakers. We're able to imagine the arrowhead in the stone and use our hands to carve it out of the rock. These two uniquely human traits have allowed us to become the dominant species on the planet.

I know for a fact that not all americans are as absolutely foolish, arrogant or ignorant as the authors of this article, but anyone reading such an article is likely to form a stereotyped idea of the average american's intelligence and ignorance (not to mention arrogance) . The first two quotes are somewhat indicative of the american tendency to label something wrongly and then act morally superior with respect to the fiction that they create. Who are they kidding by calling the Europeans nihilist and claiming the moral high ground by stating that their country has yet to succumb to nihilism and existentialism? Do they even understand the meaning of the word nihilism? The best description of this attitude would be arrogance fueled by ignorance. You Americans want to know why you aren't as well liked around the world as you think you deserve to be? Try looking at such articles objectively and logically and you might see why.

Besides, it's not just Europe where soccer is popular. Look at Central and South America. Do they think these countries are nihistic too? Or will they use a different label like Socialist or Communist to settle the point without any logical reasoning involved?

The third of those paragraphs is absolutely priceless. The only thing that this proves to us is that they are very capable of taking a fact out of context and twisting it to suit their purposes. According to them, it is not natural for people to use their feet or heads to move a ball around when they have hands with opposable thumbs no less. Think this sounds like a good argument? Consider this scenario then - what would be the "natural" thing to do if you see a bull charging at you? I'm sure any sane man would say RUN LIKE HELL. However, I have a surprise for the airheads who wrote the article - some people do not do this supposedly natural thing. They actually stay and try to overcome the bull (not entirely by physical means but that is what they do nonetheless). They are called matadors and the sport is bullfighting.

Of course, you could come up with some weird pseudo argument which would miss the point I'm making here entirely, so here's another analogy. If you wanted to drop a ball into a hole, isn't it natural to just pick up the ball, walk all the way up to the hole and throw it in? Then why does Tiger Woods insist on using an awkward golf club and hitting the ball into the hole from such a long distance? He is also the richest American sportperson in spite of it (according to Forbes). What is happening to Americans these days? Why are they supporting such unnatural sports?

So, to answer the morons who wrote this crappy pseudo-intellectual article, sport isn't about what you can or would do naturally. It is about a setting where people or teams compete to win according to simple fair rules in a setting that requires dedication, perseverence and hard work to excel. That is pretty much all there is to it. All the other stuff that these guys wrote in their article is unadulterated and undisguised bullshit.

The Joke's on Fox News

2007-04-04T17:54:00.000-07:00

It is a well known fact in the US that Fox news is by far the most biased media corporation in existence. Of course, they never hesitate to trumpet about how fair and balanced they are, which is a joke really, because the only ones who could believe such an outrageous lie are probably right wing nutcases (who aren't as rare a species as some would like to believe). However, this time they have taken it all a step further. Watch this clip from Fox's April Fool's day segment and spot the hypocrisy (not to mention sheer stupidity - This is a new nadir even by their abysmal standards).

David Hicks gets 9 months (For being an Al Qaeda terrorist no less!!)

2007-03-31T09:05:00.000-07:00

The title should say it all. David Hicks, who was accused of being an Al-Qaeda terrorist after being captured in Afghanistan, was sentenced to 9 months in jail by a military commission. The interesting fact is, he was held captive in guantanamo for 5 years, which means his incarceration was roughly seven times his sentence.

I could write a long article about how pathetically screwed up the whole thing is, about how it is beyond farcical, but seriously, does any of this makes sense at all? Mind you the original sentence was supposed to be a 7 year sentence but a plea bargain has been made and the sentence was reduced.

Guantanamo bay is by far the single biggest contradiction of any US claims of fairness and justice and decency in the fight against terrorism. People get plucked out of their homes in total secrecy without so much as being told what the charges against them are. They are then placed in places like Guantanamo or other secret prisons in eastern Europe for years on end, without a trial and without any contact with the outside world. Very often, people are released after a few years when the administration suddenly realizes the CIA messed things up and they are dumped back in their homeland without so much as an apology. Finally, people like David Hicks, who confessed (although god knows under what kind of coercion) are given sentences which look like a joke.

To put it bluntly, if all the US government was going to do was give this guy a 9 month prison sentence (there are cases of burglars getting longer sentences), why make him wait for 5 years? It is simply mindblowingly illogical and that is pretty much all I can say about it.

It just couldn't get any clearer

2007-03-24T21:50:00.000-07:00

I found this link on reddit to a video from the Colbert report. Colbert simply couldn't be any clearer than this. I'm sure it is pretty much the way any reasonably free thinking person in the US would feel. Why is Bush not being impeached? After all, he is going against the will of a staggering majority of Americans on many issues. If people could initiate impeachment proceedings against Clinton for a sexual misdemeanor which affects pretty much no one (all but the most naive of people out there would accept that politics was always about sucking up to others or being sucked up to), why not Bush, whose "misdemeanors" have cost so many American and Iraqi lives (to be truthful, I don't think people here care much about Iraqis but at least the American lives mean something to them) and is right now undermining American democracy like nothing else in it's history. To be fair, the only difference between Bush and Robert Mugabe is that Mugabe doesn't hesistate to injure or kill his opponents. Bush isn't that bad, but his actions are dictatorial by even the most lenient democratic standards (note: that excludes the standards of diehard republicans and ultra conservatives, for whom reality is a leftist conspiracy anyway). It will forever be an enigma to me how the Americans claim to be the pinnacle of democracy when they are letting their president get away with dictatorial policies right under their very noses. The one good thing is that Bush's dictatorship will end in 2 years, whereas most dictators require a bullet (or the ravages of time) to remove them from office.

Zoroastrian Islamophobia??

2007-03-16T12:51:00.000-07:00

The title above is the same as that of an interesting blogpost I came across today. I was a bit surprised by the title because Zoroastrianism is a very tolerant religion and there are no Islamophobic (or any other phobic) tenets in it as far as I know.

It turns out the post was about a letter sent by the leader of the islamic caliphate to the then ruler of the persian kingdom (which was once an empire). The exchange is quite hilarious for a number of reasons. One must keep in mind that it was that stage in history when the arabs were starting their domination of the arabian peninsula, united under the banner of the relatively new islamic faith. The missionary zeal of the caliph is clearly visible in the letter, where he asks the persians to surrender and accept islam as their faith instead of their "polytheistic" religion or face the consequences. As the astute persian king points out, zoroastrianism is monotheistic and was one of the pillars of the culture of the great persian empire. The persian king's tone of sneering contempt towards the arabs is ironic, given that his empire was soon conquered and his people subjugated by the caliphate. It is also ironic that the persians referred to the arabs as barbarians when, in a few centuries time, the caliphate would represent the only bastion of civilization in a world where Europe was in the grip of the dark ages and the rest of the world (with the possible exception of India and China) was similarly devoid of many characteristics of an advanced civilization. It is true that the arabs would have appeared barbaric by persian standards, but they would soon evolve into a civilized society.

As the persians went, so too did the caliphate. In the middle ages, the caliphate was known not merely as a centre of culture and civilization, but also as a place of great religious tolerance. One only needs to look up the history of the caliphate under rulers like Suleiman the Magnificent to see that it had evolved into something very similar to the Persian empire, only with Islam being the religion of the majority instead of zoroastrianism. Just like the persians, the sun would eventually set on the caliphate as well.

History does have a sense of irony and sarcasm. One just has to have a long memory and know where to look.

Book Review: Fooled by Randomness

2007-03-08T14:52:00.000-08:00

My friends PJ and Balaji gave me this book just before I left India this time. They had it giftwrapped and promised me that I would enjoy reading it because it was "something different from all the other books out there". I just want to place my thanks to them on record. Thanks a lot guys!!

The author of the book(Nassim Nicholas Taleb) is a bit unique. He has been a quantitative trader for over two decades. He has also taught at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences and is Dean's professor in the "sciences of uncertainty" at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. The fact that he isn't teaching only finance in spite of being a successful trader is a bit funny when you think of it at first, but the book sheds some light on why this should be so.

I was under the impression that this book would explain how traders get fooled by the randomness of markets and how one could avoid most of these simply by a better understanding of the mathematics of probability. In other words, I was expecting some kind of a "how to" book. To be perfectly frank, I'm not too much into such books as I often feel that authors oversimplify or tailor their advice too narrowly to a certain target audience (or sometimes they just give bad advice). I was happy to realize very soon that Fooled by Randomness isn't that kind of a book.

So what kind of a book is it? Taleb seems to be more of a philosopher and epistemologist at heart than a trader. His central point seems to be that the problem of handling randomness is often to do with interpretation of probability of random events and that humans often make mistakes in evaluating and dealing with randomness because we are not "wired" to understand probability. The book is not mathematical in its presentation. Instead, he takes a broad view of the nature of probability itself from an epistemological point of view and also how we psychologically react to randomness. Along the way, he mentions and briefly explains a number of concepts such as Monte Carlo methods, the role of randomness in various aspects of life, scientific skepticism and the philosophy of science, evolutionary and behavioural biology, economics and psychology and of course, randomness in financial markets.

My research does involve a bit of probability and random processes and hence I feel somewhat qualified to make comments on the book in general and certain aspects of it in particular. Probability is a thorny subject for most people simply because it is very different classical mathematics. It is a subject which was initially born out of gambling. It used to be a pariah in pure mathematics circles until maybe 150-200 years ago (of course, the earliest probability "theorists" like Fermat and Pascal were way ahead of their time in the 1600s). Advances in probability theory in the last 100 years have made the subject not only of great interest to the pure mathematicians but also to other scientists and engineers. The reason I'm giving this ultra-condensed history is because Taleb doesn't really bother.

Taleb makes one thing very clear right at the beginning of the book. He does not think that most people who are millionaires today made it to the top purely by skill alone. He doesn't even think of hard work as being a causative factor. He ascribes many of the successes that he sees to luck. He goes on to justify this later by saying that in financial markets, there are many many more failures than successes. However, people often see only the few successes and forget all about the failures. This is called the survivorship bias and it often results in people giving disproportionate importance to the survivors in the financial markets as they are convinced that one needs special skills to do so. Instead, it could be just as likely that one percent of the starting population were lucky enough over the long run to strike it rich with random strategies while the others simply weren't lucky at all.

One can see why the book is a bit controversial. Wall street's millionaires are the toast of the financial sector and suggesting that they might just have been lucky would obviously ruffle a few feathers. However, Taleb makes very convincing arguments which I'm sure many people with a background in probability will agree with. He states in various places that traders who underestimate the fickleness of the markets might make money in the short run only to lose it all much later due to overconfidence. Taleb himself seems to be very averse to careless risk taking based on supposedly having figured it all out. He often hints that world markets are too unruly and random for anyone to figure them out and that one must have strategies which take worst case scenarios into account. He also says that misunderstanding of probability emboldens people to make careless decisions which sometimes pay off purely by luck. Furthermore, the biggest blunder one could make is to mistake noise for something deterministic (something many financial analysts do).

However, he does emphasize the interpretation of probability a little too much, to the detriment of the methods and tools involved. There are two commonly accepted interpretations of probability-the Frequentist and the Bayesian viewpoints. The frequentists think of probability in terms of relative frequency of occurrence of random events while the bayesians think of probability as the degree of belief in the likelihood of a particular outcome. Taleb makes no secret of the fact that he thinks in bayesian terms. However, I personally feel the utility of probability theory is surely in the calculation of likelihoods followed by judicious interpretation of the numbers and not the other way round. This is where Taleb also makes another valid point that the theoreticians often solve their equations without regard for whether their models are realistic in the first place. There are many mathematical whizkids making their mark in Wall Street in recent years. Taleb has a problem with the fact that they might be using the right tools and methods without even considering the fact that they might go wrong at the very first stage of mathematical modeling.

He talks a lot about rare events but doesn't give a clear picture of what a trader could do to protect himself (he gives examples where people might be undone by a rare event but no clear idea about what they could have done better). At first, his point seems to be that when it comes to market randomness, there is probably nothing which can be done (something that many people will disagree with). I know for a fact that people in finance use much more math today than say 30 years ago and Taleb could have given some insight into how a good trader could use the math to his advantage. He doesn't make this very clear in the book though he certainly isn't against mathematics applied to finance.

There is one chapter where he mentions the power of monte carlo simulations but I feel he gets a bit carried away. I disagree with his view of monte carlo as a sort of panacea to this ugliness of the financial market from a mathematical perspective (the more degrees of randomnees one has, the more computationally intensive monte carlo methods become, which eventually restricts their usefulness). He mentions somewhere in the book that economists have most of their models wrong, but surely they must be using monte carlo to solve their models. The point is that it is better to have a sophisticated realistic model to simulate (something that the experts are grappling with) rather than using mathematical or computational tricks on elementary ones and trying to extrapolate or infer things from the results.

There are a number of examples he gives in between about how people are fooled by the counter intuitive nature of probability and the difference between probability and expectation. These are very interesting and should be a warning against use of simple intuitive reasoning when dealing with randomness.

Although I've reserved it for last, the non mathematical aspects of the book are probably the most interesting. Taleb quotes research work into irrational behaviour by humans in the face of randomness extensively and seems to indicate that it is the one variable that is never accounted for by novices to randomness. He also talks about how it is easier to fit a rational sounding explanation to a series of random events after they have occurred(hindsight bias), which makes the business of prediction and comparison an especially risky one as others might turn up later to demolish predictions you made in the light of new information that you didn't have. There are other interesting things about human irrationality that are mentioned, but the crux of the issue seems to be that we are often suckers for false hopes and simple sounding vapid soundbites than the truth.

To sum up, this was a very different book from other technical ones dealing with finance. The author definitely kept out the sometimes elaborate mathematics in favour of ease of understanding. This is definitely a good book to read for those who are too worried about the ups and downs of the stock markets or other financial markets. To those who are willing to accept it, this book reinforces the fact that we are still not in a position where we can claim true mastery over randomness and that most people are simply not wired in a way that they can handle it. To repeat a cliche, "It ain't over till the fat lady sings" and we would all do well to remember that whenever we feel that we aren't fools of randomness.

It's Official. Reality is a Leftist Conspiracy.

2007-02-23T11:30:00.000-08:00

It's quite well known that in american ultra conservative circles, reality is a leftist consiracy. No seriously, no one in his right mind (viz. other ultra conservatives) will require real proof of such a conspiracy. It is there everywhere. The question has always been what can be done to stem this tide of blasphemy (from a christian point of view obviously).

Fundamentalist christians of the world rejoice!! Conservapedia is here. That's right! an online encyclopodia based on wikipedia but where only conservative views are accepted. The reason for creating this? Obviously because wikipedia is somehow controlled by leftists and liberals and reports scientific facts as they are, without regard for the fact that they go against what the Bible says.

I'm sure all sane people who go to conservapedia will either be rolling around with laughter or be utterly flabbergasted at the kind of garbage being spouted there. One really choice example of garbage is in a rather non controversial topic, that of an elementary proof in number theory. An elementary proof in number theory is just one which does not use complex numbers to prove results (If you thought number theory was just about playing around with numbers, think again). This article in conservapedia says that elementary proofs are somehow preferred because it does not need the assumption of the existence of imaginary numbers. Besides being factually wrong, the statement also avoids the obvious question - Who decides if a particular method of proof is "preferable" or not? Mathematicians never even remotely hint at such a thing. They may find an elementary proof interesting but that doesn't invalidate a proof using other techniques (If you are uncomfortable with complex numbers, you can never be a mathematician today. You might not even be able to become an engineer, come to think of it).

The entry on Joseph Stalin is a masterpiece of lousy writing. I present it here in full.

"Joseph Stalin lived from Dec. 21, 1879 to March 5, 1953. He was secretary general of the Communist Party in Russia. Leon Trotsky had a power struggle with Stalin. Trotsky took the view that socialism in the Soviet Union must await a revolution in Western Europe and even worldwide. Stalin wanted power immediately and expelled Trotsky from the political pary in 1927 and exiled him from Russia two years later.

Joseph Stalin was also one of the worst murderers in the history of the world. He starved about 20 million Ukrainians. Many youths were brainwashed in his "youth groups", telling them how great he was and how great communism was. Also, he persecuted all religious groups, destroyed houses of worship, controlled the press, and forced women to work in factories just like men."

That my dear reader, is all they say about Stalin and there are no references to boot.

If you try visiting conservapedia, be warned that the page takes aeons to load, probably because thousands of people are having a jolly good time laughing their heads off at the ridiculous content. Anyway, if you needed further proof that these ultra conservatives have gone off their rocker, this must be it.

"I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, Communist subversion and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids"
Brig. Gen. Jack. D. Ripper

P.S I tried searching for "logic" on conservapedia but guess what? It turned up a blank. I guess that shouldn't be totally surprising.

An interesting quiz

2007-02-22T16:25:00.000-08:00

I came across this quiz on the ABC news website a few days back. It is a quiz to test if you know a bit about the Sunni and Shia versions of Islam. It is definitely worth a shot, at least for the sake of curiosity if not anything else.

I don't want to sound like I'm bragging, but I got all 8 questions correct. Yet I can't consider myself to be very knowledgeable about Islam in general. I think this test would serve its purpose if it makes people find out more about the Shia-Sunni divide and what it means in the context of present day politics in the middle east. Like many people, even if you don't have strong views on these issues, some more knowledge wouldn't hurt. Wikipedia is as good a place as any to start

John Von Neumann and the (Non) Mathematician's Trap

2007-02-14T10:07:00.000-08:00

John von Neumann is something of a legend in certain circles. I call him a legend not merely because he was mathematical genius who made vital contributions to Mathematics, Physics and Computer Science, but also because there is at least one story about him which is almost apocryphal.

When you come across the same story about someone two times in the span of a week, the only conclusion you can arrive at is that either the story must be partly true or the person was so famous that such a story benefits from being associated with him. My math professor, while teaching real analysis mentioned the following problem as a digression:

Two trains are 20 miles apart on the same track heading towards each other at 10 miles per hour, on a collision course. At the same time, a bee takes off from the nose of one train at 20 miles per hour, towards the other train. As soon as the bee reaches the other train, it hit the train and heads off at 20 miles per hour back towards the first train. It continues to do this until the trains collide, killing the bee.

What is the total distance travelled by the bee before getting killed?

Surprisingly, I came across exactly the same problem in another blog within a few days. This blog refers to this problem as the mathematician's trap. A really simple and efficient way of solving it is by reasoning that the two trains will take exactly one hour to collide which means the bee has only so much time to travel at its speed of 20 miles per hour and hence the bee also travels exactly 20 miles before it is killed. Of course, there is also another way to approach this, which would be to calculate exactly how much distance is travelled by the bee at each leg of the journey i.e. from one train to another nefore turning back and summing all these distances. These distances form a geometric series, which is very easy to sum up (If you check the blog I have linked to above, he has "explained" geometric series in an unnecessarily elaborate way, which makes it look like the calculation is insanely difficult when it is not even moderately so). Apparently, someone asked John von Neumann the same question and he took all of 5-10 seconds to answer it, and the questioner was surprised that von Neumann hadn't fallen for the trap. John von Neumann, when asked how he had solved it, coolly replied "By summing the infinite series of course".

The reason my math professor had mentioned this story was to make the point that mathematicians usually try to find neat tricks or nice methods to solve problems without much effort. In other words, the good mathematicians are usually the ones who never fall for the trap. However, if you decide to be straightforward and not use any nifty bits of trickery, you can often get the right answer by sticking to the basics. He then went on to prove a theorem by a slightly longer method than that given in the textbook, but which was nonetheless, simple and straightforward.

The important point here is that mathematicians are trained to look for multiple ways to solve any given problem and often prefer elegant methods that might initially look complicated to simple but inelegant methods of proof. My math professor once gave us a particular integral to compute and mentioned four different methods to evaluate it. An amateur mathematician might fall for the trap, but a professional one rarely does. So why did von Neumann fall for this? The reason might be his prodigious skill in mental arithmetic. It is said that by the age of six, he could multiply and divide large numbers in his head. For someone as gifted with numbers as him, the summation of a geometric series would have been peanuts and he probably never felt the need to look for a simpler solution. When you are that brilliant, you would seldom require shortcuts for such problems.

Global Warming (or the inexplicable ability of humans to live in complete denial)

2007-02-03T11:37:00.000-08:00

There have been numerous posts in recent weeks about global warming, mostly fueled by the fact that there are many many people who are in complete denial of the fact that human activity is a major contributor to this problem. The recent IPCC report should have been the final nail in the coffin as far as global warming deniers are concerned, but human tendencies are far stronger than any evidence a group of experts (albeit a large group of them) can produce. This site provides clear explanations to help debunk the more scientific sounding claims of the global warming deniers.

I will not repeat things mentioned in the website, which does a pretty good job of pointing out and answering the scientific sounding objections. However, there are some objections of a very irrational nature that would be humorous if the people making them weren't dead serious. Some of the more common among these are:

1) Scientists are being paid to distort the facts and portray global warming as a threat when it isn't - The people who are making such claims will be very very hard pressed to provide actual documentary evidence of bribery with the aim of overestimating the effects of global warming. Besides, it is hardly in anybody's interest to show that global warming is a big problem. In truth, the oil companies and other major corporations who have a stake in the energy sector have been guilty of trying to bribe scientists to downplay the effects of global warming (and there is evidence of their attempt). It makes perfect sense that they would be behind such a scheme, seeing how much they stand to gain from undermining global warming. Still, people out there are somehow unwilling to accept a report by more than 2500 unbiased scientific reviewers, even when the evidence is quite overwhelming.

2) Some places receive more snowfall and were more cold than usual and hence global warming is a myth - it is important to note that global warming only says that average temperatures worldwide are rising. The fact that a few places are receiving more snowfall and are colder does not automatically invalidate all the other evidence. The shrinking of the polar ice caps, which is something very few would deny should itself be sufficient reason to suspect that all is not well in the world's climate. The climatic data collected over the past few decades hardly lends itself to any other interpretation than the one made by the IPCC, namely that global warming is indeed occurring and that human activity is a major contributing cause.

3) Global warming is a socialist/communist conspiracy aimed at ..... (I'm not even willing to fill in the garbage that people spout) - I am personally sick and tired of people crying wolf and pointing to socialists whenever something goes wrong and people can't deal with it. When will people stop acting like babies and realize that socialists have nothing to do with the evils facing our world today? If you can't provide a reasoned argument, the least you can do is to not give away your utter stupidity by blaming some abstract entity that you consider to be evil. It is a bit like Brig. Gen. Jack D. Ripper keeping a straight face and announcing that he will no longer tolerate the communist plot to sap and impurify all of our bodily fluids.

4) Global warming is predicted by the Bible and it is not due to human activity (It must be one of those passages from the book of revelations) - I am not one to criticize people unnecessarily for their religious beliefs, except when it goes against empirical scientific evidence and furthermore, when the disregard of scientific evidence could lead to adverse consequences for humanity. I personally despise this kind of literalism when it comes to religious doctrine. It is an attitude which is medieval in it's outlook. It reeks of the kind of persecution that Galileo faced when he said that the earth goes around the sun (something only the most daft of people would deny today). Given that unchecked global warming could harm future generations and the ecology of the earth itself, denying it on religious grounds is surely not in the best interests of humanity.

However, to take a more tragicomic view of the situation, it appears that people somehow always want to be in denial. They take comfort in assuming that the experts have got it all wrong, and that all is fine with the world's climate. They somehow like to think that they are exceptional and that all this will not affect them or their family. The truth is often unpleasant, but is denial any better? I personally don't know if the IPCC report will make any change to American energy policy. I am inclined to think that the republicans will simply shrug and go ahead with what they are doing right now. As Stephen Colbert said in his roast of Bush, our grandchildren might never know what a glacier is, and we might just be forced to accept and come to terms with our penchant for irrationality when it is too late.

To India and Back

2007-01-02T03:34:00.000-08:00

I'm back in South Bend!!!

I had been to India for 27 days, between 27th Dec and 24th Jan. It was the break that I was thirsting for after a painfully busy semester. I was looking forward to unwinding, catching up with friends and relatives and reliving some of the small pleasures of life in India (like my mother's cooking).

I must say that the journey was unbelievably tiring and I was in a jetlagged daze for the first three days (which ensured that I did not have any new year plans). However, I did get around to doing a few things over the next few days, like catching up with some local news, meeting relatives and catching up with friends.

A friend of mine told me that coming back to India the first time was a bit weird, in a way that he wasn't able to exactly elaborate on. This was on my mind for a while during the flight, but somehow that doesn't really seem to have been so in my case. It's almost as if I never left India in the first place. Sure, a few things have changed - it has been a year and a half after all, but nothing significant or earth shattering. I guess this reflects a bit on me as well. A number of my relatives were probably expecting me to turn up looking and sounding americanized, and I think I surprised them by still speaking, acting and thinking the way I did before I left. Just like some things don't change with perspective, I too don't think of myself as having changed in any way after my american stint.

Of course, there were a number of things I did while I was in India, but I feel more like talking about the overall experience than any specific details. The whole trip went by almost like a blur. I could hardly believe how fast time appeared to move while I was there. It reminds me of Einstein's quote about relativity (the one about the hot stove and the pretty girl). Somehow, good things just seem to get over faster. The result of this is a kind of hangover that lasts for a few days even after arriving and resettling in South Bend.

As usual, the last three days were devoted to shopping and packing. I suppose all returning Indians take back the same kinds of things - chiefly various pickles, powders, snacks and other non perishable food items which aren't easily available in the US. In a sense, we are trying to capture the essence of home for a few more days by taking all these things with us. Although they serve as a sort of tonic for the nostalgia of home, the flavours of India are quite addictive in themselves and not easy to give up.

Now that I am back here and slowly getting back to work, I realize that at least in one respect, I am typical of an emerging class of 21st century Indians. I am now able to straddle two very different worlds with some ease. The ease of switching between the two worlds is now as easy as a 24 hour air journey and neither world holds any apprehensions for me. Still, home does have a certain charm and magnetism that South Bend can never have, and I will be looking forward to my next visit, maybe in a year's time.

Goode gone Bad

2006-12-22T12:50:00.000-08:00

This is going to be one of those posts where the title refers to a specific instance of what I feel is a more general malaise. Intolerance of diversity is something that I'm sure many people have somewhat strong views on, especially in a country like the USA, which has something of a history of encouraging and respecting diversity. However, there are always rumblings of a most disturbing sort which seem to indicate that there are many in the US who openly question the principle of equal rights to all people irrespective of race or religion. These are the kind of people who do not realize that such ideas are not only unworthy of our times, but also unworthy of the people of a nation which was built on the very same ideals which they oppose. Virgil Goode Jr., a republican senator from Virginia seems to have voiced publicly what I fear many other ignorant bigots might not have been so bold to give expression to except within like minded circles. The article detailing his exact racist rant is right here.

The controversy apparently started with an incoming member of the house, Keith Ellison's wish to be sworn in using the Koran instead of the Bible. One often wonders how, in this day and age a person can be narrow minded, self righteous and foolish enough to think that a ban on using the Koran for taking the oath of office is going to be of any consequence. Senator Goode doesn't stop at that though. He would also like to see immigration of muslims curtailed, so that the americans will not have to deal with the possibility of a muslim majority in the house of representatives (How he anticipates such a situation totally baffles me, especially since muslims form maybe 1% of the american population according to recent government figures).

What can one say against such an utterly stupid and illogical way of looking at things? This is xenophobia taken to its absolute extreme. It is symptomatic of the utterly wrong perception that quite a few americans have that all muslims are somehow a threat to the USA. Even though it is ridiculous, people like Goode seem to think that muslims at large have nothing better to do than plan the next suicide attack against the US. They fail to recognize that such a crude generalization and vulgar oversimplification will never result in a balanced view of things.

Then again, one has to remember that he is a republican from a southern state. What does his being a republican from a southern state have to do with anything? Nothing much actually, except that in the southern states people are more conservative and old fashioned and this often goes hand in hand with racism and xenophobia (I'm doing my best to avoid a crude generalization here :) ). In fact, as Jon Stewart once remaked on his show, one does not know if it is a good thing or a bad thing to be perceived as racist in Virginia (This was made during the "macaca" issue involving the erstwhile senator George Allen). What is really scary is that this guy's views are likely to be shared by a lot more people than we would like to imagine.

Somehow, the american people are seldom as critical about their government as they should be. They have a tendency to fall for the standard conservative/republican/right wing traps. One such trap, which has been used extensively throughout the american invasion of Iraq, was to label anyone who opposed them as being unpatriotic or left liberal (they use the term left liberal as if it was a swear word). Another standard trap is to claim that any measure that is openly discriminatory in its outlook is necessary to "preserve the values and beliefs traditional to the United States of America"(that is the standard argument for banning Gay marriage). A minor variant is that however much such a measure is regrettable it is necessary for security reasons (this was the argument used to justify detaining of "suspected" terrorists without trial and using coercive means to get them to talk). Time and again, the american people have allowed themselves to be hoodwinked by their government and they simply don't realize the seriousness of the issue.

I realize that I have branched out from criticism of Goode to criticism of the republican party at large (from Goode to better?), but this party deserves some of the blame. In this past year alone, there have been several incidents where the party has never acknowledged the truth in any form even when it was glaringly obvious. According to the republican party reality is itself a leftist conspiracy. It appears that it is only through total denial that they can still go on living without their conscience (if they have any) hurting them.

I believe that senator Goode's rant should probably serve as a warning to the american people about the dangers of letting such deluded fools into their house of representatives (or senate). Whether a person uses the Bible or the koran for taking oath is immaterial and irrelevant. If a person genuinely lacks a conscience (as many politicians do), no amount of oath taking will be of any use. It is time the americans learnt to question and critically analyse the games played by their politicans before making their decisions about whom to trust with the power to represent them. I sincerely hope Virgil Goode doesn't make it to another term in the senate. America needs people like him in the senate like an alcoholic (or maybe Miss USA) needs a case full of scotch.

Free Speech for the Dumb.

2006-12-09T15:52:00.000-08:00

Freedom of Speech - In some ways the most fundamental of all the freedoms that a human being can expect to have. Right now, as I am typing these words on my keyboard, I am actively exercising this basic right. One could say that freedom of speech and expression is the most essential right in any free society. However, as with any freedom, the question of where one can draw boundaries always crops up, and the answer is seldom obvious.

Close to two weeks back, there was a huge controversy in the US centred around O.J.Simpson. I guess everybody knows about O.J. Simpson's highly publicized trial in 1994 for the murder of his wife and her friend. It is widely accepted that O.J. had gotten away scot free in spite of overwhelming evidence linking him to the murders. The fact that he was later found "liable" for their deaths in a civil court is a somewhat amusing epilogue to a story of the justice system's failure in a celebrity case.

The fact that O.J should consider himself lucky to be a free man is undisputed. It's true that his movie career ended as a result of the trial, but most murderers pay for their crime with a lot more than a forced retirement. Besides, he was a football star turned actor, which meant that money would never be an issue for him in his entire life.

To the utter shock of a large number of people in the US, about 2 weeks back, an announcement was made that O.J would be releasing a book, titled "If I did it," where he would describe in detail how he would have carried out the murders if he had actually done them. This was to be coupled with a series of interviews by the Fox Television network (The book was to be published by the publishing arm of the network). This is a classic example of a scenario where some people might talk about freedom of speech to justify the release of such a book. Of course, the public outcry to O.J.'s shameless attempt to cash in on the controversy eventually forced the publishers and the network to cancel the entire project as a bad decision (Mind you, a bad business decision at that. I doubt if they were really driven to this decision by moral remorse).

I can imagine why some people might naively think at first this was a case of infringement on O.J's rights. However, one must note the following points which clearly go against him. First, O.J has never previously had his point of view suppressed in any way. Even back when the case was being investigated, there was no undue suppression faced by him at any time. Secondly, after the case was concluded, the most pragmatic thing for him to do would have been to bury the whole issue and look to make reparations for whatever damage he has done rather than stir up a hornet's nest after so many years. Thirdly, there is simply nothing new he could have to say after so many years. The book that he was planning to release is purely speculative at best and could hardly be deemed necessary in any way. The fact that he is now raking up what is a dead controversy for the sake of some cheap popularity and big bucks is not only disgusting, but highly irresponsible and unbecoming of any civilized person. The idea of unrestrained freedom without a sense of responsibility is the most dangerous thing a society can allow.

It is very easy to try and paint this as a case of censorship, but what is it that has actually forced the Fox Network to back down? It was a case of large numbers of people protesting against it through all channels available to them. In this process, it must be noted that all these people were exercising the same right to freedom of speech that O.J was using. To argue that O.J's freedom of expression is somehow more important than that of all these people is not only illogical, but also highly hypocritical. In fact, in a society where freedom of speech is guaranteed, the only way people can ensure that it is not misused is to protest in large numbers when such a situation arises.

I personally feel that Fox did the right thing by cancelling the whole project before it was too late (although their decision was probably motivated more by business considerations than moral considerations). The irony is that some copies of the book were auctioned on ebay and sold for several thousands of dollars. If you were really desperate to read this book, you could have gotten hold of a copy easily (provided you could afford it). So much for repression and censorship.

When all the controversy has abated and emotion can finally give way to reason and rationality, what can one conclude from this wholly unnecessary and sordid affair? I feel that the freedom of speech that americans cherish a lot isn't in any way threatened by this event. To all those who think that this might set a dangerous precedent of censorship, I can only say that this does exactly the opposite, namely that it forces people to think a little more before they put out meaningless trash for public consumption. If there is ever a case where censorship of a more valuable book is considered, we can rest assured that people will turn up in large numbers to protest. To quote Plato, Wise men speak because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something. This is a case of a fool trying to say something for the sake of it and it isn't helpful for us to dignify or justify such actions.

The devil's advocate

2006-11-11T07:54:00.000-08:00

A few days back, Saddam Hussain was found guilty of crimes against humanity by an Iraqi court and sentenced to be hanged to death.

The verdict was hardly surprising. It was after all, the expected outcome because firstly, there is quite a bit of evidence pointing to the fact that he was guilty of at least some of the many crimes he has been charged with. Secondly, I was also certain about the result because it was almost typical of the Nuremberg trials after World War 2, where a number of nazi leaders were hurriedly tried and awarded sentences by the victors. Back then, it was a case of bringing to book the bad guys as fast as possible, so that confidence could be restored in people that even in such brutal times, some semblance of justice was still left in the world. In this case, The US has been painting Saddam as the devil incarnate for several years, and any verdict other than one finding him guilty would have been anticlimactic.

I'll probably not delve into the issue about whether the trial was fair or not, because there will always be doubts in such a setting. However, I was wondering about the lawyers who actually take up the almost impossible task of defending people like Saddam. What can a lawyer possibly do when his client is already widely viewed as a monster in human form? With a bias like that already in place, it will be almost impossible for him get the tribunal to give his client any benefit of doubt. Strictly speaking, Saddam should be viewed as innocent until proven guilty, but I'm willing to bet that the entire jury/tribunal would have been convinced of his guilt even before the trial started. What is a lawyer supposed to do in this situation?

I remember that back when I was in high school, a very unique event was organized. A few students were asked to assume the role of notorious people like Hitler, Pol Pot and so on. There was one student who was asked to take on the role of a prosecutor and a few others were the jury. All these notorious people were to stand for trial and defend themselves against the various charges against them. Without going into any details, let me just say that the result was typical of a mock trial. I remember Hitler getting 450 years or so in prison and Pol Pot was sentenced to maybe 200. I suspect that (just like the european countries today) they decided not to award death penalties, otherwise there is no way Hitler would have been left alive :).

All these things aside, what would a lawyer defending someone like Saddam consider a success? Restricting Saddam's punishment to life in prison? Given that he might also be putting his life on the line, what incentive does a lawyer have to go through this elaborate ritual in the first place?

There was some speculation that Bush had timed the verdict to be delivered just before the elections so as to try and gain maximum political mileage from it. I'm just glad that the American voters weren't swayed too much by it and still voted the democrats to a majority in both houses of the American parliament. Only time will tell if the present crop of Democrats are any better than the Republicans, but this result was important because elections are the only reality check that a politician has. It proves that even a retard with retrograde ideas like Bush can be made to bow down to public pressure.

Happiness is a Warm gun

2006-10-28T09:14:00.000-07:00

We guys had fall break last week, which is that time in the middle of the semester when the university decides to give students a break for a week. This is the time when hardly any undergrads are to been seen on campus and the grad students continue working like its any other week. We guys however, wanted to do something different this fall break.

Whatever else we may have been lacking, we did not hesitate to think big. Sai was bitten by the white water rafting/canoeing bug, and he even made a few enquiries, but lousy weather and the end of the rafting season put paid to that materializing. Just on a whim, based on an ad that someone had seen on TV, four of us decided to go to the Midwest Gun Range in Elkhart, rent pistols and ammo and pump lead into paper targets for the fun of it.

If the last sentence seemed like a bolt from the blue, it is because this very idea was precisely that. We (Sai, Ravi, Shyam and me) were not too experienced with firearms. Ravi and I were in NCC in IITM, which meant that we had fired those old fashioned rifles only once as part of NCC training. Yet we decided that we wouldn't be deterred by something as trivial as lack of experience.

The place was actually a firearms store with a gun range at the back. You could buy firearms there if you were a US citizen. It had plenty of variety for someone really interested in firearms. They had the works - several shelves filled with automatics, revolvers and even hunting rifles for game hunting. The guy at the counter probably thought we had some experience with firearms and just gave some rudimentary instructions and asked us for our pistols of choice. Our choices were anyway arbitrary, based mostly on what we knew from crime novels and thrillers - and those guys seemed to have everything - Walthers, Lugers, Berettas, Glocks, Colts, Smith and Wesson and so on . The guy just gave us the ammo and pistols, no questions asked whatsoever. It almost reminded me of "Bowling for Columbine", where Michael Moore walks into a bank, opens an account and walks out with a rifle in almost no time.

It took us a bit of fiddling around to figure out everything about the pistols, like how to load the magazine, cock it and fire it. Once we got the hang of it though, it was pure fun. Of course, it wasn't as glamourous as what you see in Hollywood movies, where they seem to be on target irrespective of how clumsily they hold the pistol. We had trouble hitting the target even at 25 feet and the noise was deafening. In spite of all this, we still felt that really childlike pleasure that comes when you are behind a gun. In some ways, a gun is the coolest thing ever.

We each ended up emptying a 100 rounds of ammo in one hour that day and we were quite happy with the damage we had inflicted on the paper targets. Gun control is a big issue here in the US, and there is probably more justification for gun control today than ever before, but for just that one hour that day, we realized that happiness could indeed be a warm gun.

Happy Diwali

2006-10-20T21:14:00.000-07:00

Apparently, it's Diwali in India right now, as I'm typing this.

There isn't much excitement within the Indian graduate student community here about Diwali. We somehow seem too far removed from it all to be unduly excited. This week was fall break, which means a week without classes. In American universities, the grad students are usually the only ones who stay back during any such break, in the hope of doing some useful work although they know as well as anyone else that such hopes are highly optimistic . The Indian Association actually had a diwali puja last week because they foresaw that fall break would be a bad time to expect people to be around for such things. What this means is that we have effectively had our diwali celebration and so there is nothing much to look forward to tomorrow besides the football game.

I can imagine how different things would be if I were in India. I would be woken up really early in the morning, have the customary "oil bath" and be treated to what could be translated as "Diwali Medicine" before some sweets and a nice home cooked breakfast. My routine for tomorrow couldn't be a bigger contrast. I'll most probably wake up at 9:30, have a perfunctory morning shower, and have cereals for breakfast.

Yet, I shouldn't complain in any way. After all, we at least had that puja and dinner last week by the Indian Association, which served to remind us that even here, thousands of miles away, you can still be in touch with these aspects of Indian culture if you are willing.

Here's wishing everyone reading this a happy Diwali. I hope you have a blast and celebrate it better than we are over here.

PS. Before I forget, there is something I really am looking forward to tomorrow. My roomie Sai has baked walnut brownies (from first principles!! god bless him and his arbit levels of enthu). So that's going to make a really sweet start to my day tomorrow :D .

Update on 23/10/2006 (By popular demand): The brownies were just great!! In fact, we had five visitors that day, thanks to the brownies :D. However, Sai tried for an encore the next day and wasn't as lucky this time. I guess you win some and you lose some.

Best Movie Opening Sequences.

2006-10-15T21:37:00.000-07:00

I guess I couldn't have made the title clearer. This post is about what I consider to be the best movie opening sequences. Of course, they are based on my somewhat limited sampling of various movies and it's very likely that I might miss a few classics from this list. The movies are not listed in any particular order and are not restricted to english alone. This is something I've wanted to write about for a while now, so here goes.

Before you read any further, I must give you a spoiler warning. I'm going to describe some of the scenes in detail, so beware before you proceed.

1) Apocalypse Now: I really think that this is the best opening sequence ever. I realize that I'm making a strong statement here, but I think it is justified. For a start, there are no opening credits (or closing credits at the end for that matter). It's almost like Francis Ford Coppola felt that his movie did not need such trivialities and could just jump right into the narrative. The opening sequence unfolds with silence, followed by the distant sound of helicopters chopping through the air. A forest in Vietnam comes into view, and we get a glimpse of the helicopters circling around. This is where the immortal song "The End" by the Doors is mixed in with the sound of the choppers. The perfect choice of song, as it sets the tone for the whole movie and the lyrics ring true to the theme with a degree of clarity and simplicity almost unimaginable in any other song. The entire sequence is edited and mixed so perfectly, that I can confidently say that I've never seen an opening sequence like this before (or since).

2) Snatch: Guy Ritchie's movies aren't quite of the same pedigree as Francis Ford Coppola's, but then again, this list is about opening sequences only. Actually the opening sequence of "Snatch" isn't quite as eye catching as the sequence immediately after it, where 4 guys disguised as hasidic jews carry out a diamond heist in broad daylight (improbable you say? Guy Ritchie makes it look both probable and ultra stylish). I just love the visual style of Ritchie and this movie absolutely rocks.

3) Pulp Fiction: Just watch it for yourself. It's pretty hilarious and you will not quite be able to anticipate what follows after this sequence.

4)City of God: The opening sequence of this movie is slightly deceptive, as it doesn't give any real indication of the violence to follow in the next 2 hours. One gets a slight inkling of what's to come when a group of boys trying to catch a running chicken whip out their pistols and start firing at it. It looks almost absurd, except that these guys look dead serious and you wouldn't want to mess around with them.

5) Saving Private Ryan: I'm referring to the Normandy landing sequence which immediatelty follows the opening sequence. An unbelievably realistic depiction of the violence and horror of war, conveyed mesmerizingly in a single sequence. Spielberg at what is probably his best.

6)A Clockwork Orange - The movie starts with the camera focussed on Malcolm Mcdowell's sinister looking face. The camera slowly moves away, keeping Malcolm Mcdowell focussed at all times (leaving you in no doubt that he is the central character), but also slowly taking in the surrounding decor of the Korova bar. You can clearly make out that something is amiss in this futuristic looking setting, and you cannot help watching the entire movie to get to the bottom of the whole thing.

7)The Seventh Seal - A few lines from the book of revelations is the ideal way to start a movie with as morbid a theme as this one. The initial scene is one of those classic moments in cinema, as a knight awaits his meeting with death and challenges death to a game of chess, all in the hope of buying time.

8)Memento - This is a movie about a guy who has short term memory loss, and the opening scene leaves you in no doubt about this. Guy Pierce waits for the picture taken on his instant camera to materialize, before he records his memory on it's side for future reference.

9)Monty Python and the Holy Grail - Unquestionably one of the funniest and craziest movies ever made, and what better opening scene than the one where king Arthur "rides" out in the british countryside and stops at a fort, only to be challenged by guards who are highly knowledgeable about aerodynamics (it would be criminal of me to reveal any more, watch it for yourself). There couldn't have been a better opening scene for this movie.

10)The Matrix - the opening sequence of numbers raining down that inspired a number of screensavers ;) followed by a fight sequence that redefined what was possible in terms of special effects. The Wachoski brothers really hit the jackpot with this movie, even if they lost it in the sequels.

So there you have it. A list of ten movies with great opening sequences that I pulled out of my mind like a rabbit out of a hat. I wonder how many of those who take the trouble to read through this will agree with me? Let me know of any other movies which you feel must be included in this list.

Examples of Idiocy, hypocrisy and self righteousness

2006-10-03T16:35:00.000-07:00

Unless you were living under a rock, or you were deliberately avoiding soccer like the plague, you would surely know about the Zidane-Materazzi incident. I'll not spend too many words on the incident in particular, except that it is a shame that many people will remember Zidane for his ignominous exit rather than his skills with the ball.

So why am I writing anything about it now after the entire thing is finally no longer interesting to anyone? Well, it's college football season here in the US (football => american football) and I was watching a few games. These american sports commentators are a pretty lively lot in general, but they do commit a few blunders every now and then. In one match (I don't remember which one), one player tried to head butt another after a play was completed, prompting the commentator to quip "What does he think this is, soccer?"

The essence of a good humour lies in knowing when to stop so that you don't sound like a jackass. This guy could have stopped with that quip, except that he continued saying "He was trying to be Zidane Zidayne".

These american sports commentators are incorrigible sometimes. Why on earth did he have to expose his ignorance on TV this way? This guy wants to criticize someone whose name he cannot get right (and it's not a name that is unpronounceable or difficult to remember either). How is that for sounding like a fool and a prick at the same time?

Incidentally, the Zidane incident was initially another excuse for some americans to claim that soccer was a game played and supported by ruffians and hooligans. The commentator's quip reflects this attitude. Well guess what? It doesn't seem to be restricted to Soccer alone. Check this out.

In the Titans vs Cowboys game, Haynesworth, who is a defensive tackle , decided to kick an opponent's helmet off and stomp him right in the face. The poor guy needed 30 stitches to close his wounds.

That should make my point pretty clear but I'll elaborate anyway. A sport should not be judged based on the actions/misdemeanours of a few people. Sportsmen often do stupid things on the field in the heat of the moment, only to regret it later. I'm sure all football fans out there will still continue supporting your teams in spite of this incident (I too will continue supporting Notre Dame in it's games). Try to be a bit open minded (which shouldn't be too hard) and apply the same "moral" standards you apply to american sports to non american sports as well.

"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former"
-- Albert Einstein

There's no place like home

2006-09-23T16:13:00.000-07:00

I'll be coming back to India after almost a year and a half in the US, and I'm eagerly waiting for the day.

To be more precise, I'll be leaving from Chicago on 27th December, arrive in Chennai on the 29th and stay in India till 24th January.

The funny thing is, It's almost like I haven't really been away. What I mean is that I've not really felt like I was thrust into a totally alien environment. I've been quite happy here in the US. There was the usual routine of initial adjustment to a new place, but even that was hardly as prolonged as I thought it would be.

The truth is that the feeling of longing develops very gradually, almost sneaking up on you from nowhere. I guess one reason I didn't really feel a very intense longing is because there are many other Indians around here. There is nothing like having other guys from a similar background to you to mitigate any feelings of homesickness. Besides, I also have relatives who live nearby. If I were to compare my situation to that of my friend Sarath, who has been languishing somewhere in mainland China for several months now, with hardly a soul with whom he can carry out a conversation in proper English, I should have no reason to complain at all.

Which is why I really don't want this to sound like I'm whining. The way I feel is almost the way someone would feel after a long tiring journey. At the end of the journey, you are happy about all the places you visited and all the fun you had, but ultimately, you just can't wait to get back home, hang up your boots, and do more of the mundane stuff you usually do.

I've been talking to my parents and sister on the telephone almost every week. Not so surprisingly, it is my mother who started asking me about when I would come back to India almost eight months back. It is almost like (Dare I say it?) they miss me more than I miss them. They are now busy planning how to spend quality time with me when I get there.

I haven't really made up my mind about what I'll be doing when I get back home. I would probably visit a few relatives, catch up with some of my friends who are in India and perhaps do a bit of traveling. However, just being back home is what I'm really looking forward to. I really don't need to justify my eagerness to get back. My present semester has turned out to be a taxing one. I find myself staring emptily at sets of equations more often these days. I seem to be spending more time cursing at the computer to finish simulating whatever I feed it and give me the proper result. My advisor suddenly seems to have become more insistent on quick results and progress. The one math course that I've taken this semester seems to be like bitter medicine which I have to swallow in the hope that it will cure some of my mathematical inadequacies.

In short, I feel a need to take a breather from all this and going back home will probably go me a world of good. There is truly no place like home. I just cant wait to get a taste of my mom's cooking. I can't wait to watch a Tamil movie in the theatre again. There are probably a dozen other things I could mention but to put it in a nutshell, I just cant wait!!

Spam and Sensibility

2006-09-15T18:41:00.000-07:00

I usually don't treat spam as important enough to merit a post on my blog but this particular example is special. A few days back I got this unique specimen of a forward. The contents were:

"IIT Bombay student Anupam Biswas 5th Year Mechanical Engg is suffering from Colukabki (caused due to excessive nabad and depression) a disease very rarely found (3 in a billion). His condition is very pathetic and the treatment is very expensive, obviously his parents are not able to afford his treatment. Orkut has agreed to pay 1 paisa after each time this message is forward. So please pass to all ur friends."

I've seen a lot of spam, and they are universally exasperating. I've grown tired of seeing the same old formulae being repeated. Every fifth email I receive promises me something absurd like "more inches with less effort" or "the latest medical miracle" or even something like "get rid of fungal infections!!". Thankfully, the subject line of this kind of junk is usually sufficient for my spam filter to promptly identify and relegate them to the spam folder. On the other hand, when someone on orkut forwards a chain mail like the one above, I feel tempted to read through it once as it gets through the spam filter.

Now the above spam message is surely hastily composed. The name they have invented for this "disease" is hardly convincing. Surely the person who invented the term "Colukabki" can't claim to have creativity as his strong point. The odds of 3 in a billion are even more surprising. Given that the world population is itself under seven billion, this would have to be the rarest disease ever. Besides, the statement that his parents "obviously cannot afford treatment" is baffling and should make one suspicious. Finally the thought of orkut/yahoo/any other portal paying cash for each time the mail is forwarded is simply ridiculous.

Today I get another chain mail that claims that September 22nd is a day when we should not buy petrol in India as a protest against high prices. The mail makes the blatantly wrong claim that petrol in Pakistan costs only Rs 17 (when it actually costs more than Rs. 45 - just check on google). The mail also gives one the impression that by not buying petrol for just one day, we could put some pressure on the oil companies and thereby force prices down. This is a bit like saying that one can make a drug dealer lower his prices by not buying his drugs for a day. The fact is that our "addiction" to petrol is something the oil companies can and will take for granted. Not buying petrol for a day could not really hurt them. This protest is at best only a symbolic one and is not likely to achieve anything.

The point I'm trying to make is that it is childishly simple to verify the truth of such claims whenever one has a doubt: just use google. How long is it going to take you to verify that such a disease exists? A few seconds? Why not spend some time to verify it before you decide to take up a few seconds of someone else's time by forwarding it?

This is where I really wish people would be a bit more skeptical. Skepticism is a good attitude to have these days when every second guy out there is trying to pull your leg or pull the wool over your eyes. Most of these chain forwards try to carry out emotional blackmail to make you forward it. I'm specifically referring to those with the classic endings like "If you don't forward this you don't have any heart" or "If you don't forward this, you don't care about your friends/parents/high school crush/spouse". I don't like it when people are judgemental and I'm positively incensed when spam is judgemental. If any of you reading this ever are in a situation where you want to forward me any chain mail, I wish to only tell you that a)I will NOT forward it to anyone else and b) You could just spare me the effort of having to read it and delete it in the first place.

The only time I could remember when spam was really funny was this.

Soccer vs Football (or should it be apples vs oranges?)

2006-08-17T16:17:00.000-07:00

It's been over a month since the Soccer world cup (actually the football world cup but I'll humour the Americans on this one) concluded and now that all the excitement has died down, we can probably look at things a bit more objectively. The title says it all. This is a comparison of Soccer and American Football (referred to hereafter as just football), but not like most you might have read till now. Every four years, the world (or at least most of it) unites in eager anticipation of the biggest event of the most popular sport in the world. Most Americans however, always find this the right time to declare their disdain for soccer. Mind you, not every American disdains soccer, but there are many of them who do it quite vocally on American sports shows, claiming to represent the whole of America. The funniest thing is that they keep rationalizing their disdain using a clever mix of faulty logic, sheer ignorance and doublethink which has been practiced to perfection.

I wouldn't really have any problem if they just came clean and told the rest of the world that they like other sports better for personal reasons. It is their attempts at rationalizing their essentially irrational response which irks me. I'm out to "debunk" some of the standard reasons they give for not liking soccer. One very obvious example of the doublethink that they indulge in is that many American parents send their kids to soccer practice when they are young, but once the kids grow up, they all collectively forget about soccer as a sport. It is quite typical of their response to the sport in general. However, I'm not going to start by rubbishing American football the way some soccer fans do. In fact I think American football does have some merits of it own which make it an interesting sport.

I'll start by listing some of the standard reasons Americans give for why soccer isn't an interesting sport followed by my analysis of the flaws, logical or otherwise in these reasons.

1.Soccer is just not physical enough.
The ones who make this comment are obviously those who either haven't played much soccer or simply do not have a good definition of what makes a sport physical. Those who play soccer professionally will know that you never get more than a few seconds of rest in close to 90 minutes of play. The reason for this is that the clock can never be stopped or reset or fiddled around with in soccer the way they do in American football. Football is a game that is played in bursts. A play in football may last for at most 20 seconds. The players get lots of rest between plays, not to forget the fact that they have different teams for offense, defense and for taking punts and field goals. What this means is that a football player is never actually playing for the entire duration of the game (which happens to be exactly 90 minutes). Soccer players on the other hand, have to play for a minimum of 90 minutes unless they are one of the three people who might be substituted. As a result, they usually run close to four miles each game (the goalkeeper is obviously the exception). The point I'm driving at is that football players are more capable of great bursts of power over extremely short durations while soccer players have much more stamina. It doesn't actually make much sense to compare these two very different sports. To put it in perspective, if there were a 50m sprint between a soccer player and a football player, the football player might emerge the winner (even this isn't a foregone conclusion), but in a 4 mile marathon, I would put my money on the soccer player.

Of course, people might say that football players are more prone to injury but even that isn't true. Football players have a lot of padding to make sure that they don't break their bones on every play. Soccer players on the other hand, have almost no padding. If a soccer player running full tilt trips and falls, the chances are that he will snap a bone or two. Which is precisely why players aren't allowed to trip their opponents up or tackle aggressively in soccer (unlike in football). One more thing to be noted is that soccer injuries do not look too serious when you watch them on TV, but there have been several cases of injuries which have kept players out of action for months. Those who have played soccer professionally will testify to this.

2. Soccer doesn't involve as much talent, just people running around.
The people who make statements like these are some of the biggest ignoramuses around, period. Soccer requires a lot of stamina and energy, but these alone are not sufficient. The players need to have excellent ball control and dribbling skills and the right mix of speed, power and finesse. The best soccer players often exhibit psychomotor skills of a kind that an Olympic gymnast would be proud of. Those who think soccer is just about people running around on the field must be made to pick a team from among themselves and play against the current Brazilian team. If that doesn't shut these idiots up, a bullet through their brains may be the only solution. Or maybe they should try and replicate some of the freestyle soccer moves that we see so much of. By the way, does any such thing as freestyle football or baseball exist?

On a more serious note, anyone who thinks soccer doesn't involve any skill should take a look at the following videos and maybe even try to replicate the skills shown. I wish you guys the best of luck for the rest of your lives, because if you could replicate them, you would have a healthy respect for the sport. Your lack of respect simply means that you will not come anywhere close.

a) Maradona vs English defense
b) Ibrahimovic
c) Ibrahimovic again
d) Thierry Henry
e) Ronaldo and Raul

There are of course many other such videos in youtube. Take your time with them and enjoy!!!

3. In a Basketball game, each side can score over 80 points. In soccer the score might just be 2-1. Therefore soccer sucks.
The above excuse actually proves that some Americans suffer from attention deficit disorder. Let me state this very clearly. Soccer isn't just about goals. It is about team work and strategy and finesse. These are not things that can be gauged from the scoreline. Somehow, Americans always need some kind of action(sensible or otherwise) and an immediate target (Such as moving a football 10 more yards towards the touchdown line) on the field for them to pay attention to a sport and they seem to think that the score encapsulates all the action. They are all sadly mistaken and they don't seem willing to acknowledge this.

One more thing, basketball doesn't have the equivalent of a goalkeeper. It is played on a much smaller court. The rules don't allow for much physical contact between players. So how on earth does it make sense to compare their scorelines?

4. Soccer is just not a part of American culture. Therefore, in order to truly be American, you must follow football and not soccer.
I must admit most Americans out there aren't daft enough to make such statements. To the few who actually venture out to define American culture, I think the more sensible question would be to define what culture is (chances are they will not be able to give a satisfactory answer. Empty vessels always make the most noise). One thing is for sure, sport is only a tiny aspect of a nation's culture. Besides, what is American culture if it is not the amalgamation of all the immigrant cultures which have become a part of American society? Given enough time and enough immigration, I'm sure soccer could actually become part of American culture.

5. Too many countries play soccer. This is because it isn't very expensive to train for the sport. Just look at all the African countries which play it.
Hmm.... And how does that make soccer inferior? The fact that there is more competition only makes the sport that much better. Besides, the reason many countries don't play American football is probably because they don't give a damn about the sport anyway(American football isn't god's gift to mankind). The only thing better than watching a professional sport is actually being able to play it without modifying it too much. All that fans of soccer need is a ball and two goalposts. That is the simplicity which is at the heart of soccer's popularity.

Of course, all these are pretty standard excuses that we see whenever soccer takes centre stage but what does this tell us about American attitudes to sports in general? One thing we can be sure of is that Americans seldom pay any attention to a sport where they aren't winning. Take the tour de France for example. Until Lance Armstrong came along, I'm sure most Americans wouldn't have known anything about it. The same is the case with soccer. They haven't really achieved much in soccer till date and so they somehow feel they have to rubbish it. After all, if they haven't won it, there must be something wrong with the sport, right?

This attitude was very visible in the pedestrian American commentary that we had to endure during the world cup. The commentators kept repeatedly emphasizing the fact that the US was ranked fifth (which only shows how laughable the FIFA ranking system actually is). They also made each USA game to be a kind of battle against all the odds, with cheesy dialogues like "Can they finally do it this time?" and "Will this be a new moment in American sports history?" and so on. The USA did play well in the game against Italy, but they never ever looked like a team that would rattle the other established teams. The most hilarious part was Kasey Keller being referred to as the best goalkeeper in the world. I admit again that he is a very good keeper, but to be the best would mean joining the ranks of keepers like Oliver Kahn, Buffon and Casillas. In other words, such a compliment is not to be bestowed lightly and in the opinion of most people familiar with soccer, he is simply not that good. Overall, this just shows how easily they go overboard when it comes an international sport.

I must admit I have digressed a lot in the previous two paragraphs. To sum it all up, Americans have every right to follow any of the uniquely American sports that they have invented solely to keep themselves occupied. The main issue that I have with them is the way they rationalize their disdain for soccer by comparing it with football. Football and soccer are as different as apples and oranges. Any attempt to compare these two merely to arrive at the conclusion that football is better is pointless and stupid. If you don't want to watch soccer, don't watch it (the rest of the world frankly doesn't care). Stop acting like you're superior to the rest of the world just because you don't like a sport that is truly beautiful.

It's all a matter of perception

2006-08-10T14:58:00.000-07:00

The ongoing Israel-Lebanon war is definitely interesting because one can see very clearly that there is no such thing as perfectly unbiased reporting by the media. This "conflict" has been described by many mediapersons/observers in different ways. For example, some call it a continuation of the (supposedly) glorious war on terror going on right now in Afghanistan and Iraq. Others have described it as a conflict which, although inevitable is not as bad as it could have been. Yet others refer to it as Israel overreacting to a comparatively minor issue. A few voices screaming to be heard call it fascist aggression by a militarist Israel. To cap it all, there are others who opine that this is the beginning of World War three.

As a person who follows world news on a reasonably regular basis, but who does not have access to all the information on the exact developments in such a volatile situation, I asked myself what kind of an opinion I could form from this media melange and whether it actually made any sense?

Over the past two days, I've read a few articles from the two extremes of reporting on this conflict. I've read two very pro Lebanon and very pro Hezbollah articles which claim that Israel is responsible for the entire political catastrophe in the region. They start by referring to the Zionist regime's history of unmasked aggression towards all the arab nations and towards Palestine in particular. They mention the number of palestinian and lebanese political prisoners languishing in Israeli jails. They mention how Israel does not care about civilian casualties in its all out war against lebanon. They also make it very clear that they hate the US for it's unconditional support of Israel's fascist programme of "ethnic cleansing with a difference" in Lebanon. Overall, they paint a picture of Israel and the US as the two greatest enemies of peace in the Middle East.

On the other hand, I also read a news article by an obviously extreme american right winger who feels justifed in chastizing the Israeli government for not stepping up the offensive against Hezbollah even further than it has already done. The reason he claims is that Israel's carpet bombing strategy doesn't dent the Hezbollah defences very much. He also stresses that time is of the essence in such a war as the Isrealis need to at least keep up the perception that they can crush Hezbollah easily and without a long conflict. Their present strategy might mean fewer casualties but Hezbollah has been too resilient and that makes the Israeli army look ineffective. These views, he claims, are shared by many diplomats both in the US and in Israel.

My views are somewhere in between these two extremes. I tend to view Israel's reaction to the kidnapping of two of it's soldiers as excessive. I don't see how Israel could justify killing so many lebanese civilians in its all out offensive against Hezbollah. It has not only killed many civilians, but also destroyed a lot of Lebanese infrastructure, brought the economy to a halt, caused damage to property that will take years to rebuild and brought Lebanon to it's knees. Not to forget the incident where they bombed and killed UN observers even when they knew about it beforehand. To top it all, they haven't shown the least bit of remorse for any of these acts.

I'm sorry to say this but Israel, with unconditional US backing is acting like a rogue state. This does not bode well at all for the Middle East. The US being an ally is obviously one of the reasons it acts with such impunity. Of course, Israel will say that it has been left with no choice as it cannot give in to terrorism. They say that the Hezbollah deliberately nestles among the Lebanese civilian population so that when there are civilian casualties, they can use it as propaganda against Israel. All that is quite true, but is the Israeli solution of dropping leaflets to ask civilians to leave before bombing a good solution?

Let us try to think of this whole situation from the Lebanese point of view. If your country were being razed to the ground by an aggressive neighbour, who would you call a terrorist, the people who are carrying out a long gruelling guerilla war in the name of liberty or the aggressors who ask you to leave before they kill you mercilessly? I'm sure most lebanese would agree without hesitation that Israel's aggression constitutes a terrorist act. This is precisely the perception that Hezbollah will encourage as they know they will benefit directly.

Now for the Israeli point of view. They have always been suspicious of their neighbours, not knowing where the next terrorist attack will come from. During the present conflict, the Hezbollah counter offensive has been quite effective and many Israeli villages and even the city of Tel-Aviv are within range of Hezbollah rockets. For the average Israeli, the existence of Hezbollah represents a threat to their nation's existence. Which is why they are likely to support any move by their government in the hope that all this bloodshed will eventually lead to a truce.

It's pretty obvious that neither side is completely right or completely wrong. The politicians know this only too well and will probably use it to their advantage. In politics, the way things are perceived is anyday more important than the truth. This holds not only for the principal adversaries, but also the other players like the US, UK and France. It is surprising how long it is taking the US and France to come to an agreement about how the conflict must be resolved and a ceasefire brought about. Still, they are at least giving the impression of trying their best to bring hostilities to an end, which is what matters. In truth, the US will not want to force Israel to withdraw as that will be seen as a blow to their war on terror by the rightists and conservative hawks back home. Since Israel has the advantage right now, it will want to give the impression of using it to the fullest.

Of course, I cannot suggest a simple solution to the entire problem, but one thing is certain. The UN needs to be treated more seriously in this scenario. The only way forward that I can see is if the Israeli army pulls back and allows a UN peacekeeping force along with the lebanese army to step forward and carry out the rest of the war against Hezbollah on the ground, rather than through aerial bombing. News reports say that this is pretty much the formula that is being worked out. One just hopes that a consensus will be arrived at soon and that some semblance of peace will be restored to this trouble torn region. After all, the difference between a compromise and victory is often a matter of perception.

US plans further intervention in Cuba

2006-08-03T14:16:00.000-07:00

This article is quite a hilarious one. According to it, US legislators have drafted legislation that would pay millions of dollars to dissidents who fight for democratic change. Could the irony of the whole thing be more explicit?

I can see it's time for a small history lesson. The main reason Fidel Castro came to power in 1959 was not because he and his followers had more firepower than the government but because he had overwhelming popular support. The reason for this support? There was the perception among cubans that the US was wielding too much influence with the government then in power and many felt that their country was being "used" by the US to further it's own interests. Was such a perception really the truth? Of course it was! The US has a history of intervention in almost every country in the western hemisphere. Cuba however, was going to prove to be a real thorn in their flesh for decades.

Of course, I'm not going to justify or glorify Castro here. The fact is that there is little freedom of speech in Cuba and no freedom of dissent. However, the history of US intervention in Cuba is worth all the books that have been written about it. The Bay of Pigs invasion and all other succesive assassination attempts certainly indicate how desperate the US was to overthrow Castro and probably install another puppet in his place (I'm not even for a moment considering the standard american tripe about how they want democracy and justice all over the world). The reason they have been unsuccessful in all these decades is not just because Fidel Castro is extremely cautious to the point of being paranoid, but also because he is still popular and enjoys a lot of support for a communist dictator. Of course he isn't an elected representative but when the cubans don't have any problems with him at the helm, who are the americans to complain? Besides, Cuba has never been a threat to the US at all since the end of the cold war. The whole issue of whether Cuba needs democracy is to be decided by the cuban people themselves. If they want a democracy, I'll bet that sooner or later they will fight tooth and nail for it without any external impetus. If they are happy with the status quo, they will not welcome any change. It is as simple as that.

This idea of offering cash to dissidents to fight for democratic change is so utterly stupid and contemptible I can't think of words to rubbish it. I cannot name even a single revolutionary movement where money was a motivating factor in it's victory. If you want a revolution, it will have to come from the people. A revolution cannot be bought with money. If the US indeed succeeds in getting some people to rebel for cash, I will definitely not dignify it as a success of democracy. I would look at it as the ultimate triumph of Mammon in a world where principles and loyalty go to the highest bidder and everything comes at a price.

West Coast Visit

2006-07-29T20:22:00.000-07:00

Research, like many other aspects of life, is driven by deadlines. Take the deadlines away and you could never expect any kind of sensible output from all but the most self motivated of researchers. The situation in my research group around four months back was too meet a submission deadline for the International Symposium on Information Theory(ISIT) which was to be held in Seattle. My seniors in the group were the ones who had to submit the paper but they suggested that I could accompany them, provided my advisor didn't have any problems.

My advisor was OK with my attending the conference but was hesitant to fund me in any way as he seemed to have hit a lean patch as far as travel funds were concerned. Since I had to spend out of my pocket, I decided to combine this with a mini vacation and go straight to Stanford after ISIT, which my friend Shankar promised would be worth a visit. Seattle to California is a bit of a detour but not a very inconvenient one. Besides, California was just too tempting to be left out of the equation.

ISIT was being held from 9th to 14th of July. Like any other conference, it was packed with talks every day. Since it is one of the most important annual conferences in Information Theory, it was very well attended and the attendees included most of the bigwigs of Informaton Theory (who, not surprisingly, aren't very well known outside of the communication theory community, due to the rather esoteric nature of the field itself). I was something of a tourist at the conference as I didn't have to present anything there. I spent most of my time attending talks by authors about their papers.

I'll not go into too many details about the talks themselves, but it was quite a stimulating experience overall. As I am something of a newcomer to this field, ISIT was probably a good place for me to get a feel for the huge scope of information theory as well as to soak up a few of the myriad new ideas being presented. Each morning, there was a plenary talk given by an invited speaker, which would then be followed by the usual sessions of paper presentation talks. There were some talks which were overwhelmingly well attended, attesting to the near celebrity like status of the presenters themselves. These talks were a bit more accessible as they seldom required a very deep knowledge of Information Theory or any requisite mathematical tricks.

Of course the sheer number of talks being conducted in parallel meant that even the most zealous of people could only have attended close to 15% of all talks held (which would actually be a lot of information to digest). It wasn't the most fun filled activity I've engaged in, but it was refreshingly different from anything I'd done before. Can you imagine any other place where the concentration of non Americans is so overwhelming? Or can you imagine any other place where five successive talks would be delivered by speakers with five distinctly different accents? A united nations summit might be a possible answer :). However, the best thing about it was that here were a lot of people with whom I could discuss truly technical and mathematical stuff without feeling like a geek or a nerd (even though 99% of the human population would label us that way).

I'm sure all the preceding paragraphs give the impression of ISIT being all work and no play, but that wasn't actually the case. It was also a social event of sorts, as I met a few people and made some new friends. I even saw an assistant professor from IIT Madras whose course I had taken in final year.

We probably didn't see as much of Seattle as we would have if we had been on vacation but we did see a bit of the downtown area and we also went to Mount Rainier national park. Unfortunately, on the day we went, Mount Rainier wasn't very clearly visible and we were left wondering if it should be called Mount Foggier instead. However, I must say that Seattle is a beautiful and relaxed city, almost reminding me of some Indian hill stations, only it is much bigger and more developed.

After close to a week in Seattle I was headed to Stanford for four days. My friend Shankar had an agenda of proving to me how much superior the bay area was compared to South Bend. He had come to South Bend after our Indianapolis trip and wasn't too pleased by the place in general. Four days with him only confirmed what we all knew very well beforehand: South Bend isn't a very happening part of the US and probably never will be.

I was in California for a very short time, which meant I wouldn't be able to see much of the sights of the place. I did get a guided tour of a part of the Stanford campus though. The Stanford campus is simply huge and quite a well maintained one for it's size. If there were to be an award for most beautiful campus, Stanford would definitely be a contender (and so would Notre Dame ;) ). The second day, we went to a beach in Santa Cruz in the hope of watching the sunset. However, the beach we initially landed at was one of the coldest and foggiest I've been to and visibility would have been at most 30 feet (which meant no view of the sunset). However, the drive was a really picturesque one (supposedly one of the most beautiful in the world) and there was a smaller beach on the way back where we caught a glimpse of the setting sun. It was almost like an impressionist painting.

Of course, a visit to the bay area can never be complete without a visit to San Francisco. Stanford is quite well connected to all nearby places and we didn't have any trouble reaching SF. San Francisco is one of the most breathtaking cities I've ever seen. The city is just buzzing with activity and life. It is a rather quaintly constructed city, with long sloping roads that would put hill stations all over the world to shame and are probably a nightmare for novice drivers in the city. However, the weird look and feel of the city that you have seen in so many movies is the real San Francisco, not the creation of overzealous directors. The city is unlike so many others even at a first glance. For example, we took the tram ride from downtown to the pier and it was a tourist attraction in itself. The trams were a bit of 19th century technology still coexisting with what is otherwise a very modernized 21st century city. If you go to San Francisco, whatever else you miss out on, don't miss the tram ride.

I must also mention that San Francisco is unbelievably windy, almost putting Chicago to shame. We decided to take a cruise around the bay, as we were particularly keen on seeing the golden gate bridge and Alcatraz. This is where Mark Twain's supposed statement that "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco" seemed to make sense. It was by far the coldest and windiest cruise I had ever been on. To top it all, the Golden gate was hardly visible due to a dense fog. We only caught a glimpse of the large girders and supporting columns when the boat went really close to the bridge. Alcatraz on the other hand, was not as badly shrouded and we got a clear view of the most notorious prison in the US. I can hardly imagine how a prisoner would have felt to be within 2 miles of San Francisco, but locked up in one of the most secure prisons ever. Talk about rubbing salt on one's wounds.

Of course, there was still time to kill after the cruise and we spent it roaming around the pier area. At the end of it all, I knew for sure that San Francisco requires more than one day to explore and I would probably have to come back again some other time. The city just beckons.

I was in Stanford for another day before returning to South Bend, a little tired and worn, but with my wanderlust satiated temporarily. I only wish getting back to the usual work routine wasn't as hard after a short vacation but I guess I'll be taking my own time with it, as is my wont with almost everything else.

Speed Thrills

2006-07-20T17:30:00.000-07:00

Indianapolis - The Mecca within the USA for all fans of motorsports. I had my tryst with motorsports over two weeks ago, when the Formula One grand prix was held in the Indianapolis speedway.

It was actually a matter of chance that I got to go there in the first place. My friends Shankar and Ram told me they had an extra ticket and casually asked me if I would like to come. Frankly, I do not follow Formula One too closely. I occasionally catch some of the latest F1 news when I can but I seldom do more than that. However, the chance to see this from close up was too enticing and I decided to go there anyway.

There is something about Formula One that is at once both endearing and distant. As a spectator sport, F1 probably wouldn't score too high by any standards. The main reason for this is the speed of the cars. As a spectator, you would have a lot of trouble even following the cars as they whiz along at speeds which would be unthinkable on public roads. If you were lucky enough to be seated near a corner like I was, where the cars would have to slow down to turn, you would get a better view of them. A few of my friends were on a straight section and all they saw for most of the race was a blur of colour.

Of course, the speed of these cars is the very thing that draws most of the fans to the sport. The sight and sound of these cars as they skim across the track is exhillarating. The deafening roar of these cars in full throttle was just heavenly. If my description of it makes it look like a childish thrill, I'm afraid it's because I can't convey it better. This sport is in some ways, the ultimate combination of man and machine. Anyone who loves driving a car is unlikely to resist the allure of this sport.

The really neat aspect of F1 however, isn't always what happens on the track, but what happens off it. The amount of engineering effort that goes into these cars is simply phenomenal and plays no small role in winning a race. Only jet fighters or spacecraft could claim to be better designed and engineered than F1 cars. I don't know of any other sport where engineers labour relentlessly in order to save a few miliseconds. The story at Indianapolis however, was not one where milliseconds mattered. Schumacher won this race by a massive margin. He was ahead of his teammate by over 7 seconds and ahead of his nearest competitor Renault by over 16 seconds. Given that this season has been dominated by Renault, the result at Indianapolis was a much needed shot in the arm for Ferrari (and it's fans, like my friend Shankar who had his face painted like the Italian flag with a prancing horse set on one cheek. He sure felt vindicated at the end of the race :) ).

Overall, the experience was a priceless one and certainly worth the time and money we put into it. Something I would highly recommend even if you aren't a close follower of Formula One.

An article worth reading

2006-07-05T21:17:00.000-07:00

I happened to come across this article, titled "Streets, stories, strategies". It was written by a blogger named Annie, and it is her attempt to address (or at least to give expression to her feelings about) the issue of sexual harassment faced by women in India. This is really worth a read. It is written with amazing detachment, considering she has been a victim quite a number of times. An interesting thing to note was the number and size of the comments that this article drew. If you haven't read it, I would suggest you do now.

I am certainly all praise for the way the article was written (very sensible and with no unnecessary anger or bias against men in general). However, the comments are a different story altogether. The comments could broadly be classified into three categories. The first - people complimenting the article and expressing disgust at the incidents mentioned. The second - other women recounting their personal experiences and expressing their views. The third, which I really don't understand - men who say they are ashamed/feel guilty of their masculinity because of such incidents.

Lets just look at this a bit logically. You should feel ashamed/guilty about something only if you are actually culpable. In other words, If you haven't done anything wrong, there is no point in apologizing on the culprits behalf or even worse, feeling guilty yourself. There is another important fact to be recognized here. Sexual harassment isn't primarily about males mistreating females purely on the basis of gender. At it's heart, this is an example of bullying. It is a case of a supposedly stronger person causing a weaker person suffering and pain as a means of establishing dominance. In the case of sexual harassment, women are perceived as weaker targets by some men and this is their way of both emphasizing their strength as well as living their fantasies. Such bullying on the basis of a person's sex is both disgusting and condemnable.

However, does this mean that men should simply stop looking at women, stop having any fantasies and become totally devoid of any sexual feelings? This is where my answer is an emphatic no. I find it ridiculous that some people think that the only way for such harassment to end is to go to the extreme where men should become lifeless, sexless zombies. One woman had commented that she was waiting for the day when all men would look into a woman's eyes when they talk rather than at her breasts. My only reply to her is that she (and other women) would realistically have only one option, namely to keep waiting. As civilized men, we should and will not in any way impinge upon the privacy of women or cause them any discomfort or embarrassment. Expecting us to go against our instincts and not even look at women is unrealistic at best (and hypocritical at worst, as I'm sure women lech and fantasize as much as men do anyway).

I also try to think about it from the point of view of the men who commit such acts, but I really cannot. At any rate, this is a problem that requires a better approach to solve and the best approach should take the mindset of the offenders into account. Ultimately, the impetus for a long term solution must come from within society itself, as social norms and stereotypes play no small role in such issues. Until then, Indian women will probably view this as a part of life and Indian men in general will be judged by victims of harassment according to the lowest common denominator, which needless to say, is pretty low.

Of mice and men

2006-07-03T19:54:00.000-07:00

I'm developing a bad habit of first choosing an irrelevant topic for my posts and then writing something only superficially related to it. For those of you who have been misled by the topic i've chosen this time, I sincerely apologize :) .

Coming back to the point, my roomies and I had a bit of trouble since moving into our new apartment. About a week ago, I saw a mouse in our kitchen. A really diminutive specimen , scurrying away to safety as fast as its legs could carry. I had seen rats in India that were about ten times the size of the mouse. In terms of size, this was nothing. However, size isn't everything and a mouse in the house demanded immediate action. My roomies were concerned about the possibility of infectious diseases and so we decided to throw away any food which we suspected had been nibbled at or even sniffed at. God alone knows how much uncontaminated food we threw away that day, but we resolved not to let the situation get out of hand. An exterminator would not arrive for at least three days and my roomie Sai was almost bloodthirsty in his desire to kill the mouse.

So where do you go if you need a few mousetraps at 10PM? Walmart of course. We went and got a few of the usual mousetraps (like the ones you see in Tom and Jerry cartoons, except Jerry never gets trapped in one of those). We also got a couple of sticky traps. For bait, we used chocolate chip cookie pieces (yeah, the mice in our house were really spoilt brats). The traps were all in place, and we decided there was nothing else to be done but wait.

The next morning, we were in for a bit of a surprise. The mouse had nibbled off the cookie pieces in two of the traps without setting either one off!! How clever do these mice get? We initially wondered if we had a more cunning adversary than we had anticipated, but we decided that we needed to be patient. We reset the traps and went to work as usual.

In the evening, we had hit paydirt. One of the traps had gone off, killing the mouse. However, my roomie Anees claimed that he saw a second one in the house. We were again anxious about the magnitude of the problem. One mouse is something we could manage easily but a whole family of them would be a different story. So we left all the other traps the way they were and waited.

I'll not go into the details, but we captured a total of four mice over three days. Two of them were unfortunate enough to get caught in sticky traps, which meant that they were still alive when we found them. It was not very appealing, but my roomie Sai decided to wrap them up in a plastic bag so that they would asphyxiate and then throw them away (at least that way, we did not prolong their agony). Feeling like an executioner after a good day's work, we just hoped that we had laid all the mice in the house to rest.

Yesterday, four of my friends (Shankar, BC, mama and Venkat) had come to South Bend to stay overnight before going to Chicago. I didn't tell them about the rodent problem and they didn't see any mice, so it worked out just fine. After all, what you don't know about can rarely hurt you.

PS. Shankar, if you are reading this, I hope this doesn't sour your initial impression of my apartment ;).

PHD errands

2006-06-17T14:09:00.000-07:00

My advisor, Dr. Collins has been asking me to get a number of journal papers scanned, converted to PDF format and mailed to him. The reason he couldn't get them himself is because he isn't in the university right now. The funny thing is that these papers all deal with topics such as measurement, instrumentation and/or power. Given that his primary area of focus right now is Information Theory and Communications which has nothing to do with any of the papers he has asked for set me thinking for a while. However, it isn't for me to try and fathom his thought processes. I promptly went to the library to get the papers and complete the errand. After a bit of searching, I found three huge tomes which contained the necessary papers. For the sake of convenience, the library sees fit to bind several already bulky issues together into one mammoth volume for each year (two mammoth volumes for years when the researchers were either extremely productive or extremely verbose or both).

I had to lug those heavyweight volumes to the check out counter, where I had this conversation with the librarian.

Librarian:(smiling) Couldn't you find any bigger books in the library?
Me:(breathess but returning the smile) Unfortunately not.
Librarian: Perhaps you will need plastic bags to carry them?
Me: Oh yes! thanks!!
Librarian:(scanning the barcodes one by one) These are due within 2 days (pauses) hmm.... This was last checked out when you were probably a baby.
Me: (Checking the date) Nope, I wasn't even born then.
Librarian: Oh! Well, here you are.
Me: Thanks.

For those of you who are curious, that bound volume had last been checked out in 1981. This shows two things very clearly. First, that research in power systems apparatus (that's what the journal was about) is effectively dead here in Notre Dame as is the case in many other US universities. Second, people are overestimating my age (although not by too much). I suppose I could flatter myself by taking this to mean that I look mature beyond my age (a euphemism can be flattering if viewed in a certain perspective ;) ).

Coming back to my errand, the 400 yard walk back to my lab from the library with those bound behemoth volumes was the toughest workout I've had in ages. Who said that grad school was all brain and no physical exertion? I think they could use this as a good training exercise for the football team this season. After all, who needs weights and dumbbells when you have some of the best research in power systems apparatus instead? That would also put these journals to better use.

The Storm

2006-05-27T22:54:00.000-07:00

All storms start out as small localized disturbances; mere puffs of wind which do not appear to be capable of growing into anything dangerous. The formation of a thought or an idea could be likened to the brewing of a storm in more ways than one. The gestation of an idea in the human brain is manifested physically by increased electrical activity. In other words, it is an electrical storm, starting out quite literally as an insignificant spark, eventually blowing up to a magnitude which could be astounding compared to its humble origins.

However, our protagonist doesn't know any of this. He is in the kind of situation where he would least expect any kind of storm to brew. A person who is about to relax after a hard day's work spent in pondering over a particularly difficult problem is unlikely to experience such electrical storms. Of course, the electrical activity never ceases as long as one is alive. They appear every now and then, only to fade away within moments, like puffs of smoke from a cigarette that die away almost as soon as they are born.

However, there is one particular train of thought, one recent electrical disturbance in his brain that refuses to die out. It keeps pulsating, waxing and waning irregularly but never completely destroyed. The reason being that some disturbances are inherently stable and recurrent. It however, slowly picks up strength and momentum, until it is no longer just a puff of air, but building up into a bigger and bigger gust. He realizes that this initially insignificant disturbance, this train of thought that had somehow never occurred to him all along, is leading him somewhere, and with renewed enthusiasm he fuels the storm, prodding it onward, letting it run its own course. The storm soon takes its own course, culminating in a single moment of clarity and revelation that will not only result in a most elegant solution to the problem that was plaguing him all along but would also make him famous and immortal for generations to come.

"EUREKA!!!"

The things we see on TV

2006-05-14T21:07:00.000-07:00

We often hear a lot about the negative effects of the idiot box. Few can deny the pervasive effect that television has on it's viewers. It is a medium of mass communication that is probably matched only by the internet in terms of it's power to reach people directly and effectively. After all, to most people, seeing is believing.

However, to state it plainly, there is a lot of garbage out there on TV. By garbage, I mean stuff that is primarily not of any value and has no other purpose than to try and keep you glued to the TV screen. My solution to this is a bit peculiar. I recommend fast channel surfing. Basically, you flip through channels quickly, only to stop if something catches your attention. Believe me, something or the other surely will. If you tire of that after five minutes, move on to the next channel. The next few paragraphs are specific comments about things I've seen on TV by randomly surfing channels. Some did not hold my attention for more than a few minutes.

1. I was flipping through a few channels one day when I saw Teri Hatcher lying on an operating table. Before you start to get any funny ideas, let me clarify. It was an episode of Desperate Housewives. She was on the operating table, about to be operated on. So what is the first thing a patient must be given before the operation? anaesthetic of course!! Now it turns out that the doctor who was supposed to perform the operation on her was in love with her and guess what? He chose the moment when she was barely conscious due to the influence of the anaesthetic to declare his love for her.

In short, this guy actually thought it was romantic to propose to her when she was under sedation and about to be operated upon. Does this in the least bit sound sensible or plausible or professional? I realize that a sitcom has to entertain rather than educate (hell, if TV was supposed to be educative, 90% of all channels would not be able to justify their existence) but does it have to be so mindnumbingly stupid? I just wish I could tell the writers to their face that there are people out there who have common sense and that the least they could do is not insult their intelligence so openly.

2. Reality TV: I know that I'm not releasing a big secret here but reality TV is an oxymoron. It quite simply isn't real. Consider the ideal ingredients for a certain very popular type of reality TV. You have a set of people who are put in an absolutely unreal situation, where they have to compete with each other for a "prize". Make it a kind of game where tasks have to be completed under unusual constraints with appropriate short term rewards for success. Add to this some crazy rules of elimination and you have your formula perfected. Just take a look at "The Apprentice", "Beauty and the Geek", "Elimidate" and other such shows and you see that they all fit the exact same pattern.

To be fair, The Apprentice is probably the only show which is not insulting to one's intelligence in this lot. I've watched a few episodes every now and then myself. However, it is definitely not the way any sensible CEO would like to recruit people. Even 20 rounds of simple face to face interviews by a panel would hardly take more than a few days and the new employee could get to work sooner. It is just another money making and publicity boosting gimmick made for a TV viewership that is ready to lap up any such offering.

I often ask myself what the popularity of such reality shows actually tells us about human psychology. Does it mean that we enjoy watching others fail when they are put in the limelight, thereby somehow boosting our petty egos?(knowing very well that we would not do any better in such a situation) Is it really a case of people taking solace in the faults and public humiliation of others as a way of assuaging their low image of themselves?

3. Some days back, I happened to see the Miss America broadcast on TV while flipping through channels. I obviously decided to stop and take a closer look. It turned out that the various contestants were introducing themselves and one of them repeatedly kept saying "I'm a real person" with great emphasis and conviction (when she actually meant to say that she was a normal person).

I know this sounds silly, but we were never really in any doubt that she was for real (if she was an android, I would definitely like to congratulate the guy who designed her :D ). My roomie Maiya just tut tutted, saying "Too bad for her. I never support real people".

Poeple might think I'm making a big deal out of this, but it's funny how easily Americans can make a mess of their own language with these silly colloquialisms. English is probably the only language that most of them will ever learn in their life. Why don't they do a good job of learning their own language?

4. Then there was the case of David Blaine and his recent underwater caper, which renewed my interest in his street magic. While it was quite a gutsy stunt he pulled off, I'm still left wondering if he tried to do too many things at the same time. If his goal was to break the record for the maximum time a person has held his breath underwater, why did he have to stay in that glass sphere for a week? He certainly had a number of complications in the process, ranging from peeling skin to liver failure. Ultimately, I got the feeling that the two stunts packaged together as one was probably not a good idea.

There is also this video I've been watching of David Blaine performing magic on the street. It is quite amazing and it certainly shows how good he is as an impromptu performer. There was a PDF document I found online when I was searching for interesting news about him which provided detailed explanations of all of his magic tricks. The reason being given was that it was important to show people that what he was doing was simple trickery and not "real magic".

Now have we ever seen any magician give a straight answer to the question of how he does a particular trick? Lots of people in the video would first ask him that question, followed by questions about whether he was really psychic or spiritually gifted or such crap. He does acknowledge in one or two places that magic is a performing art and that what he does isn't voodoo or black magic. What else do you want him to do? Reveal all his magic tricks?

The point here is that if people are willing to be easily deluded, that is their problem. I don't see any sense in holding Blaine responsible for this. He is a magician and his job relies on sleight of hand and a number of illusions to make people think hard about whether seeing is really believing. If you want to believe that he is psychic in spite of the fact that he has never made that claim, that is your wish. Don't reveal his tricks to everyone under the false belief that you are doing people a favour. There are many who know that he uses tricks and sleight of hand (rather than anything supernatural) and would still like to enjoy the magic as a performing art.

5. I recently saw a few episodes of Penn and Teller's hit series, aptly titled "Bullshit", where they take potshots at a number of myths prevalent today. One of the episodes that particularly caught my attention was about circumcision. You can search for it in youtube.com and view it, but I warn you, it is difficult to watch if you are squeamish and I wouldn't let anyone under the age of 21 see it. I will not be held responsible if you watch it and regret it for whatever reasons.

The point that they were trying to make was that there was no scientific basis for the claim that circumcision was a healthy practice. There has been medical research arguing both ways, and no indisputable evidence of any benefits to men. However, even today, newborn babies are being circumcised by the thousands every day, often without any anaesthetic. The procedure they show looks brutal and inhuman(to put it mildly).

However, what really pissed me off was the fact that women who were being interviewed and asked if they have ever seen a man with an uncircumcised penis reacted as if it was the most ghastly thing they could have been asked. They reacted with disgust.

Now if any man were to declare that he was disgusted by women with small breasts, he would be pounced upon and denounced as sexist in no time. I'm sure people have also heard about female genital mutilation practiced in some African countries. What differentiates the attitude of these bitches from those of sexual offenders and misogynists? Besides, one fellow whose wife was expecting a boy said that in his younger days other men would discriminate against him because he was uncircumcised and that he would deliberately roll up his foreskin before sex to avoid being questioned by women.

This angers me to no end. That the popular culture in the US places mere physical attributes above all other qualities is well known to me but is the rot really this deep? They now have more face lifts, breast implants, botox injections and circumcisions being done than ever before, and all for frivolous reasons. The only thing I could say to uncircumcised men out there is that if you have a girlfriend or any other friends who make a big deal out of the fact that your parents decided not to chop off your foreskin, LOSE THEM. GET RID OF THESE RETARDED APES IN HUMAN FORM FROM YOUR CIRCLE OF FRIENDS. They are almost surely not worth wasting your time on.

If the people who read my blog think that ranting about such issues is all that I'm capable of, I must defend myself by saying that my outrage is never unjustified. I personally feel that there is a lack of a feeling of outrage today when people are confronted with important issues being handled carelessly. If you have a problem with the logical arguments that I put forth to make my views and opinions clear, try and convince me by logical arguments that I'm wrong. Trying to dismiss me or denounce me under some frivolous reason(such as calling my article a rant) is a waste of both your time and mine. I ask you to respect my time and consider my opinion in an unbiased manner.

Winter Blues

2006-05-08T15:40:00.000-07:00

What is the first thing that most people do when they wake up? My guess is that many people would draw the curtains and take a look outside, in anticipation of another day at work or maybe just out of curiosity at what the weather gods might have in store for everyone. Close to five months ago, I can remember how I deliberately used to shy away from drawing the curtains and looking out of my window every morning. The reason was very simple, I knew exactly what to expect outside - a sea of white. The entire landscape would be filled with snow almost as far as one could see. The almost monochromatic landscape often represented a gloomy and sometimes desolate picture in my mind.

Im sure many people would feel that such a landscape is the most picturesque and serene one possible. I too remember looking in wonder and some amount of amazement when the first snowflakes came down. I remember feeling the powdery, flaky snow between my fingers. It was so very refreshing and captivating the first time, since snow was something new to me. However, the fascination evaporated within days as the novelty wore off. After spending some time here in winter, such a view early in the morning would remind me of how cold it actually was outside, where three layers of clothing were the minimum requirement in order to stay alive. Indeed a winter landscape makes an excellent picture postcard but to live in it for an extended period of time is another thing altogether.

I'm suddenly reminded of this famous extract from Shakespeare's Richard III

"Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this sun of York"

One doesn't need to have experienced a harsh winter to understand what Shakespeare was trying to convey but I've got a new found appreciation for the wording of the above extract . The term "winter of our discontent" is simply the most apt way of referring to the unhappiness of the past, soon to be dispelled the way summer displaces winter. It indicates a nice analogy between weather and human emotions and moods in terms of how they keep shifting.

Of course, now that it is spring in Notre Dame and the snow is long gone, there appears to be new found life on campus, with people spending more time outdoors than cooped up inside. The sombreness of winter has been replaced by the lovely spring weather. Everyone seems to be a little more cheerful in spring than in winter. These days I find myself drawing the curtains aside and taking a look outside every morning in anticipation of the day ahead. Quite a sea change in the span of five months.

Transcript of an Interesting Conversation

2006-04-14T09:32:00.000-07:00

I surf the web a lot in my free time and I often come across articles or other writings where I don't agree with what the writer is saying. A typical example was what Dr. Philip Greenspun had written in this article. The article is mainly about the "issue" of women in science. It is probably worth a read as it seeks to take a fresh perspective on why there are so few women in the sciences.

While I didn't really have any problem with his views on why there were so few women in science, I certainly found his views on one or two topics to be biased. In particular, he says that the reason immigrants from other countries choose science as a career is because it's their only ticket to the kind of lifestyle which Americans have and which isn't available in third world countries. Besides this, he makes his disdain for science as a career very clear. Dr. Greenspun is a programmer by profession and he is also a part time professor at MIT. I was a bit surprised to find such vehement denial on his part of science as a career option at all. The following quotes summarize a few points where I strongly disagreed with him.

"The American academic scientist earns less than an airplane mechanic, has less job security than a drummer in a boy band, and works longer hours than a Bolivian silver miner"

" Pursuing science as a career seems so irrational that one wonders why any young American would do it"

"Science may be one of the lowest paid fields for high IQ people in the U.S., but it pays a lot better than most jobs in China or India"

Now I want to emphasize the exact group of people whom I am "representing". I am talking about those international graduate students (predominantly from India and China) who come here with the intention of finishing a PhD in a science based stream (not even engineering). This is a small and highly specific grouping. I will be the first to acknowledge that many immigrants come to the USA in the hope of a better standard of living. I disagree with Dr. Greenspun that those who come here for a PhD in the sciences also do so for the same reason. To paraphrase Dr. Greenspun, doing a PhD in Science doesn't guarantee that you will have a good lifestyle because you will never earn as much as people in other professions. We know that only too well and we still go ahead and complete our PhDs because we really enjoy what we do and that is all. I don't want Americans to flatter themselves by assuming all immigrants are here because they couldn't live a comfortable life in their own country.

Anyway, instead of keeping these thoughts to myself, I promptly emailed Dr. Greenspun. It was a rather long email and I was pleasantly surprised when he replied. We ended up exchanging 3 mails in each direction. I guess it could be viewed as a tussle of opinions and the verdict would have to be a stalemate (I didn't feel like pursuing it beyond the third mail). Anyway, here are excerpts from the conversation. The format will be starting with what I wrote with alternating replies followed by my comments. I'm giving every word unaltered and am in no way trying to bias readers in my favour. My comments are to further illustrate the point I'm trying to make.

Me: I take exception to your statement that international students who are here to pursue PhDs in science are all here solely because of the higher standards of living. I personally know a few people who gave up cushy job offers back home after their bachelors and came to the US to do a PhD out of nothing other than sheer enthusiasm.

PG: I've been to both India and China and, while both are fascinating countries, I wouldn't have wanted to live in either place (crowds, pollution, infrastructure problems, etc.).

Me: I guess that's true. You obviously feel more at home in the US than in India or China. To international students like us, staying back in our own country was an equally attractive proposition. I wasn't denying that the US has a higher standard of living. However, if people stayed back and took the job offers they had, they would be earning enough to live a very comfortable life in India/china and it frankly doesn't matter much where you are living it.

PG: I don't think the horrific air pollution of Third World cities such as Mexico City and almost all the big cities of China is a question of personal preference. First World countries are the cheapest and easiest places in which to live a First World lifestyle.

Comments: First of all, the horrific pollution that he talks about isn't restricted to the third world. Is Los Angeles or New York any less polluted than New Delhi or Mumbai? I don't think so. Your lungs are equally likely to get corroded in all these places (I am using New York and Los Angeles as examples of the kind of city where a "first world lifestyle" is possible).

I guess Dr. Greenspun isn't aware of the fact that today, Indians are getting much better jobs than 10 years ago. In fact the number of Indians who come to the US for higher studies has dropped appreciably. I know a number of my batchmates who have taken up jobs, and will be doing an MBA later. These guys (especially those who do an MBA from one of the Indian Institutes of Management) know that in 10 years, they will be earning more than the guys who go to the US for a science PhD. In fact many of these IIM graduates end up working abroad on the strength of their MBA alone.

His comment about how it is cheaper to live a first world lifestyle in first world countries doesn't make sense and is false. It is obvious to me that if an American took a 100 dollars to India, he would get much more in terms of value for money in New Delhi than say in New York (because the exchange rate of the dollar is presently high). If I want to live a good lifestyle in New York, I would have to earn at least 10 times the amount needed in Mumbai or New Delhi to lead a similar lifestyle. Since the world follows an open market system, anything that's available in the US is also available in India as well. You can lead a princely lifestyle in Mumbai with a salary of 1,000,000 Indian rupees a year, while the equivalent salary in dollars would necessitate an ascetic lifestyle in a place like New York.

Me: We are here primarily to get a good education. If we were here for the higher standard of living, why on earth would we join a PhD program with the aim of actually completing it and thereby prolong our somewhat Spartan style of living?

PG: Because you couldn't have gotten into an American medical school, most of which will not accept foreigners under any conditions. My friend Lisa was a wealthy girl from Monaco and she got into Johns Hopkins med school, but they were a rare exception in that they did accept foreigners... up to 1 per year.

Me: I wasn't referring to medical school anyway. I guess a career in medicine is a different thing altogether. All I'm saying is that many of the science grad students are here primarily because they really want to do scientific research and not for the higher standard of living. It's not like a student tossed a coin to chose between a career in medicine and science and the coin indicated medicine and that he was then forced to go with science because the American med schools wouldn't take him. At the grad school level, the choices are often consciously made, with full knowledge of the consequences.

Comments: What can I say? There was a total misunderstanding. He just didn't get the point I was trying to make.

Me: We realize that a grad student's life is a bed of thorns and the benefits aren't always commensurate in monetary terms but still, we pursue this path out of genuine passion. Your article seems to indicate that such genuine passion is either stupid or uninformed.

PG: Of course not! For people who don't care about or don't need money, I would encourage them to follow their dreams. I work for $8/hour and oftentimes for free as a helicopter and airplane flight instructor. I don't think of myself as stupid. But, of course, I don't need the money.

Me: Ok.

Comments: I must admit I didn't pay attention to the one paragraph about his being a helicopter instructor for peanuts but then again, in an article which is 95% about lambasting science, is this 5% supposed to neutralize all the other vitriolic statements? Maybe.

Me: If all the American youngsters out there followed your advice literally, American science will be dead, only to be replaced by the science performed by immigrants.

PG: That's pretty much what we have, except at a handful of elite schools! It seems to work great, because China and India have more than enough smart young people.

Me: Ok. Point taken. It isn't really my problem if Americans aren't concerned about the declining interest shown towards science by their students.

PG: If I had kids, I certainly wouldn't want them to choose science as a career rather than a profession. I might want someone else's kids to go into science so that I could enjoy the fruits of their labor, but I would be worried about my own kid giving up a secure high-paying career in exchange for an insecure low-paying one.

Comments: Since his reason for discouraging his kids from science is that science is an insecure and low paying career, by the same token, his kids will not be allowed to study any of the Arts, Music, Humanities, Philosophy, Linguistics, Literature of any kind, History, Medieval Studies and so on (the list is endless). Surely there will be others who will do all this. His kids can become lawyers or doctors or investment bankers or maybe in the worst case engineers.

Me: It is true that some people join graduate programs in order to impress an intellectual peer group but within a year or two of grad school, they will realize that in grad school, you compete with yourself most often and there is nothing to be gained by trying to impress anyone else . Such people can and most often will drop out of grad school (there is no shame in that) and do whatever else they want. The rest will stay on in grad school, get a PhD and hopefully lead a life which is upto their high expectations of the way a fruitful life should be lead. Even if this doesn't happen, they can give some other career a shot knowing that they tried rather than wondering if they made the right decision to opt out of a career in science for something safer but less intellectually stimulating.

PG: As one of the commenters noted, this doesn't work for women. By age 40, a woman with a PhD in science who didn't get tenure has no sexual or economic value. A man has time to recover from unwise decisions made in youth; a woman does not.

Me: maybe. I wonder how easy it would be for a man aged 40 and without tenure to get married. Doesn't sound easy to me at all but I guess a woman would have it harder. On the other hand a few students do get married before their PhD is completed and seem to balance their life well. Are they exceptions?

PG: Women in their late 30s are often not all that selective. A 40-year-old guy with reasonable hygiene can probably find a woman with a professional job who is willing to support him. It just gets easier and easier to find women as a man gets older (though presumably as one gets older than 50 it gets harder to attract the young women that most men desire). And in any case the 40-year-old guy can always go back to school for 5 years and then emerge with a new career at age 45. He can get married at age 50 and have kids at 55. This is not physically possible for women.

Comments: Again, this isn't a very simple issue because it is a culturally dependent issue. I know for a fact that Indians of my parents' generation expect a woman to either get married by age 30 (in the worst case) or never get married at all. Similarly, I haven't heard too often of men above the age of 40 getting married in India. A man aged 50 getting married would be a huge scandal in urban India.

As an afterthought, he also added this:

Me: I'm a male Indian graduate student in electrical engineering

PG: Which is not science, I might add! You've got a lot of career options that scientists don't have.

Me: I know that electrical engineering isn't science but it's not like we are from different planets. I can empathize with the science students to some extent. These days there is quite a bit of intermingling of various scientific and engineering disciplines as well. It is very easy to have an electrical engineering degree and work in applied mathematics (or physics) if you so choose.

Comments: For the record, he is a computer science major (which is also not science and which affords him opportunities a scientist cannot even dream of). If he can have the authority to attack science so vehemently, surely I have a right to defend it. As an analogy, I might also add that a defense lawyer doesn't have to actually commit a crime so that he can claim to be truly qualified to defend a criminal.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ THE END ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Scientist Advocates Killing 90% of Population

2006-04-07T16:48:00.000-07:00

When I first saw the title of this article I was initially eager to dismiss it as either some kind of a gag by someone or maybe the isolated opinion of some misanthropic scientist. If you read the article and some of the articles linked to in this one, you will clearly notice that this isn't the case of some nutty professor who no one takes seriously.

I must say that my first feeling on reading about Dr. Pianka's opinions and the reaction of his audience was one of disappointment. According to all accounts in the article, he is a brilliant man and a very dedicated researcher in his field. To see a man like that engage in unscientific meandering was a disappointment. However, even if he wishes to defend himself on the grounds that these are opinions which he alone holds and not accepted scientific fact, the shockingly insensitive and offensive nature of his observations and comments and the warm reception accorded to them leads one to wonder about where academia is headed in situations like this.

To put it in a nutshell, Dr.Pianka opines that humans are a scourge on planet earth and that with the present rate of population growth, earth will simply not be able to sustain life unless 90% of the population is killed (a number he has produced magically). He further observes that the best way to achieve such a drastic reduction in human population is by an airborne epidemic like Ebola.

First, the whole crux of his argument that humans are a scourge on the planet earth as they modify their environment to suit their own needs and comforts is not very sound. The very fact that humans are able to modify their environment so that they inhabit areas which are by nature inhospitable to them is a result of their superior brains which have evolved over aeons. There is absolutely no way we are going against natural selection by the use of technology for our betterment. However, it is true that at our present rate of consumption of resources, the earth will not be able to sustain us for long. What Dr. Pianka could have stated in a more benign way is that we need to mend our ways so that we don't continue ruining the environment until our very existence is threatened. In that sense, we need to do something constructive about the whole problem. Exterminating 90% of the human population isn't the solution. The fact that he got a standing ovation from a lot of his peers after airing his views for the first time absolutely baffles me.

Another interesting aside is that there has never been any incident in the history of mankind when a disease has killed 90% of the human population, not even in the worst years of the black plague during the middle ages. Of course scientists may be able to engineer new and deadly strains of disease causing microbes but a disease which can kill over 5 billion people in a single pandemic over a short duration doesn't sound likely.

Of course, he doesn't say that he is the one who is going to spread Ebola or commit any terrorist acts to make sure that the human population is decimated. Instead, he says that there is no alternative for human survival. The reason this is alarming is that there are lots of his students who worship him. Who knows whether his influence on his students isn't great enough to cause someone with enough misguided zeal actually try to implement his ideas?

He also has this habit of referring to those who agree to his views as "converts" which makes him sound more like a doomsday prophet than a scientist. At a fundamental level, it doesn't require much imagination to draw a parallel between Dr. Pianka,Charles Manson and Adolf Hitler. All of them had/have their beliefs which are logically completely unsound and offensive to many people. Yet they all had/have devoted fanatical followers. It is of utmost importance that something should be done about Dr. Pianka before he uses the classroom as a forum to influence more young minds about his twisted ideology. The only question is about what exactly can be done. I'm sure he would have secured tenure in the university long ago, which is as close to invincibility within a university as anyone can get. Only time will tell.

Changes added on 11th april:

I feel the need to include these changes to make certain things absolutely clear and to also slightly modify a few things I have said. First of all, I noticed that this whole thing has turned into a huge furore, with two opposing camps. It also turns out that those who support Dr. Pianka are also advocates of evolution while those who oppose him are predominantly creationists or intelligent design advocates. I wish to make it absolutely clear that I believe in evolution and I have nothing personal at stake in this debate. People might blindly assume that just because i'm criticizing Dr. Pianka, I'm a creationist. I believe that the tendency to automatically assign a person to one camp or the other based on the logic of "If you are not with us, you are against us" is stupid and immature. The point at stake for me when I wrote this post wasn't whether evolution is better than intelligent design.

Firstly, I must accept that I was perhaps a bit harsh on Dr. Pianka when I compared him to Hitler. However, A comparison of him and Nietzsche is more apt. Nietzsche is best known for his concept of the Ubermensch or "Superman" which was conveniently used by Hitler as a justification for the nazi propaganda. While I could say that Nietzsche's reputation was unjustly sullied as a result of the way the nazis misused his ideas, the same is not the case with Dr. Pianka.

One of Dr. Pianka's students has clearly writen in his teacher evaluation "Though I agree that convervation [sic] biology is of utmost importance to the world, I do not think that preaching that 90% of the human population should die of ebola is the most effective means of encouraging conservation awareness."

Note the usage of the word "preaching". To me, this was a major cause for alarm more than anything else because it indicates that he WANTS 90% of the population to die of ebola and he is using the classroom to put such ideas into the heads of his students. I could probably accept a conspiracy theory put forth by his supporters who say that his detractors are all intelligent design advocates and are hence doing this out of spite. I don't think this student has any such bias. Another idea he put forth was that humans should be sterilized. Please check out the link that Shyam Ranganathan (madatadam) has provided in the comments. It is an incomplete transcript of his speech where he clearly says the following:

'But I asked a reproductive physiologist years ago about this. I said, “Could you design a molecule that you could administer once that would bind to the DNA to turn off reproduction and make people sterile?” And he said, yeah, theoretically. And I said, well, if you did that could you design an antidote that would unmask it just briefly for as few seconds? And he said, yeah, probably. So this is what we need. We need to sterilize everybody on the Earth [laughter] and make the antidote freely available to anybody who’s willing to work for it.'

That statement can mean one of two things - either he is totally ignorant of what basic human rights are (which is really bad and a bit unlikely), or he's become so far removed from his sense of humanity that he doesn't care about the fact that his suggestion goes against one of the most basic human rights (which is even worse but more likely). Can you call a guy who wants the government to sterilize the entire population sane? Implementation of his ideas (just consider it hypothetically) would result in something right out of a dystopian novel, where the government would be able to tell you not only how many children you can have but also have complete control over whether you reproduce and when. It appears that many of his students also support him to various degrees. If the american congress tried to pass such a bill, would the people remain silent? Would they not be up in arms immediately?

Wait a minute. Many of his supporters say that's his brand of humour and that people out there are overreacting. All I can say is that this guy's sense of humour is preposterous. If he were a stand up comedian, I would just laugh it off because I know they are never serious about anything. However, being a professor and a highly regarded researcher, his words are more likely to be taken literally (which is one of the biggest dangers). We can see that in the teacher evaluations of some students. Another thing to be remembered is that people often chose such award ceremonies as an opportunity for themselves to air their views and "serious" ideas to a wide audience. I find it hard to believe that he was just joking around for most of his speech. I'm more inclined to believe that he is quite serious about his ideas on population control and human sterilization.

I guess none of this makes him evil or a terrorist. He is most probably a crank who has become so machine like in his thinking that the basic rights of humans to life and their dignity probably don't mean much to him. Every scientist must realize that academic freedom comes with a great responsibility. With popularity in academic circles, the responsibility is even greater. To me, it seems obvious that Dr.Pianka has not at all acted responsibly as an academic by making his statements, especially when every word of his is being clung onto fervently by many people who revere him.

Observations about Intelligence

2006-03-30T10:21:00.000-08:00

A few days back, my apartment mates and I were watching "The Apprentice" on TV (I assume that enough people know about the show that I dont need to go into details) when Donald Trump was literally screwing one participant who was a member of MENSA by saying that he had made so many stupid mistakes in the course of the show's run this season that he was proving to be a disgrace to MENSA and that MENSA should probably think about what is wrong with their criteria for inducting new members.

Now I personally know a lot of people who are members of MENSA. In fact I had taken the test about 2 years back and I didn't qualify because I missed by a small margin. I have since thought a bit about the whole premise of MENSA and what it's members actually represent. Donald Trump's caustic remark only set me thinking again about this elite high IQ society.

The only criterion for entry into MENSA is that a person should have an IQ which falls in the top 2% of the world's population. There are standard tests which are designed and evaluated by psychologists which can be used to ascertain a person's IQ. I am not going to question the methodology used in these tests as I don't feel sufficiently qualified to do so (even though many others claim that there is no such thing as a perfectly unbiased IQ test). The first reservation that many psychologists have voiced is about the adequacy of IQ as a measure of intelligence. The view held by many is that IQ tests measure only very specific kinds of mental ability, such as logical and analytical thinking ability and that it does not say anyting about creativity or original thinking. Besides, back when Binet and Simon had invented the first standard IQ test, they never claimed that their test measured intelligence correctly. They had indicated however that those school students who had lower IQs would require more teaching rather than have an innate inability to learn.

There have been many improvements in successive IQ tests over the years but the same reservations still remain. There is often a mistaken perception of the high level of correlation between high IQ and success in academic disciplines. Again, if you go to the MENSA web page, they reveal that their members come from all walks of life (high and low, academic and non academic). Their members range from high school dropouts to multiple doctorates. One can infer from this fact that having high IQ doesn't automatically mean success in academics or any other discipline for that matter even though you are likely to find a lot of people with high IQ in academia (it's more like a necessary condition but not sufficient). There are a number of people with high IQ who have had tremendous success in their respective fields but there are many exceptions as well.

Now it is known for a fact that Albert Einstein had a very high IQ and he would have breezed through MENSA without any trouble. However, Richard Feynman, who is regarded by many as the greatest physicist of the last century, apparently had an IQ which would have been below the requirement of MENSA. This example again shows that IQ isn't a perfect measure of intelligence even in physics, which is one of the more analytical areas of study known to mankind.

Another pertinent example is that of Marilyn vos Savant, who is supposed to have the highest IQ in the world right now (the reason I said supposed is because measuring high IQ is a very very inexact and inaccurate science). She is also a member of MENSA. One would assume that a person with such high IQ would be infallible, but that isn't really the case. There have been two interesting controversies where she was actively involved which illustrate my point.

One controversy was regarding the Monty Hall problem, which she wrote about in her column once. I had also written about this problem in a previous post. Even though the problem is something she did not invent, but only brought to the attention of the public, she received a number of letters from mathematicians (many with somewhat condescending tones) saying that she was wrong to say that switching doors was the better option. While many of the mathematicians who criticised her were wrong, it turned out that there was a tiny flaw in her wording of the problem itself. In her column, she had never said that it was mandatory for the host to open the door to an empty room immediately after the person makes his first choice. A few mathematicians actually pointed this out and she was gracious to accept this. The reason this is important is that the game show host could be devious enough to open a door and offer you the chance to switch only when you select the right door with a million bucks in the first place, in which case switching doors gives you zero probability of winning!! Without knowing the exact motives of the host in such a case, this problem is unsolvable.

While she emerged looking like the winner in this controversy, she wasn't as successful with Fermat's last theorem. She had published a book where she elaborated on the history of the problem but she also voiced the opinion that the proof by Andrew Wiles should be rejected on the grounds that "the chain of proof is based in hyperbolic (Lobachevskian) geometry", and because squaring the circle is considered a "famous impossibility" despite being possible in hyperbolic geometry, then "if we reject a hyperbolic method of squaring the circle, we should also reject a hyperbolic proof of Fermat's last theorem".

Now this is again a typical example of unsound logic being applied to try and debunk sound mathematics. One must always remember that mathematics never ever makes even the slightest attempt to make its results fit with what we as humans experience with our limited sensory faculties. Her argument is basically the same as saying that since you cannot square the circle in euclidean geomtry (which is what we can experience and visualise easily) but such a thing is possible in hyperbolic geometry, the proof is not valid. It has been proved by mathematicians long back that there is nothing sacred about euclidean geometry. Non euclidean and euclidean geometry are both equally sound. In fact Einstein had used Riemannian geometry in his formulation of the general theory of relativity and no one had any problem with that. Similarly there shouldn't be any problem with proving Fermat's last theorem using a similar tool, that too since Fermat's last theorem isn't even as closely connected to physical reality as general relativity. This time the critics who opposed her were all correct and she had to retract that argument.

The primary reason for her "faux pas" as far as fermat's last theorem is concerned is that she isn't a mathematician, period. Trying to understand the proof of Fermat's last theorem is itself a daunting task that i'm sure even MENSA's brightest non mathematicians will be incapable of.
Marilyn von Savant's example shows that even if you are really really smart, you can still make big blunders in areas where you have little or no familiarity.

Which brings me back to where I started this whole exposition. I feel that Donald trump was probably a bit too hard on the Mensan because like lots of people out there, he probably felt that this guy's high IQ meant that he would be more successful than others at ANY task. Being a member of MENSA could at best mean that you have the potential to be really good at certain specific things. It's still up to the individual to find out what he/she is really passionate about and try to become the best at that. As I had said before, Intelligence isn't a sufficient condition for success of any kind.

Monkeying around with Probability

2006-03-08T15:00:00.000-08:00

The title of the post may seem a bit on the jovial side but there is a serious side to it. I recently saw this article which is related to the infinite monkey theorem. The statement of this "theorem" is often paraphrased as "A monkey hitting keys randomly on a typewriter for an infinite amount of time will almost surely produce a sonnet from Shakespeare". This article is about an "actual" experiment conducted to test this (which is actually a stupid thing to do as I will explain).

There are some things that need to be clarified here. The difference between someone who knows mathematics and someone who doesn't would be very clear from the way this "theorem" is interpreted. First of all, the monkey doesn't really have to be a monkey. It is effectively a mechanism to randomly and independently select keys. Apparently this simple fact isn't obvious to many people. We will also assume that all the keys being selected are equally likely (not absolutely necessary as long as all necessary characters are covered but it slightly simplifies things).

Let us assume that there are effectively 60 different keys that the monkey can press. If we are looking for a particular sonnet of shakespeare to appear which is 100 characters long, we could conduct this experiment by checking every 100 characters that the monkey types out to see if it has produced the sonnet we require. If it doesnt, we continue on infinitely. The probability that the sonnet is produced in 1 such trial is given by:

Therefore the probability that the sonnet isn't produced in N trials is:

Now, if we allow N to go to infinity, we see that the probability of not producing the sonnet is actually tending to zero. This property is due to the nature of infinity. What this shows us is that as N becomes more and more huge, you are more and more likely to have obtained the sonnet you were looking for. In fact some simple randomized algorithms for solving hard problems work using this principle.

Now to get back to the original article which started this whole thing. "Researchers" at Plymouth University in England reported that primates left alone with a computer attacked the machine and failed to produce a single word. I was initially shocked to see that they were actually taking the wording of the theorem literally. They report that the monkeys were typing only the letter 'S' repeatedly. Is that really surprising? The theorem doesnt anticipate the fact that some morons out there would actually be testing it with real monkeys. The difference is that the real monkeys aren't the best random letter generators. As in this instance, the can get enamoured with the letter 'S' for no apparent reason. Another important thing that these guys have overlooked is the fact that you have to repeat this experiment infinitely many times even if you have a good random letter generator. Hence, even in this case the experiment doesnt make sense in any way as it is computationally infeasible. Even with the most powerful computer we have today and if we were going through the possibilities sequentially, you would have to go through 60^100 possibilities in the worst case.

It was then that I saw that this tomfoolery was funded by England's Arts Council rather than by scientific bodies, and was intended more as performance art than scientific experiment (duh!!). Anyway, these guys had their share of fun with this practical joke, which only cost them a decent computer. I wish I could find an agency willing to fund me as liberally for all my research endeavours. I have a couple of crackpot schemes which I would like to try out as performance arts (like listing out the nine billion names of god to see if the entire universe will come to an end*).

* If you wonder where I got that idea from, you should read this.

Paper Anniversary

2006-02-27T18:46:00.000-08:00

Approximately 1 year ago, I made a tryst with myself, and now the time has come to see if I have redeemed my pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially. At the stroke of the midnight hour (or some such unearthly hour) last year, when the world was asleep, I decided, after several days of vacillation, to take a step towards freedom through the medium of (you obviously guessed it by now) blogging!!.

Cutting down a bit on the rhetoric (and with all due apologies to Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru), I remember that it took a while for me to start blogging. I had wondered if having a blog would actually put pressure on me to "produce" some written output just for the sake of filling up space. On the contrary, it was just the right kind of medium for someone like me who did not previously have the inclination to put my thoughts down on paper. The best thing about this medium is that it does not make any excessive demands in terms of writing style, length or content. It is the kind of freedom to write that the average non writer would really love. However, this freedom is often misunderstood by many people and the results can sometimes be an eyesore.

A cursory glance over all the different things I have written in the past year would be proof enough of the fact that I haven't really had a specific audience in mind when I blog. I have written about all kinds of things. My posts range from opinions to observations to book reviews to attempts at short fiction. In a nutshell, whenever I felt the need to express myself about any topic of general interest, I simply turned to my blog.

However the most exciting thing was the fact that quite a few people visit my blog and leave interesting comments. It is nice for an amateur writer to know that he is actually communicating (albeit to a small set of people) through his blog. It has been a pleasure to have these blog interactions and they are an added incentive for me to keep writing. Thanks guys!!

Of course, my frequency of blogging has decreased greatly over the past 4 months due to various reasons. However, I don't worry too much about that because as long as the need to express myself exists, I think I will be blogging away for a long time to come (besides i'm quite jobless anyway ;) ). So here's to another year of writing.... and writing..... and writing (hopefully!!)

Heights of Irony

2006-02-10T20:46:00.000-08:00

Its been a while since I wrote my last post and I was really not sure if writing about something ironic was the best I could do right now, but then again, this is a good excuse for me to throw together various random topics which I have been wanting to write about for some time now.

The first thing I wanted to write about was my university. The University of Notre Dame has for a very long time had the epithet "The Fighting Irish" and the students here are very proud of being identified that way. In fact, if you check out the campus newsletter, you are likely to find many more occurences of "The Irish" than "Notre Dame" in it. I was curious as usual about the origin of this epithet. I mean, there is nothing actually "Irish" about the university in any respect. Let me give an example to prove this point: the university marching band is led by a troupe of guys wearing Scottish Kilts and they also have a band of bagpipers. I was a bit confused by how they actually got Scotland and Ireland mixed up in spite of being the Fighting Irish.

My confusion was somewhat cleared up when I stumbled on a web page somewhere in the university website where the origin of the epithet was described. Apparently, the University was among the earliest catholic universities to be set up in the US. Back then, the catholics were somewhat discriminated against and besides, most catholics were irish immigrants. So the term Irish was supposedly a derogatory (or at least not a very nice) way of referring to the catholics. However, the university took up this term and converted it into a badge of honour, so that all it is now a matter of pride for many students to be referred to as one of "The Irish". I guess the important point isn't so much the fact that they still don't know their geography properly, but the fact that they actually managed this kind of turnaround.

I had mentioned in my previous post that I was taking my Ph.D qualifying exams on the 13th of January. Im happy to say that I cleared the exam and that I'm now officially a part of the PhD programme here at ND. The surprising thing is that only three of the seven people writing it were doing so for the first time (Maiya, Sunil and myself). The most ironic thing was that we were also the only ones who attempted the question on quantum mechanics and finished it successfully. I think we really surprised a few profs here, with one prof even asking a Sunil if quantum mechanics was really that easy. It was quite exhillarating to be complemented thus.

Now let me clarify something here. The three of us are in the communications stream, which means that the last time we had done anything in Quantum Mechanics was in our first year at IITM over four years back (not that we really made much sense of it back then). Quantum Mechanics is the kind of subject that can be made fiendishly difficult, but the prof here instead regularly sets problems which only require some basic linear algebra. So it turned out that we were sufficiently prepared for the question while the guys in the devices stream were not. The difficulty was entirely about getting over the psychological block that people have about quantum mechanics. People automatically assume that quantum mechanics is impossible to attempt. Some of the guys in devices attempted the DSP problem instead while we were only too happy to attempt Quantum Mechanics. Is that classic role reversal or what?

Another amusing incident I was suddenly reminded about was when some of us were going shopping and Mahesh Mahadevan spotted a billboard advertising latex matresses. He immediately blurted out "What do they mean by LaTeX in mattresses?". If you didn't understand what that meant, you should probably check out the wikipedia entry for LaTeX. Its actually a surefire way to identify PhD students (or for that matter profs) in the mathematical sciences and engineering :D.

I recently found out another interesting statistic about the people from IITM who are in the electrical department here at ND. Most of the guys who did their undergrad from IITM and then came to the electrical engg. department at ND were those who had got a change of branch in IITM. Let me explain what exactly this means. Around the time of entering IITM, we had this counselling session, where we were given a choice of branches (majors) which we could opt for. Based on our rank in the Joint Entrance Exam (JEE), we were offered a major. Now in IIT, all majors are not equal and there is a hierarchy (with CS at the top and naval architecture at the bottom). So, it was not possible to change your major later unless you performed really well in the first semester (unlike in the USA, where people can change their major any time at their whim). This procedure is called change of branch and those who managed to change their branch were colloquially referred to as "BC junta".

Coming back to the situation here, this is the list of the various people from IITM and the branch from which they shifted to electrical engineering.

myself - Aerospace Engg.
Maiya - Mechanical Engg.
Sunil - Civil Engg.
Shyam - Mechanical Engg.
Mahesh Mahadevan - Chemical Engg.
Ganti - Mechanical Engg.

As you can see, this is quite a big list. The only IITM guys who arent in the list are Srinath and Krishnan. Coincidence? Maybe, or maybe not.

That pretty much wraps up my post of disjoint and disconnected examples of irony and what better way to end it than with this quote by Kierkegaard:

"Irony is a disciplinarian feared only by those who do not know it, but cherished by those who do.”

Travels and travails in the vacation

2006-01-04T14:02:00.000-08:00

I had decided for a fact that I would spend my winter vacation doing something better than sitting at home immersing myself in the internet in an attempt to stave off my boredom (as I have done so often in the past and will do in future). I decided that the best way to spend time in the vacation and also catch up with some of my buddies from IITM would be to travel around. I must clarify here that I'm not really that much of a travelling freak, but this season, I was somehow bitten by sheer wanderlust, and I simply could not stand the thought of staying at home doing nothing. I had seen during fall break how truly lifeless the university campus becomes during any extended break. Combine that with the bleak white snow filled (It is really easy to get tired of snow and sub zero temperatures) winter and you may understand my frame of mind better.

As soon as the semester gets over, almost all undergrads go back home. If you expected anything else in the university to be functional in the vacation, you were in for a rude shock. Even the barber takes off for a two week vacation (a fact which I found genuinely amusing). Some of the professors mysteriously disappear during the vacation, only to resurface just before the next semester starts. So it wasn't me alone who had decided to travel during the vacation. Two of my apartment mates (Sai and Anees) were also travelling. Only Maiya seemed content staying at home with his computer for company (as they say, to each his own preferences).

A small subset of the "TAM gumbal" from IITM was to meet up at Washington DC. Perhaps it's best I introduce the characters right now.

I realize that people who know me might be a bit shocked at my appearance :) . Vibra was the first one to burst out laughing when he saw me at the airport but he got over it quickly (and I trust that any others who feel that way will follow suit).

We were all staying at Vikram's apartment in University of Maryland which I can say without hesitation is the best maintained graduate student apartment I have seen till now. We were quite content to just laze around in his place for the first 2 days of our stay. In the next 3 days, we visited a few of the tourist attractions in DC like Capitol Hill, the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument, The national gallery of art (highly recommended for anyone interested in art) and a few other places. Of course, we visited all these places by using the city metro and by walking to those places that the metro wouldn't take us to. Since I was the only one who had brought a digital camera, everyone was using it to try out and hone their photography skills. Since I had a 1 GB memory card for the camera, junta were shooting almost eveything that looked remotely photogenic. The photographs range from the artistic to the mundane. Two random examples are given below.

In fact we took so many photographs that all them viewed sequentially would pretty much tell the entire story of the places we visited.

After DC, New York was our next stop, especially since we had heard from innumerable sources that new year's eve was the best time to be there. Our conclusion at the end of our stay was quite different though. We decided that, new year's or not, any time is a good time to be visit the Big Apple. We were staying at the apartment of Dipish Rai, a friend of mine. He is presently studying in Columbia and so his apartment is smack in the middle of Manhattan. What more could we have asked for?

Our stay in New York lasted 4 days and was a blur of visiting the various places of interest in and around Manhattan. To be frank, 4 days is not at all sufficient to see the various sights of New York at leisure. The entire city is simply buzzing with life and it is really a cultural capital and a melting pot, with too many facets to be viewed in such a short time. Still, in spite of the time constraint, we managed to see quite a few places of interest. Some of the places we visited were Liberty Island, Wall Street, The Empire State Building and Times square at New Year's eve. Again, the city's metro system was a boon to us. I personally feel that the New York subway is the most efficient system that I have seen till now. Within Manhattan, almost every nook and cranny is perfectly covered by it.

Just like (supposedly) a million other people who would be there, we were also very enthusiastic about being in Times Square at new year's eve for the famed ball drop. We thought that the figure of a million people was an exaggeration but the place was simply swarming with people trying their best not to jostle others around. We went there at around 4 pm and were in what was supposed to be a good location to view the ball drop. None of us had seen the ball drop before and so we had what turned out to be unreasonably high expectations. Just picture this: there were close to a million people who came to Times Square more than 8 hours before the countdown and squeezed themselves into those streets, with barely enough room to even move their elbows. Normally, you would assume one of two things: either that all these people were completely crazy to put themselves through such punishment just to see a ball drop or that there really was something spectacular about the ball drop that would make the pain worth it. After standing in one spot for about 3 hours, we decided that the whole thing probably wasn't worth the pain involved. It turned out that even from where we were on 47th street, we couldnt see much much of the action and we couldnt really wait for 8 hours in one spot, all to get a glimpse of a somewhat tiny ball dropping to herald the new year. So we simply left, roamed around for a long time and came back near Central Park around midnight where we saw a great display of fireworks. If you ask me, the ball drop is a bit overrated and instead, waiting near Central Park to watch the fireworks is an excellent way to herald the new year.

New York could easily be described as the city that never sleeps, only more so on new year. Since the night was still young, we decided to celebrate it in the "right spirit". However, after we had imbibed enough, we found out that we had to wait a while for Dipish to return to his apartment (he was at a party hosted by his friend) and Shankar desperately needed to relieve himself.

By popular demand, I'm including the next picture as well. It was taken at the end of our celebration :D. I was thinking of christening this picture "the Two Glass Towers"

This is where the most interesting part comes. Shankar and Vibra went in search of a restaurant in the hope of using the restroom. They stumbled onto one a few streets away. Shankar asked Vibra to order something while he used the restroom and Vibra walked up a waitress (who was eying both of them rather critically) and asked her if he could have a tuna sandwich. One might ask what was so funny about him asking that. The fact is that these guys had stumbled onto a restaurant called "Massawa" which serves authentic Ethiopian and Eritrian cuisine. It turned out that they were the only non african guys in that joint at that time and that everyone else was speaking in some kind of guttural language that made no sense to these two and Vibra still went ahead and asked for a tuna sandwich. I cant tell you how much of a laugh the rest of us had the next day when they told us the entire story. Not to forget the fact that since the tuna sandwich was unavailable, Vibra went ahead and ordered 2 beers!!

In case you think i'm making all this up, here's photographic evidence.

Since I had to return to Notre Dame on the 3rd, DS, vibra, vik and I left New York for DC on the 2nd. Shankar had other travel plans and he went to New Jersey. This brings me to end of my "chronicle" of my travels this winter. I'm sure you are wondering why the chronicle was delayed by over 10 days if my travels got over on the 3rd. The reason is that I had to write my PhD qualifying exam on the 13th and I was busy preparing for it. Now that I've written the exam, I finally found the time to write this long post.

Double Standards

2005-12-15T19:18:00.000-08:00

"The captured terrorists of the 21st century do not fit easily into traditional systems of criminal or military justice, which were designed for different needs. We have to adapt."
--Condoleezza Rice

There are some statements that are sweeping generalizations, there are others don't really say anything meaningful and there are others that are just plain stupid. However, the above statement by Condoleezza Rice is an interesting mixture of all three.

I discovered this statement in a news article which talks about the secret prison camps and torture by the US troops. It also mentions the use of white phosphorus by US troops in Fallujah last year. I will dwell more on the part about the use of white phosphorus by the US troops. The US was of course very quick to initially deny using phosphorus as an incendiary weapon. Instead, they claimed it was used "very sparingly in Fallujah, for illumination purposes. They were fired into the air to illuminate enemy positions at night, not at enemy fighters." Of course, it turned out that this denial was a lie. A documentary aired over a month ago on Italy's RAI television presented what it said were photographs and testimonial evidence that Iraqi civilians, including women and children, were horribly killed and injured by white phosphorus during the U.S. assault on Fallujah last November.

Indeed, white phosphorus as described in the incendiary weapons section of the authoritative globalsecurity.org Web site, ignites spontaneously on contact with air, generating an intense heat and painful chemical injuries. Once the particles of white phosphorus get into a person's skin, they rapidly penetrate and dissolve fatty tissues, literally melting the skin and the underlying tissues. "These weapons are particularly nasty," according to the Web site, "because white phosphorus continues to burn until it disappears."

It is rather obvious from the description of the effects of white phosphorus that as a chemical weapon, it most certainly deserves to be banned from incendiary use, just like the napalm that US troops were using in Vietnam. Protocol III on incendiary weapons of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons prohibits the use of incendiary weapons against "concentration of civilians and restricts the use of air-delivered incendiary weapons against military targets in close proximity to concentrations of noncombatants." However, the US conveniently never ratified Protocol III and hence is not bound by it. Which means that they not only get away with such acts of barbarism, but that people like Condoleeza Rice even go as far as making utterly meaningless statements like the one at the beginning to try and justify such acts.

I simply do not understand what exactly she means by that statement. Is she implying that the use of such obviously inhuman chemical weapons is somehow justified because for some reason known only to her, terrorists do not "fit easily into traditional systems of criminal or military justice"?(whatever that actually means!!) Why should the US, which is supposedly the most humane country of the world and the defender of everything just and right stoop to the use of such weapons in it's so called "war on terror"?

But wait a second. Didn't the U.S. call white phosphorus a chemical weapon when they announced that Saddam Hussein used it on the Kurds in 1991? It was very conveniently a banned chemical weapon at that time, but now that the US is using it, they find new ways to justify it. Another typical example of the double standards followed by this country.

"The United States will use every lawful weapon to defeat terrorists" --Condoleezza Rice

Sure it will. Except that the lawfulness of the weapons being used is itself in question here.

Things to be Thankful for during Thanksgiving

2005-11-29T16:37:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving is that time of the year in the USA when people go home in large numbers to spend quality time with their families, usually with a big family dinner where the turkey features very prominently in the menu. However, quality time isn't the only thing that people seem to be spending. The consumerist bug seems to bite most people over here around this time. Being new to the USA, my apartment mates and I were obviously victims of this syndrome as well.

Maybe all of the above sounds overly dramatic, but our preparations were pretty thorough for our planned "Thanksgiving shopping spree". A lot of our seniors had told us about the amazing and unbelievable deals that would be there for the taking during black friday (the friday immediately after Thanksgiving). So we first made up a shopping list for each of our needs (mostly electronic items) and decided on our budgets (which were quite modest to put it mildly). Besides, the various retailers did not spare any effort to hype up the deals that would be on offer at their stores. The fact that the holiday season and Christmas shopping starts immediately after thanksgiving is one of the reasons the shopkeepers do everything they can to cash in on the expected consumerist frenzy. Of course as far as we were concerned, Thanksgiving did not really signify any of the things it usually does (No turkey for us thank you. We spent a nice vegetarian Thanksgiving) but we were loath to let any juicy offers slip by without at least having had a look at them. So we went to Best Buy at around 3:15 AM on black friday.

We were both surprised and disappointed to find that we were about 100th in the line outside Best Buy. We frankly could not imagine anyone being more desperate for discounts than us but the sight of people with sleeping bags, foldable tables and chairs (one guy even had a tent!!) was enough to convince us that the hype built up by the retailers was actually working like a charm. Besides there were more people coming into the queue behind us. We had to wait in the queue till 5AM, braving frigid temperatures (thankfully, we were adequately protected) before they finally opened the doors and let us through. Of course, we weren't entirely disappointed and managed to get a few things really cheap, but in my opinion, the world wide web probably holds even better offers than many of these retailers. We were regularly conferring with one of our friends (Sunil a.k.a dixcy) who stayed back and was comparing the prices in the store with those online, thereby selectively choosing things to buy. So it turned out that we didn't buy digital cameras at Best Buy because it simply wasn't the "best buy" one could get.

It was later that I saw in the news that at certain other outlets of other stores, there had been stampedes with a few people getting injured (all for a few dollars less). I was thankful that at least at Best Buy, the entire thing was well organized and went off very peacefully. There was also an article in the student newspaper here about how the entire festive spirit was being eclipsed by this mad rush of consumerism but I guess I will not go into those things now. I think was just thankful to have emerged out of the Thanksgiving shopping episode unscathed.

academic overdrive

2005-11-17T09:27:00.000-08:00

The last two weeks have been among the busiest that i've had in ages. It might be surprising for me to admit to this, but I somehow didn't expect Notre Dame to keep me as busy as this. I must say I was somewhat lulled into a false sense of security by the fact that I was totally jobless in my first few weeks here. The last two weeks have actually been the best illustration of the old adage that when it rains, it pours.

Work is a bit like the debts incurred by a gambler. You may think that you have cleared up everything you allowed to accumulate over god knows how many days, but there is always more waiting for you. The same was the case two weeks back. I had suddenly realized that I would have a schedule where I had to submit three assignments over monday and tuesday, write two tests on thursday, submit a really painful advanced DSP project on friday and submit a term paper in Information Theory the next tuesday. I guess i'll skip the details of the assignments and tests (they have become pretty routine anyway). It's the way Maiya (my apartment mate who is in electrical engg. ) and me handled the other two that is interesting.

Very often, the anticipation of work to be done is one of the most daunting things about the entire process. This is where i'm reminded of what Shivaji, my ex-wingmate used to say. His opinion could be quite simply phrased as "These things will be completed because they have to be, so there is no point in getting worked up over it". Actually, what that would mean in clearer terms is that a person will somehow manage to find a way to complete the work because the alternative is to face the music, which isn't really a viable alternative. At least as far as the advanced DSP project was concerned, this was spot on. Our task was to design an 8 band equalizer (the kind that you find in winamp) and a separate reverberation generator, and write a detailed report on both these in HTML. Dont ask me how, but after spending around 12 hours in the lab (starting out with some rudimentary working code which we had previously written) me and maiya were able to prove Shivaji right once again. Not only did we complete everything (including a HTML report chock full of diagrams, graphs and audio) in these 12 hours by putting a complete night out, but we also managed to do it without any caffeine (a fact of which i'm genuinely proud :D ). Of course we had to miss our first class the next day as our alarm set for 10 am quite simply, fell on deaf ears. However I was easily able to console myself that it was a necessary "sacrifice", a small price to be paid for completing the assignment.

However, it wasnt yet time to heave a sigh of relief as we still had the Information Theory term paper to complete. If there was ever going to be an opinion poll held for the most abstruse graduate level course in electrical engg. departments anywhere, Information Theory would definitely be somewhere near the top spot. Which would be a little surprising, considering the fact that it all started with a SINGLE whopper of a paper in 1948 by this guy called Claude Shannon, who on the one hand is even today revered by a very small section of the human population (namely people who work in digital communications) as a god among men and reviled on the other hand by most graduate students for having started out this information theory juggernaut. The rest of the human species probably doesn't even know about this guy, which isnt necessarily a bad thing, as in this case, ignorance is truly bliss. So to stop rambling and get back to what I was trying to say, this term paper was quite a pain actually, considering that I had chosen a topic within information theory which was a real toughie (there is no such thing as an easy topic in Information Theory).

If only the initial levels of enthusiasm could be sustained in any endeavour...... but as is usually the case, my level of enthusiasm decayed exponentially in time. From the first few days when I was actually trying to make sense of several pages of mathematical symbols and notation, to the last four days before submission, when I was just trying to fill up five pages of the term paper in such a way as to create the impression that I had understood the material, my attempts to grapple with my topic had come full circle. Anyway, as Shivaji would have said, this was also completed and submitted because it had to be.

Of course, I would'nt want to be accused of trying to discourage anyone out there who is looking at taking an information theory course, or even better, looking at doing research in infiormation theory. In fact I'm pretty much headed in that direction as far as my research is concerned. The important thing is that if you are good enough (and have taken enough math courses ;) ) to handle the math, information theory is unlikely to cause any serious problem as you are definitely more likely to appreciate the beauty of the equations and formulations than a rank outsider. However, there are a few minor consequences that I should warn you about, namely:

1. You will never ever think of the words like "Capacity", "Entropy" and "Information" in the same sense again. After a course in information theory, no dictionary will ever suffice to convey the depth of meaning that these words will hold for you.
2. You will often see equations floating everywhere before your eyes especially if the exam is the next day.
3. A tendency to use information theoretic terms in your everyday conversation will lead a few of your "uninformed" acquaintances to believe you have gone crazy. This may have other consequences on your social life if you arent careful.

Two (not so) easy pieces

2005-10-19T15:55:00.000-07:00

I had met a prof here at the electrical engg dept of ND about three weeks back to ask him if he could be my PhD advisor. Being here as a departmental fellow has given me the freedom to pick my own advisor after landing up here. This prof I had approached was a pretty smart guy and our first meeting was something of an informal interview (after some initial "small talk" where he tried to gauge my interests and see if there was any correlation between my interests and his work). He told me that when he was in Caltech, looking for an advisor, he had to go through an informal interview very similar to the one he was going to subject me to. He asked me two questions which in retrospect seem rather easy but were quite a bit to handle in the heat of things at that time. they are as follows:

1. What are the number of 6 digit numbers which have their digits arranged in descending order.
2. Assume that you have three closed doors, behind one of which is a prize (say a million bucks). The compere (of this game show) is the only one who knows behind which door the prize is. You first select a door but dont open it. The compere then selects another empty door and opens it for you. does it make sense to stick to your original choice or switch or does it not matter? show the numerics.

Of course, the second question is actually quite a popular question and since I had seen it previously, I was able to answer it. The first one was again a simple one which I answered after he gave me a hint. At the end he asked me if I had enjoyed this impromptu Q&A session, to which I answered in the affirmative. He was particular in stressing that if I wanted to do research in information theory, it would definitely help if I enjoyed thinking about problems like these. Let me just see if people have enough enthusiasm to come up with solutions to these two questions and post the answer. Expect answers in maybe a week or so.

PS: those who have read "The Curious Incident of the Dog at Midnight" should be able to answer the second question without any problem and hence are requested not to attempt that one.

More Things to Write About

2005-09-23T10:26:00.000-07:00

Slices of life are often like slices of bread. They will surely become stale with time. Even though I had always wanted to update my blog more regularly and keep it "fresh", it appears that it will instead be subject to less frequent updates (or rather bursts of updates). The only option I have right now is to follow the maxim that it is better late than never and try to set down a few things that I've wanted to write about for the past two weeks.

Firstly, there was a meeting of the Indian Association of Notre Dame two weeks back. They had organised a "Samosa Social". I was quite surprised to find a large number of non indians in the social, which proved beyond any doubt two things, namely
1. Food is the number one motivating factor for both grads and undergrads in any university. (this is probably an axiom but i'm stating it anyway)
2. Indian cuisine is really popular here :)

After we had stuffed ourselves with samosas, we went ahead with the socializing part. There are two things of interest that probably deserve to be mentioned. I happened to meet an american born indian guy named Nachiket (in case you are reading this, please dont take offense at what is to follow). He pronounced his name with a very characteritic american accent as "Nah-chee-kayt". The surprising thing was that both me and my friend were quick to correct his pronounciation. It struck me as extremely ironic (and perhaps extremely insulting to him) that I should actually be telling him how to pronounce his own name. I wonder if this happens to people from other countries who settle down in the US. Does the american way of pronounciation get so deeply ingrained in them that they end up mispronouncing their name?

The socializing continued and I met a guy of bangladeshi origin called Dennis. We were chatting quite amiably when he had to spoil it all by commenting that he was surprised that indians were fluent in english. I remember losing my temper and temporarily raising my voice. It took some effort from me to contain myself and he hastily defended himself by saying it was the stereotype that people have. I find it hard to believe how resilient some stereotypes can be and it angers me even more when americans automatically assume that asian people cannot be fluent in english. One thing I can say for sure is that most of the indians over there would have dealt a body blow to his belief in the stereotype. By then I was sufficiently biased against him to take offense at his next statement which was that it was remarkable that indians were coming to Notre Dame, which was quite an achievement. Maybe I'm being too picky but I couldn't help notice a certain amount of condescension in the statement. I know lots of indians who are presently doing graduate studies in universities which are arguably much better than Notre Dame, such as MIT,Stanford, UIUC, Caltech, UCSB, Cornell and so on. Whatever else could be said about them, these guys pretty much deserve to be where they are and here was a guy who thought it was unusual that indians were coming to Notre Dame. Horribly ignorant of basic facts was the least insulting description of him that I could come up with.

Now that I have sufficiently vented my spleen in the previous paragraph, it's time to get on to other stuff that's been happening. People who know me will probably gasp in disbelief when I say this but I have joined ballroom dancing classes here. I'll not go into the details but they plan to cover a number of different dances like rumba, cha-cha, meringue, tango and so on within the semester. Over the past four weeks, they have already finished rumba and cha-cha. It comes out to an average of one new dance every two weeks, which is not very easy to keep up with. I have already found myself mixing up the various steps from these dances. In fact the following lyrics from the Van Halen song "Right Now" would sum up my situation quite aptly.

"Miss a beat, you lose the rhythm
And nothin' falls into place. No!
Only missed by a fraction
Slipped a little off your pace."

Of course, with all these activities, I have had to compromise on a few things. Thankfully my acads are not one of them (at least not yet!). I've had a busy time over the past week with lots of tough assignments and two tough tests. I've also been on the lookout for a PhD advisor (may be the subject of a future post). the main casualty of all this has been my reading. The only "books" I have read since coming here are "Elements of Information Theory" by Cover and Thomas and "Introduction to Linear State Space Systems" by John Bay. I intend to change this but it remains to be seen if my intentions can be realized.

I just realized that there is something else I forgot to mention. There was a concert by System of a Down in Chicago last week which four of us (Sai, Krishnan, Ganti and myself) attended. The concert was totally rocking to put it mildly. It proved to be quite an experience, being one of the loudest concerts I have attended. Thanks are due to Krishnan, who drove us all the way to Chicago and back, in spite of having just attended a conference at UIUC the previous day. In fact he had even borrowed some System of a Down Mp3's from Sai to familiarize himself with their style of music before the concert. By the end of the concert, our ears were ringing and our necks sore but we felt the money spent was worth every cent. It's something I would highly recommend it to anyone who gets a kick out of real hard rock (of course their style of music might not appeal to all but it's worth a try)

I think i'll stop here as I'm starting to ramble on incoherently but hopefully, I have at least partially succeeded in giving a compressed account of interesting events over the past two weeks. Hopefully, in future i'll avoid such massive overdoses of information and details in one post.

Lots to Write About on the Sporting Front

2005-09-12T13:05:00.000-07:00

Over the past three weeks, a lot of people have been asking me what i've been upto at ND. (some of the questions were framed more interestingly as "What the **** have you been doing in ND"). This post is an attempt to answer these questions partly.

Firstly, anyone who knows me will testify to my sporting abilities (or rather the lack of them in me). When I came here, I resolved to turn over a new leaf and try out a few sports. My apartment mates were extremely enthusistic about tennis and so we all ended up buying a racquet each on our first trip to walmart. I will not go into the details of how my first tennis session went but the consequences were unforgettable. Let me just say that muscles that hadn't been exercised for ages were making their presence felt. I have since had a few more sessions and im proud to say that there has been a little improvement. In fact the first time, 90% of my shots were going out. In later sessions, 90% of my shots were in (although many were on my side of the court but i'm in the process of rectifying that).

I was even more surprised when I got an opportunity to play cricket here in the US of A, where the word cricket is more often associated with the chirping noise you hear at nights rather than a team sport. It just so happens that there are a bunch of jolly punjabis here who own a restaurant (called "Star of India"). These guys have so much enthusiasm for cricket that they regularly request the desis at the university to come and play cricket at night in a deserted baseball ground. So there we were, playing cricket in a deserted baseball ground at 10:30pm in rather chilly weather, with police protection to boot (a police car was in the vicinity for the entire duration that we were playing :) ). Of course, the purists would have been shocked with the way we played the game and if Darrell Hair had been umpiring, not a single ball would have been bowled by the punjabis. Still it was cricket and it was fun.

Then activities night happened. Activities night is where all the clubs in ND come together under one roof and you can sign up for as many as you want. I have a feeling I bit off more than I could chew over there but the squash club was one of the clubs I signed up for. Much to my pleasant surprise, I found that I was playing squash a tad better than tennis. My friends Sai and Maiya commented (obviously with tongue in cheek) that I had finally found a sport where the ball does not go out. That may be so, but then again, in squash the ball can come at you from a myriad different directions and you can easily be in the wrong place if you aren't careful. So, if you gain in some respect, you lose out in some other respect.

Other than the above mentioned sports, I have also been playing pool and table tennis occasionally. So on the whole I can say that I have been keeping myself as busy as possible for a grad student here. But wait a second. That's not all!! There have also been lots of things of a non sporting nature happening over the past week or so but that will probably have to wait for another post.

2005-08-31T13:34:00.000-07:00

I found this very interesting post in Samanth Subramanian's blog. The article makes for very interesting reading, given that it details the really elaborate security measures that were put in place by Bloomsbury to safeguard the plot and other details of "Harry potter and the Half Blood Prince" from theft. My opinion is that these measures would put the security at Fort Knox to shame, and that all this fuss was being made over yet another book.

Wait a minute. do I hear people out there vehemently object to my statement that it is just another book? Im sure many people out there would object. I still prefer to stick to my view. Please don't get me wrong here. I accept the fact that the Harry potter series is one of the most entertaining series of books in recent times and that it has brought more people back to the reading habit than any other book in the last few years. The books definitely appeal not just to kids but also to those who enjoy a reasonably fast paced and racy read.

However, I sometimes look at all the hype created by the publishers and think about whether it is really worth it. There are many examples of really well written books by authors who are comparatively unknown which probably did not reach a wider audience simply because the audience did not know that such books existed. By contrast, there are also cases of publishers who try to use hype to further the sales of an author's work once he/she gains acceptance and recognition. Of course, the publishers are sure to justify giving such publicity to the release of a new book, especially one whose sales is likely to be extremely lucrative. I don't deny them the right to do that, but perhaps, the final thing that should count (for the author at least) is not just the sales of the book, but also the kind of reviews that the book gets from both the literary critics and others who read it.

The Rubaiyat, when first introduced in England, was distributed as a pamphlet anonymously. There were about 250 copies of the pamphlet made at first and it took over a year for them to be exhausted. However, in the years to come, it's popularity soared to such an extent (mostly through word of mouth I guess) that it became something of a must read in Britain. I guess this illustrates something, doesnt it??

Cooking 101 (or how we started cooking and somehow managed to avoid disaster)

2005-08-25T16:44:00.000-07:00

Cooking, i guess, is all about proportion. You get the proportions of the various ingredients wrong and the chances are, you end up with something tasting totally different from how it's supposed to. When my mother started giving me the recipes as well as tips on how to cook about 2-3 months back, she did not quite stress the proportions enough. In some cases, she would specify it exactly. For example, to cook rice you needed to adhere to the rato of rice:water::1:3. It couldnt be simpler, right?

Unfortunately, my mother wasn't so precise in all the recipes. In some cases, there was ambiguity in the quantity needed and this is where the scope for left brained people like me to make mistakes increases. My penchant for accuracy (which is a good thing sometimes) made it all the more difficult for me to visualise how much of a given ingredient would be enough for a dish, given that I did not have even an approximate idea of the quantity required in some cases.

My first cooking experience pretty much showed me that I still have a long way to go before I get the finer aspects of it right. My room mate Sai had bought some potatoes and onions and kept them ready. The first few days were spent either eating out or making the most of whatever free food we got (free food is the single biggest motivating factor for graduate students in the US). Shashank Maiya(another of my roomies) and I decided about 5 days back that we had to get started with our cooking as we could not rely on free grub for long (and besides, you get tired of burgers and subs and whatever else comes between two slices of bread over here). So we decided to make onion sambhar and potato curry and rice for lunch.

The rice was simple enough. At least we got the proportion right (even though we squabbled about how long it had to be cooked, it was properly done). The sambhar was where the trouble started. I had some tamarind paste with me but didn't have a clue as to how much of it was needed (I still don't!!). So, i just dissolved as much of it as I thought would be necessary and went ahead. While the initial preparations for sambhar were going on, we were also making dhall side by side. The dhall was where our argument turned out to be the most vociferous. In fact me and Maiya spent more time arguing about cooking than cooking that day. In the end i gave in and let him decide how long the dhall had to be cooked. The dhall turned out to be undercooked. As a result, the dhall did not mix with the rest of the sambhar and the entire thing looked like it could be decanted out into two separate layers. The potato curry was a success but I guess that is the nature of the vegetable itself.

Of course I forgot about the most imporant ingredient that made the entire thing even more palatable to us. Our hunger!!. We were quite ravenous when we finished and it turned out that it did not matter that the food had a kind of uncanny resemblance to the grub we used to get in our hostels back at IIT Madras, which we always used to denounce as unfit for human consumption*.

At the end of our meal, we decided that we would get back to making the most of free grub whenever the opportunity presented itself (for new international students, free grub is available almost every day somewhere on campus). Of course, we indians tire of american vegetarian food(that's almost an oxymoron!!) easily and today, Sai and Anees(my fourth roomie) decided to take up the mantle. Unfortunately, their attempt at onion sambhar was even worse than mine and again it was due to sheer hunger that we ended up eating what they had cooked.

I guess the moral of the story is that the first few attempts at cooking by inexperienced junta like me are likely to end in near disaster and that one shouldn't get discouraged by this. However the more practical moral would be that one should capitalize on opportunities for free grub without exception as there is anyway a lot of cooking to be done in the weeks to come.

*I'm exaggerating here. What we cooked wasn't that bad (our roomies will testify to that) but it certainly didn't look very appetizing.

First impressions

2005-08-19T15:17:00.000-07:00

First impressions, they say are the best. if that were true, I guess I won't have a very hard time living in the US. My first reaction to some of the things in the US could best be described as surprise (of the pleasant variety). To give a simple example, seeing people follow traffic rules without exception is a very new thing to me. The presence of excellent infrastructure almost everywhere is another such thing. I could go on about such small aspects of life that ultimately will make a big difference to the impression that a visitor has about a country.

In fact, the orientation for international students was held day before yesterday, where one of the information sessions was about culture shock and how to deal with it. The truth is that I haven't experienced any such culture shock in my three days here, even though, initially there was a certain apprehension. Perhaps three days in a new country isn't enough time for any culture shock to set in completely but I am lucky to have a relative of mine who lives very close to the campus and to also have IITians for room mates. These are again factors that contribute the how comfortable I feel in this place.

Before I left India, I was asked by one of my relatives there how I felt about it. My reply was that I wasn't too worried about it, and that settling down here wouldn't be too much trouble. Except for those last few hours before I boarded the plane, I was hardly worried about anything. The apprehension I felt at the last minute was pretty much compensated by the excitement I felt about going to a new country and experiencing a new culture. However there will always be a few small things about home that I will miss. Such simple things like sitting in Gurunath Patisserie at IITM for hours on end, chatting with friends and the "Gumbal" for example.

I guess this post doesnt have much of a point to make, except that the tales of troubles that people experience settling down in a new country are a bit exaggerated. As with everything else, familiarity might breed contempt and so in due time, when the initial excitement has waned and I settle down to a daily routine, I might have different views on all these issues. But for now life is good!!

PS: I guess my next post will be about about my first cooking experience that nearly ended in disaster.

Traffic

2005-08-13T04:49:00.000-07:00

The arterial road was bustling with traffic. Traffic is inherently of a corpuscular nature. As corpuscles of various shapes, sizes and functions jostle with each other for space, the result is often a kind of mess very similar to a clot as the corpuscles enmesh in ways previously unimaginable. However, like any other complex dynamical system, it is inherently stable and self organizing. The chaos, when it occurs, is localized and subservient to the principle that there is always a certain order on a global scale which transcends it. Even now, as the flow appears to be halted at some places, the sheer force that impels the traffic in a given direction ensures that such disruptions are but a temporary deviation from the norm. The artery in turn braches out into arterioles which in turn branch out into capillaries. The network is of a most fractal nature and the end result is that there is no such thing as an inaccessible part of the city. However, try as one may, one can never locate the heart that keeps the city alive. Perhaps the answer lies in the fact that the entire city appears to throb with life day in and day out. There isnt a moment of perfect calm for the city. Only alternating cycles of calm and storm, which roughly coincide with night and day. Truly, the city never sleeps.

Problem and Solution - Operation Blog Cleanup

2005-08-05T01:08:00.000-07:00

I was browsing in an internet cafe a few days back when I noticed something strange in my blog, which I had never seen before. In between every paragraph, I found (to the accompaniment of eerie music)

In case you are confused about what it is that I found, it means that you are using either mozilla firefox or some other browser which does not display this particular HTML type tag as text. if you switch to internet explorer, you would find that the tag (which says something like "if not support empty paras") is displayed as text.

I am a firm believer in the dictum that a web page should look the same in as many different browsers as possible and I found that my blog was punctuated with these irksome tags everywhere when viewed in internet explorer. It took me some time to figure out the solution which turned out to be somewhat simple. I had to delete extra whitespaces and newline characters in the posts which somehow metamorphosed into these tags. I have now kind of cleaned up the mess. However i will resume the cleanup and hopefully all my previous posts will be rid of the mess in a few days time. If anyone has any suggestions by which I can prevent such metamorphoses in the future, please let me know.

Farewell to IITM

2005-07-25T08:48:00.000-07:00

This post has been long overdue but the reason for the delay could be due to the fact that it’s only now that I realize how little time I have before I leave for the US. I think I can say without any doubt that in these four years at IITM, I haven’t made any real enemies at IITM, only friends of different degrees (if I could say that). I might sound sentimental and nostalgic when I say this but four years were indeed too short a time to spend in the midst of such excellent company.

I’m not sure about how to convey this but I want to thank all the junta at IITM who have made my life there enjoyable in whatever small way possible. There are guys who have been helpful enough to lend me an ear during my worst rants and tirades, besides helping me get back on track when I was down in the dumps. Many of my friends have had to put up with my idiosyncrasies and they have done so without ever making me self-conscious. There are many others who have shared in my happiness and sadness equally and been an integral part of my life at IITM. There are also many others who through although not very close friends, have often made my day through small gestures like a smile or even a nod of acknowledgement at the right time. Without such company, IITM would have been a duller and drearier place.

At this juncture, I can only think of this short poem titled written by S.Prashanth (a.k.a zombie), which probably sums up not only my feelings, but also those of everyone passing out this year.

As we trudge along the sands of time,
Different ways do we part;
I only wish, when years hence,
Your thoughts may chance to turn to me,
You think of me fondly,
Without malice, without sorrow, without regret

I do hope that our association will continue to grow with the years and that maybe 10 or 20 years down the line, I will be able to join all the junta in remarking wistfully that “Those were the days”.

The Taj and Waqf

2005-07-18T06:06:00.000-07:00

One of the recent issues that hit the newspapers (although not in a big way) was about whether the Taj Mahal is waqf property or not. The Sunni waqf board in Uttar Pradesh made the claim on the basis of the fact that the Taj complex contains some tombs and a mosque. This bold and brazen claim made by them is outrageous to put it mildly. I find it hard to believe that there are people who support the view held by this organization that they are entitled to ownership of what many consider to be one of the seven wonders of the world. It is obvious that when they claim ownership of this most endearing and enduring monument of India, they will surely claim a sizable portion of the tourist revenues that the monument generates, besides the other rights that ownership of any property will entitle them to. In particular I quote this from an article in the Seattle Times

"Apart from the graves, the presence of a mosque and a tomb in the Taj complex clearly signal that it is truly a Waqf (religious trust) property," Usman said. "However, the federal or the state government can take care of its maintenance."

Is there no limit to human avarice? I cannot imagine how people can be so base as well as short sighted as to stake such a claim on what is arguably the most recognized monument in India, if not the world. Do they even for a second imagine that the Taj Mahal is in some way the property of only their religion and hence should be under the ownership of their religious trust? How can they even think of appropriating for themselves, what undeniably belongs not just to India, but to the world itself? Even a sub moron would acknowledge the fact that the Taj Mahal is simply too big and too awe inspiring for any such thing of that sort.

Let me reiterate, for the sake of those who think I’m unjustly ranting my head off against the Sunni waqf board that I am a secularist. I do not deny that the muslims might feel a special pride in the Taj Mahal as a fine example of Mughal architecture. I would also like to reiterate, that as an Indian, I feel just as proud as any other Indian of this monument. To me the Taj is not just a monument dedicated to love but also a testimony to the strength of the human spirit. It is not a joke to construct something on the scale of the Taj even today, all our modern technology notwithstanding. Is the product of the toils of the several thousands of artisans and craftsmen, who laboured over what could bring most modern economies to bankruptcy to be demeaned by such thoroughly shameful spats over ownership? I feel that the administration and upkeep of the Taj should not be tainted with religious and communal overtones. It is best if it continues to remain under the control of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) as it has since 1920. If we do give in, it will only lead to further carving up of various other heritage sites in India on the basis of frivolous claims made by other religious trusts/authorities with their own narrow interests.

Responses to terrorism

2005-07-12T07:15:00.000-07:00

The past week has seen two significant acts of terrorism in the world. Both the acts were clearly planned in such a way as to turn the spotlight towards issues other than the ones that were in the limelight at that time. I’m referring of course to the London bombings and the terrorist attack in Ayodhya. Terrorist attacks of this kind almost always have the same aims i.e to bring a certain cause to the fore and to use violence (or the threat of it) as a weapon for bargaining. However, the responses that these acts have invited are very interesting when compared.

The facts are there for all to see. According the BBC yesterday, 52 people have died due to the bombings in London. The blasts were timed to coincide with the G8 summit. An unfortunate outcome of this was that the media coverage of the blasts occupied the first page and the results of the G8 summit were relegated to later pages in newspapers. I guess the media cannot be faulted for this as the sheer audacity of these attacks implied that everyone would be more interested in this than anything else.

One thing that surprised me was the unusual calm of those who were wounded in the London blasts. They were giving measured responses to the queries of reporters, without any kind of outward indication of terror. There wasn’t the slightest hint of any hysteria that one would expect such an event to evoke. On the contrary, the newspapers indicated that London was getting back to normal within two days of the traumatic incident. Indeed there was an article highlighting this aspect of british resilience and guts in The Hindu.

On the other hand, what happened in Ayodhya was a different story. Here, terrorists tried to force their way into the cordoned off sensitive area where the Babri Masjid stood (and where the Ram temple should come up if the rightists in India have their way). They were partially successful in breaching the first barrier but were shot down before they could do any significant damage. The number of casualties was six and the situation was brought under control reasonably fast. However, the responses here were more cacophonic, with the center and the Opposition parties in the lok sabha playing the blame game for some time. It also had the (possibly unintended??) effect that the BJP would use this as a chance to bring the Ram Janmabhoomi issue into the limelight and push even more vociferously for the construction of the Ram temple. I find it hard to believe that the terrorists were so dumb that they did not foresee that such an attack would provide only more ammunition to the likes of the BJP and the Sangh Parivar, who are doing everything they can to fan the outrage caused by such a disdainful attack on a sensitive area into a hysteria.

As expected, the Sangh Parivar and their supporters launched protests the next day against the attack. It was comical (to say the least) to see them protest by not allowing a plane at Indore airport to take off for some time. To me, the entire hype that these people have created seemed to have gone out of hand, especially when compared to the way the british had handled a much more aggressive attack. One might say that the two situations are not exactly comparable and that the situation in India involves religious sentiments. However, this does not justify the way politicians are either washing their hands off the entire issue or using it for their narrow political ends. In fact In Britain, there could have been some kind of a backlash against the muslims, which did not happen simply because the people were more level headed and their politicians decided to stay away from blame games and political maneuvering and focus instead on constructive steps to be taken. I just wish our own politicians would take the example of the british in this regard.

There are of course a number of other things worth mentioning. Bush indicated that the war on terrorism will continue for as long as necessary (which means that they wont be leaving Iraq in a hurry). Tony Blair also seemed to support him in this regard. It seems to illustrate the universal truth that terrorism can never provide a lasting solution to any kind of problem. Instead, it provides more ammunition for those who advocate the use of violence to counter violence.