Rants of a nerd
Archive for February, 2010
Spring cleaning
0The origins of spring cleaning are probably connected with the arrival of spring which had people getting their summer clothes out and placing the cold weather clothes back into shelves. In tropical climes, this is not a necessity and one can be a pack rat for years accumulating stuff.
One advantage of renting and not owning a house is that there’s a forced cleaning out of stuff on every move. Still something that cannot be thrown out are books. Today we took the decision to throw away some old books and I felt quite awful about that. At every second hand book store I wonder why are people throwing away these books. Some have come from libraries, others still carry their previous owner’s name. Presumably some have been sold as part of a spring cleaning, some on moving away or even death. The stories behind the copies may be sometimes better than the contents of the book themselves. How’s that for a plot – The Adventures of Billy the Book.
Furniture Shopping
0Is not fun!
We went to a store called Home Town. It is spread over 2 floors and is massive. It has the most amazing range of home products under one roof. From groceries to electronics, they have not left anything out. I can understand selling electrical equipment, paints and DIY stuff next to furniture and curtains, but I have not figured out why they should sell DVD players and general provisions at the same place.
Anyhow the object was to get some book shelves, a long pending purchase. Over time the book collection has expanded while the storage has actually contracted, leaving books scattered and disorganized. The project over the next few days (till the shelves come in) would be to make space and for once fix the organization of the stuff. I wonder if the Dewey Decimal system is appropriate?
We also picked up a few other items of bulk, which we have to fit in the house now. So there is much to do over this long weekend!
Broadband at last
0I’ve been struggling to get my broadband speed going over the recent past. After much struggle with the MTNL helplines, today the speed has just surged. Now the question is – should I go in for the recently announced unlimited plan with a lower bandwidth at the same price?
The current pricing at 750 Rupees per month promises speeds up to 2 mbps and 5GB limit. Until today it seemed capped at 256 kbps. I could switch to 700 kbps unlimited… but I rarely hit the 5GB cap, so the higher speed is worth keeping, I guess?
Maybe I should try out the higher speed for a month and see if I use up the download quota.
Unusual weather
0This is an interesting time for global climate / weather. The West is experiencing the coldest winter in years. New York is expecting over a foot of snow today. But this is one of the warmest winters here in Bombay. It is pleasant enough here but it was quite surprisingly hot in Pune and Bangalore. Daytime temperatures have regularly hitting the 35+ mark.
I wonder how the Copenhagen summit would have gone if it had been hosted in India!
Expressway
0Pune to Bombay by the expressway at night is a very interesting experience. It is part scary as people speed well above the limit and at night the danger of accidents is magnified. Indeed we passed an accident on the opposite side which had backed up traffic for a good mile or so. My taxi driver was of a speedy disposition which made for quite a few heart stopping moments. It helped keep me awake though.
On the positive side, despite the light pollution, you can see stars in the sky! The darkness also means the tunnels are as bright as the road. Normally the tunnels are relatively dark (the change is like what one sees in the Monaco GP). The whole journey has a different, detached feel to it. I must do this trip again but driving by myself.
British Female Crime Fiction Writers
0If there is a genre of fiction that I can say is my favourite, this would be it. There’s always a strange look I get when I say that. It is too narrow to be a genre in itself, right?
A group that includes Agatha Christie, P D James, Dorothy Sayers, and Ruth Rendell has a large enough canon to justify calling it a genre. Many of these are a group referred to as golden age authors.
What’s better than spending a few hours in the company of poet detective Adam Dalgleish, Lord Peter Wimsey the collector of first editions, Albert Campion who evokes awe whenever he reveals his true name, and others of the ilk where the build up of the character is as important as the unraveling of the plot.
Recently I came across the Inspector Lynley series by Elizabeth George. She has been compared to these authors by many a reviewer. The inspector is Thomas Lynley, Earl of Asherton, and his interplay with his sergeant, Barbara Havers, a working class woman is a key part of the stories. It had to fit my fave genre, right? Imagine my surprise on discovering that Elizabeth George is an American! Maybe I should broaden my favourite genre definition, huh?
Going back on the road
0Another trip coming up, this time to Bangalore and Pune.
Pune should be interesting, if only to see how the city is recovering from the explosion at the German Bakery that (ironically) killed a baker’s dozen. This once again shows that it is not possible to protect targets from terrorism. Targets are infinite. A local news paper here was complaining about the lack of security in some malls to which it sent reporters with concealed "bombs."
The point missed by the media is that the lock-down that follows any incident is what the terrorists are aiming for. They want to incite terror. By giving in to this demand, are we not accepting defeat?
Second, governments love to have the population in fear. This is the ideal environment for concentration of powers especially police powers. When newspapers call for tougher police action, who will defend civil liberties. Democracy is about limited government. And it is incumbent on the people and the media to fight expansion of government power.
Terrorists have an agenda against freedom. Let us not hand them an easy victory.
What I’ve said above is not to say that we should not fight terrorism. We should, but not at the cost of our liberty. Then it is the case of "fighting for peace" a contradiction in terms. Our security forces and intelligence apparatus should be aimed at finding out the root causes of terror and eliminating it at its source.
Percy Jackson Movie
0Saw the movie Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief today. The movie was well made overall, however the critical reception has been very mixed. That is understandable because it tried to be as different from the book as possible. The director (Chris Columbus) had something to do with that for sure. He would certainly have wanted to make sure that he differentiated this well against the first Harry Potter movie (which he directed also). If you think about it the parallels between this series and the HP series are pretty starkly obvious.
Percy Jackson = Harry Potter, the protagonist who discovers that he is special. There is a prophecy about him. Even in the demi-god (magical) world he is special because of his birth. PJ because his father violated his promise not to have children and HP because he lived.
Grower Underwood = Ron Weasley, the sidekick.
Annabeth Chase = Hermione Granger, the know-it-all wise-girl. In Annabeth’s case literally since she is the daughter of Athena.
Luke Castelan = Draco Malfoy, the antagonist. The roles they play are very different though.
Camp Half-Blood = Hogwarts, nothing more to be said really. There is a magical spell that prevents mortals & monsters from getting in.
Dionysus = Severus Snape, the camp director who immediately manages to antagonize the hero.
Chiron = Albus Dumbledore, who takes the hero under his wing. He is also mis-trusted by those around him.
I could go on and on.
Obviously then the director tried to make this the anti-HP film. So the scenes at camp were cut short and this became a sort of "road trip" movie. What I missed most was the lack of some of the strong points of the books – the interplay between Percy and the various Gods he meets (Dionysus and Ares in the first book). Also, they left out the Oracle of Delphi.
In a way because of the differences between the book and the film, the film became more watchable (the story was new). The characters were also developed differently. All the characters are older in the film than the movie, so there is romantic interplay between Percy and Annabeth, which would have been weird in the book where they are 11-12 years old.
Overall, watchable but don’t expect any real Greek myth stuff. All that has been taken out and this is pretty much a dumbed-down version of the books, which are dumbed-down versions of Greek tales.
Cheryl Cole – 3 Words
0I picked up Cheryl Cole’s 3 Words only because she is a member of Girls Aloud. The album is not bad. A couple of the singles so far – Fight for this love & Parachute – are pretty nice. will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas is present on more than a handful of the tracks. Unfortunately he does not enhance those tracks at all.
One of the best reviews is this one. I agree with most of it, including the complaint about "the greatest misuse of a Fleetwood Mac sample ever." That is on the song Boy Like You. It is really terrible.
Gnothi Seauton
01 year ago
by siva
in philosophy
One more dose of Greek philosophy, please.
The phrase “Gnothi Seauton” taken from the entrance to the Temple of Apollo at Delphi means Know Thyself. This along with the term Sophrosyne (Practice Moderation, supposedly at the exit of the temple) are two of the most famous utterings of the Oracle. Gnothi Seauton is also written on the entrance of the Oracle’s room in The Matrix, by the way.
The phrase is meant to warn those who came to consult the oracle that they should look within themselves to understand what the prophecy they were about to hear meant.
These two phrases are crucial to Greek philosophy especially as espoused by Socrates and his followers. For Socrates, the most important knowledge was self-knowledge. He is most famous for the paradoxical statement “I know that I know nothing.” Admitting ones ignorance is the first step towards gaining knowledge.
