Rants of a nerd
Archive for February, 2010
Greek mythology
02 years ago
by siva
in Arts and Culture
A rebuttal to the Percy Jackson books. The series refers to Kronos as the Lord of Time. This appeared incorrect to me. But then I thought the author is a teacher of Greek Mythology and my memories are from school days and are probably rusted. So I turned to my trusted Larousse Encyclopaedia of Mythology and I find that Cronos and Chronos are different indeed.
Cronos, the leader of the Titans, is a son of Ouranos (the sky) and Gaia (the earth). He was the presiding deity during the Golden Age. He is the father of Zeus and the other gods. In the war between the gods and the titans, he is finally overthrown and Zeus becomes the presiding god.
Chronos is an older deity and is the personification of time. In a sense he is at the level of Ouranos, a generation before Cronos. There is not much that I could find in terms of myths about him.
Well, my memory served me well! I had an interesting discussion with someone recently about the Percy Jackson books. I mentioned that if one is reasonably familiar with Greek myths, some of the events in the books are predictable. His response was that his daughter was developing an interest in Greek mythology by reading these books. Who knows if these books become well-entrenched, future generations may believe that the Homerian epics are modifications of these books and not vice-versa!
Moksha in vedanta
02 years ago
by siva
in Philosophy
The aim of man should be to achieve moksha, the end of the birth-death cycle. The concept of reincarnation is closely tied to this. That is, the atman is held back from self realization through the attachments formed during one’s lifetime and is therefore reborn after death in another body. As the Gita says, like a person discards one garment for another, the atman leaves one body for another.
The concepts of reincarnation and moksha are subtly different from reincarnation and nirvana in Buddhism. But the essence of vedantic and buddhist teaching are similar to the extent that both seek to end the birth-death cycle through actively seeking truth.
Another crucial concept in Hinduism is that moksha can be obtained through multiple means. These are action (karma), devotion (bhakti) and knowledge (jnana). Advaita Vedanta advises one to follow the path of knowledge, of course. But it also teaches that the three paths are mutually compatible.
Percy Jackson books
02 years ago
by siva
in Arts and Culture
I’ve been reading the Percy Jackson books by Rick Riordan recently. It is a series of five books (now on my last one) following the adventures of Perseus Jackson, a “half-blood” son of Poseidon and a mortal. It has a nice premise that the old Greek gods are still around and heroes (one parent is a god and one a mortal – like Heracles or Theseus) go on quests to save the world.
For anyone who knows a reasonable amount of Greek mythology, some parts of the stories are predictable. However, the books are quite well written and are the context of a modern day setting makes for interesting changes. The series is told from the first person perspective of Percy Jackson, who finds out his true nature at the age of 11. This is so Harry Potter! He befriends other half-bloods (and makes enemies of some others), satyrs and other creatures from mythology as he goes along on adventures. Of course as the son of Poseidon, he has special powers over water and is afraid of the sky which is the preserve of Zeus.
For the most part the references to Greek mythology are consistent with what one reads.. But several stories are twisted around and children whose first introduction to Greek myths are from these books will be rather confused when they get around to Homer.
One question, though: while the book keeps the Greek names instead of the Roman for almost all the characters, why is Heracles referred to by his Roman name in the series?
Greatest news on the N900 front
0The wonderfully talented KDE man Aaron Seigo has an N900 now. Which means it is only a matter of a little while before we have plasma on the device. How wonderful would that be! With Nokia firmly behind the Qt bandwagon thanks to their acquisition of Trolltech, the entire Qt / KDE experience should come along now if not on an official upgrade, a community provided firmware.
Madras: the last leg
0In Madras for the last leg of the trip. This is a real flying visit accompanied by a bad cold and headache. I am probably the only guy in town wearing a jacket on top of a sweater in this weather. Will be glad to get home after this. The good news is that the tour has been fruitful; the bad news is that now they want me to travel to more cities. Hello Ludhiana, Ahmedabad, and a few other places.
Oh quel cul t’as
02 years ago
Bad pun, but had to make it as the Telegraph had a front page banner throwing down a challenge to Kareena Kapoor saying Curves Are Back with a picture of Beyoncé (among others).
Oh Calcutta
1In cal today. This is pretty much the last major city to get any form of development or make over. Still new roads and buildings can be seen here and there. I am hoping for a relatively relaxed day today, if possble. The cold that’s been bothering me all week is refusing to let go.
Thankfully the flight getting in last night was not delayed. Perhaps one should refrain from criticizing aircraft and airlines before a flight!
Delhi
0My rant on flights to Delhi must have upset my aircraft, for there was a major technical snag that kept un from taking off for 2 hours following which we were eventually transferred to another plane. Three hours late. Reached at 11 pm, and went to the hotel.
The weather here is pretty cold in the nights and early morning. But the day is quite hot. A lot of haze all the time. Like Bombay, this place is also pretty dug up. But it is not as bad. Here they don’t dig all the arterial roads at the same time.
I saw a nice sculpture representing the Dandi march on the road to the airport. However, I could not get a picture from my taxi. Phone cameras are still no replacement for an slr for darker images.
Note to self: read Delhi Noir.
Bharat yatra
0Off on a tour of the major cities. Delhi, Calcutta and Madras this week. Bangalore next. With the crazy fog situation in Delhi, I am being forced to travel a day early. No guarantee that the morning flights will get there at all. Funny thing about technology: one would have thought they would have licked the issue of weather by now. Even the airlines with instrument landing systems are not able to land or take off.
One month
12 years ago
by siva
in Miscellaneous
Wow. That has been one month with at least one post per day. I have blogged a lot, but certainly not as much as I thought I should.
Looking back to the todo list at the start of the year,
Lose weight : not quite. But maintained I guess.
Blog everyday : yes.
Take more photographs : yes to some extent.
Upload & share photographs : partly.
Okay not a perfect start, but pretty good!