Rants of a nerd
siva
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Posts by siva
Android or Condom?
0This article at phandroid is the kind of thing that makes you think “that’s a really good insight” and “someone has too much time on their hands” at the same time.
Conjunction
0The Moon, Venus and Jupiter were again in conjunction tonight. This time I had my DSLR out. Unfortunately this was taken in Bombay. That means light pollution, lots of it. And we had the worst haze for the last week, though it cleared out somewhat tonight. Still not a bad image.
Shot handheld at 55mm for 1/8″ at f/4.0 with the EF-S 55-250mm IS on a Canon XSi. Not processed except for cropping.
Conjunction: Moon, Venus, Jupiter
The Banality of Leninism
0If there is one article you read today, it has to be The Banality of Leninism by Bryan Caplan. In one stroke, it captures the essence of the ruler-ruled mentality we have with politicians, bureaucrats and policemen feeling that they have the right to disobey any law because they are above it. The quotation from Crime and Punishment feels like it was written today:
“In his article all men are divided into ‘ordinary’ and ‘extraordinary.’ Ordinary men have to live in submission, have no right to transgress the law, because, don’t you see, they are ordinary. But extraordinary men have a right to commit any crime and to transgress the law in any way, just because they are extraordinary. That was your idea, if I am not mistaken?”…
Indeed Raskolnikov, the character whose idea is expressed here, goes beyond giving the extraordinary men the right to transgress the law. Enough to say that it is that person’s duty to transgress the law if he sees it necessary to express himself. Wonderful.
If we are to have a society of people with a sense of entitlement and people without, why not codify that into law. After all, when was the last time you heard of a powerful politician brought down through the action of law (police, courts) without the intervention of the media or the laity?
Coorg Day 4 – Elephants & More
0I which we learn that elephants love to eat cooked ragi and horsegram, bathing an elephant is not risk-less and tibetan monks use cell-phones.
Baby elephants playing in the water
Happy Holi
02 months ago
by siva
in Arts and Culture
The festival of colours, Holi, is being celebrated tonight and tomorrow. In preparation there was this bonfire being set up at Lower Parel in Bombay.
Bonfire being set up for Holi, Bombay, India
The story of the bonfire is that Prahalad was going to be killed by his father Hiranyakashipu with the help of his aunt Holika. As Holika would not be harmed by fire, she sat on a bonfire and invited her nephew to sit on her lap. Prahalad was saved by Vishnu and Holika was burned to death.
Photograph taken with my Galaxy Note. This phone rocks!
Pee Pee Water Supplies?
02 months ago
by siva
in Miscellaneous
No thanks!
This is the actual name of a water supply company in Bombay. Why in heaven’s name would you call your water supplies company pee pee?
Photo taken through the dirty windscreen of my car, so pardon the dirty look. Camera phones seem to have so much depth of field that even the glass and the dirt on it is in focus.
Coorg Day 3 – Coffee Estate
0In which we discover that a peaberry is a hermaphrodite bean and that there are lots of birds in Coorg.
Coffee Bloom - Smells like jasmine
[I am moving the pictures to the single post page to avoid over-cluttering the main page with photos.]
Triple conjunction
0Photo taken of the triple conjunction of the Moon, Venus and Jupiter soon after sunset on the 25th of February 2012. This was taken with my cameraphone (Galaxy Note) so the quality leaves a little to be desired. But here is a perfect example of the adage, the best camera is the one you have with you. It was only for minutes that the moon stayed above the tree line after sunset and the alignment was spectacular. A lille bit of me wishes I had read up on this beforehand so I would have had the DSLR handy.
Coorg 2 – Glenlorna
0In which we discover that the sun can look like the moon and that there are such things as red squirrels
Coorg Day 1
0In which we discover that Coorg is really far away from anywhere, there is a town dedicated to wooden toys and Google Maps has really mapped all nooks and corners of India
