For more, check out this nice introductory post by Prof. Arunn Narasimhan on optimization and genetic algorithms.

That Shakespeare’s Juliet was thirteen years old?

Diablo 3 is going to be released. wow wow wow !!!

*CRASH*, there goes my GPA

Sena students say don’t mind being called ‘terrorists’

A day after Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray was condemned for suggesting that “Hindu suicide squads” should make powerful bombs to target “mini Pakistans” in India, the students wing of the party defended his stand and went a step further, saying they would not mind being called “terrorists” if bombing anti-nationals was terrorism.
….
“Yes, we are terrorists! If protecting the country is terrorism. If killing traitors is terrorism. If bombing those who criticise the nation, the motherland and the religion is terrorism. If fighting terrorism with might is terrorism. Then we are proud to be terrorists,” the posters said.
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Sigh….

PZ Myers brings attention to a really tragic event which took place in Iraq.

It started when 17 year old Rand Abdel-Qader was murdered by her father. The story is heartbreaking to read.

At that time, her mother Leila Hussein was powerless to stop her husband and sons from murdering her daughter. She had to live for two weeks in that house, suffered beatings and a broken arm when she told she wanted to leave, before she found a chance to escape and join a women’s right group in Iraq. She immediately received death threats there, for speaking out against the murder.

“They cannot accept me leaving him. When I first left I went to a cousin’s home, but every day they were delivering notes to my door saying I was a prostitute and deserved the same death as Rand,” she said.

“She was killed by animals. Every night when I go to bed I remember the face of Rand calling for help while her father and brothers ended her life,” she said, tears streaming down her face.

…

“I miss my two boys,” she said. “But they have sent a message saying that I am wrong for defending Rand and that I should go back home and live like a blessed Muslim woman,” said Leila, who is now volunteering with a local organisation campaigning for better protection for women in Basra.

Tragically, Leila Hussein was killed day before yesterday by gunmen as she was to leave Iraq to campaign for women’s rights from a safer location.

What about her husband who murdered her daughter? He still walks free.

“If I had realised then what she would become, I would have killed her the instant her mother delivered her,” he said with no trace of remorse.
…
Abdel-Qader, 46, a Government employee, was initially arrested but released after two hours. Astonishingly, he said, police congratulated him on what he had done.

“They are men and know what honour is,” he said.

…

“Death was the least she deserved,” said Abdel-Qader. “I don’t regret it. I had the support of all my friends who are fathers, like me, and know what she did was unacceptable to any Muslim that honours his religion.”

“I don’t have a daughter now, and I prefer to say that I never had one. That girl humiliated me in front of my family and friends. Speaking with a foreign soldier, she lost what is the most precious thing for any woman.

“People from Western countries might be shocked, but our girls are not like their daughters that can sleep with any man they want and sometimes even get pregnant without marrying. Our girls should respect their religion, their family and their bodies.

“I have only two boys from now on. That girl was a mistake in my life. I know God is blessing me for what I did,” he said, his voice swelling with pride. “My sons are by my side, and they were men enough to help me finish the life of someone who just brought shame to ours.”
.

First, it beggars belief that the murderer walks free. The simple question is,

Why is this monster not in jail?

Also, this is a clear example of when religion kills.

I’m aware some people might think that I’m being very crass and naive. That this is culture, not religion. Just because some fundamentalist misinterpreted the religious text, it doesn’t mean that the religion itself condones misogynistic actions and murder. After all, moderates (or True Believers^TM) would never do such a thing. So aren’t you being stupid when you attribute this to a religion?

No, because one can only comment on a religion based on the action of its adherents. This isn’t a question of ‘misinterpreting a text’. Rather, it’s about interpreting what is written. Recently, the Jamiat-i-Hind issued a fatwa against terrorism, which is a good thing if it’s able to convince religious adherents that terrorism in the name of religion is wrong. But what’s to stop other imams from issuing fatwas, or instructing followers that the religion requires you to kill? After all, the Quran does contain passages which are literally interpreted by muslims to support such barbaric killings.

The courage and bravery that Leila Hussein showed to escape from her husband and to speak out for fundamental rights for women, despite the threats to her life by religious nutjobs, is enormous. It’s an immense tragedy that her life was cut short in such a manner.

The recent initial success of NASA’s phoenix lander has led to a lot of attention and excitement about space exploration, and rightly so! However, things haven’t always been this peachy for NASA.

In December of 1998, NASA launched a spacecraft whose primary mission was to monitor the climate of mars from orbit, which was aptly titled the ‘Mars Climate Orbiter’. The total cost of the project was around 300 million dollars. As you’d have probably guessed by now, the mission ended in failure. As the spacecraft approached Mars, it received instructions to power its main engines in order to insert itself into the required orbit. In fact, as the NASA mission page documents, this is what should have happened.

The Mars Climate Orbiter will arrive at Mars on September 23, 1999. As it nears its closest point to the planet coming in over the northern hemisphere, the spacecraft will fire its 640-newton main engine for 16 minutes 23 seconds to brake into an elliptical capture orbit. The spacecraft will loop around Mars roughly once every 12 to 17 hours. The period of the capture orbit will increase if launch takes place on a later date, due to an increasing arrival velocity. If launch takes place at the end of the launch period in late December, the capture orbit period would be approximately 20 hours.

However, the orbiter never reemerged from behind Mars, and all contact was lost. What happened?

Amazingly, NASA messed up the units.

The peer review preliminary findings indicate that one team used English units (e.g., inches, feet and pounds) while the other used metric units for a key spacecraft operation. This information was critical to the maneuvers required to place the spacecraft in the proper Mars orbit.

Wow.

This is an image the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter took of the the Phoenix spacecraft landing on Mars. WOW!!!

Mindblowing.

Dr Abinandanan at the Nanopolitan blog recently highlighted two brilliant verdicts which upheld the principles of freedom of expression and free speech.

However, I was slightly saddened to read a story today on the arrest of a software engineer for posting ‘vulgar’ comments about Sonia Gandhi on an orkut community.

One held for posting obscene Orkut message on Sonia

The cyber cell of the city police crime branch has arrested Rahul Krishnakumar Vaid, an IT professional of Gurgaon, Haryana, for allegedly uploading obscene and derogatory text about Congress party chief Sonia Gandhi on Orkut.

Congress activist Amol Bhokare of Pune, who saw the message, lodged a complaint at the Deccan Gymkhana police in December, 2007. Vaid was found guilty under section 67 of the IT Act.

First of all, I must point out that I have absolutely no idea about the content of his actual post. If he posted any message that threatened actual physical violence, then he deserves to be in jail.

However, (and this is speculation on my part, so skip this para if you want), if the content of the post was merely using foul or ‘vulgar’ language to express his opinion, then I strongly disagree with the decision to arrest him. One of the fundamental rights one expects in a democracy is the freedom to criticize any political leader without fear of reprimand. Most sane people already know that whatever Mr Vaid said was probably stupid and not true; indeed Mr Vaid’s posts were probably extremely ill thought out. But, what really matters is that parodies or criticism of politicians or respected national figures, either dead or alive, seems to be censored with great relish in India.

This leads to another issue which comes up with astonishing frequency, and that’s when the religious/moral/national sentiments are hurt. Did something which was printed hurt your beliefs in anyway? Too bad, learn to look away and ignore it.

Freedom of expression isn’t an ideal which permits ideas and concepts only as long as they conform to the general public opinion, but it means that *any* idea or opinion is permissible, irrespective of how silly, stupid or radical it is, as long as it doesn’t directly threaten physical harm. If your beliefs are fragile enough to be offended by whatever another person says to such an extent that you see it fit to censor that person, you’d be better off taking a deep look at if it’s really worth believing in the first place.

By the way, the actual section 67 of the IT act he was booked under?

67. Publishing of information which is obscene in electronic form. - Whoever publishes or transmits or causes to be published in the electronic form, any material which is lascivious or appeal to the prurient interest or if its effect is such as to tend to deprave and corrupt persons who are likely, having regard to all relevant circumstances, to read, see or hear the matter contained or embodied in it, shall be punished on first conviction with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to five years and with fine which may extend to one lakh rupees and in the event of a second or subsequent conviction with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to ten years and also with fine which may extend to two lakh rupees.

I wouldn’t be surprised if every other bollywood film director was booked under the act.