1)David Cope – Cyborg composer
Emulation of Bach like compositions using ‘Emily’- A computer program.
http://www.psmag.com/culture-society/triumph-of-the-cyborg-composer-8507/

2)Terrence Sejnowski’s – NETtalk
A program that learns to pronounce like a kindergarten kid using ANN.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NETtalk_(artificial_neural_network)

3)Bobby McFerrin – Pentatonic scale
Singing Bach (as he is referred to), demonstrates the power of pentatonic scale to an audience using audience in World Science Festival 2009:Notes to Neurons

4)LedZep – Prime Numbers
‘We will rock you’ stomp-stomp-clap is catchy – Physicist involved.
http://www.npr.org/2010/08/03/128935865/queens-brian-may-rocks-out-to-physics-photography

5)McGurk Effect – Illusion?
How visual stimulus overrides in certain cases over the auditory.

6)Virtual Barber
A demonstration of how auditory perception is extremely intensity sensitive
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IXm6SuUigI

7)Barn Owl’s – Super sense of hearing.

8)Henry – Alive Inside (Oliver Sacks)
How music revives an otherwise incommunicable person.

9)Patricia Kuhl – Linguistic genius of babies – ted talk

10)Deb Roy – Birth of a word – ted talk

11)Benjamin – Music and passion – ted talk

Anecdotal/EyeCandy

1)Animusic’s – Pipe Dream
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBYCxXe-e6k

2)Misheard lyrics – O Fortuna (there are other Indian ones too!)

3)Axis of awesome – 4 chord song (how all pop songs use the same 4 chords)

4)Everything is a remix – The song remains the same (watch full video)
http://vimeo.com/14912890

5)Popular songs and their chord patters – Statistics
http://blog.hooktheory.com/2012/06/06/i-analyzed-the-chords-of-1300-popular-songs-for-patterns-this-is-what-i-found/

6)Songs and references to colors!
This is something  punch and I did, We analysed ‘Rolling Stones’ magazines, top 500 songs of all time and did occurrence count of colors in their lyrics. Turns out ‘Blue’ is 50% more than the rest of the colors. Next is ‘Black’, Our guess is ‘We sing what
we see’ as in blue:sky, black:night.

More later.

Once upon a time, not too long ago, there were two kids in a hostel, guru and sharma. They were pretty good friends, they’d always be found hanging around, sharing a good laugh, eating ice creams. Everything was going great, until one day when guru had a problem, his problem might seem silly to the reader, but the reader must note, guru was just a small kid, little did he know, he had diarrhea. Guru has no control over it, he thought he was possessed by an evil under the banyan tree because he pelted stones at it, and that if he told someone about it, people would stop being his friend, and avoid him because he was dirty and smelled bad.

Sometimes when, guru and his friends were playing some sport, guru would suddenly run away, no one understood why the usual jocund guru was doing this. All his friends were concerned, but they couldnt guess what was going on. Of them all, the most worried was sharma, sharma noted that guru was not being the usual with him or others, and it bothered him, he seemed to know that guru had some problem. He wondered if it was he himself who said or did something that troubled guru in someway. But he did not know. So one day, he managed to catch guru just in time, before he could run away, made him sit and asked, as to what was going on with guru, and why he seemed to avoid sharma.

How could he lie to sharma? but he did, he did it in best interests of the sharma, for he thought, if he told sharma about his problem, the banyan evil would have sharma too. He lied to him, with a plastic smile, telling him that everything was alright and he should stop worrying. But sharma knew guru was lying, they say love can tell between truth and lies. He only grew more concerned, he assumed it was because of him that guru was acting this way, or there would be no other reason to lie to him. He too smiled, wrapped his arm around him, sat beside him for a while and then left to leave guru alone. The next time he met guru, he bought him a costly chocolate as compensation for something he didnt understand, but thought he did wrong to guru. Guru liked sharma very much for it, he in return bought him many more chocolates as he was guilty of lying to a good friend who was merely trying to make him happy.

Gurus problem however only got worse with time, more so because he felt alone and left out, he stopped eating, he thought it helped him, but it drew more attention from his fellow friends, he didnt want which, their concerns to him meant as an undeserved affection, that he chose to discard, for he didnt want them to be cursed too, and by now he also began to believe that none of his friends could help him in anyway, The evil had a judgment of its own, and nothing good he did would please the devil. He convinced himself that, this was how it would be, forever. Thus, to an unexplainable unforgiving torture, he surrendered.

Sharma, was helpless. he would at times, give guru a warm hug, he would force guru to eat for his sake, but nothing he did changed guru, soon the lie of everything being okay, was an open secret, each knew the other was lying, it upset them both, but none gave in. They would still talk to each other, as though all was well, as if the lie wounds have healed. It was love, in which they pardoned each other.

Guru continues to suffer, and hence Sharma.

Love is a nice nurse. But the doctor is rationality.

Reason was childish, though extremely vexing to make a climb on a rather steep-up to the top of the flyover, the downwards was speed and the wind hitting on the just oozed sweat from the toiling climb, like a balm soothing a pain, bought me instant unadulterated happiness. It didn’t last long. Never does. It was my emotional down up – the hard climb and the fast-finishing slopes. This was my break from beaten paths.

But, here is the trick in it – me knowing that sliding down the slope on the cycle would get me joy. It is very person and situation specific. Changing the circumstances to me walking, I would prefer to avoid the overpass. If I was on a cycle yet on a tour de france circuit, my idea of joy would be in completing the circuit rather than a fancy overpass.

I think that summarizes a great deal of my understanding. One must define an attribute of happiness for every doing. If there is none in it, or is exhausted – settle not – quest towards the nearest action will bring you to it, experiment if you know not. Joy is perishable, seek newer ventures, higher hills, tougher passes, greater joy. You must find the joy that sets you free. Constantly.

This spirit alone seems to have laid pillars of human progress. Individuals obsessed in exercising efforts to gratify their joys – manifests into excellence and by doing this, pushing the humanity by how much ever little.

Its not where you go, its how you go. Go in spirit – the spirit of an unending adventure.

“It is sick the way society around a child perverts its state of
constant happiness and curiosity to induce worry and concern. A child
does not care about questions like whether he is happy or not (am I
happy? is this what I am supposed to do now/ in my life?). He does
what is right in front of him. always by being in the present he
avoids absurd existential questions. I should not ask myself those. of
course a child is happy when he gets a toffee. He does what he is told
for a toffee. But that is not the sole point of his existence nor is
it in his mind constantly. Sometimes, to a child running around in
circles is more important than a toffee.

I remember I was happiest when as a kid I used to do my experiments
breaking things and taking them apart. Just to see what happened if I
did this or that. What happens if you heat grape pulp? I was not an
excellent performer in the class. (In fact, except for two rare cases
I never even held a top 3 position. and never a top position.) I had
an acute sense of wanting to know everything about everything which
was destroyed by the unabashed mugging and rat race for grades. The
point is, I should stop caring about topping and start caring more
about learning. I should make it my first priority to learn new
things.”

…fuck others bay…fuck others who have scheduled out their lives
month by month, year by year till the next decade…we are young …
and there is everything to live for….we can experiment with our
lives and we’ll will be okay even if we fuck up…because we are
young…don’t do anything because the whole world is doing that (on the other hand, that may be a sign to get the hell away from that) (stop:rambling)
follow the beat of the different drum

– These wise words from a dear friend Sabya in a mail response to my usual frustrations. sabya24@gmail.com (posted here without his permission)

He stood at the door of his room, watching her fade into a ghostly white, she was lying on the floor of his room – motionless. Her head in a spill of blood – aimlessly watching the ceiling. Blood bubbled out of a sharp wound in her neck as she breathed. He walked and sat beside her. Cushioning his arms under her head and bringing it to rest on his lap. He moved the hair locks covering her face while palming her pale cheeks. She seemed calm, gushing blood on him apart.

He uttered, “Jeannie?”, breaking the silence.

Her eyes alone moved in an instantaneous response – now looking into his. And then, he saw – Like a blob of wax melting away, her pupil dilating – while his eyes searching in hers for a last look, as it slipped away into an abyss of lifelessness.

“Why so serious Jeannie?”, he said talking to her.

“Jeannie?”

“Look Jeannie I am smiling”, mocking a smile.

“Why so serious? Smile with me Jeanie…Smile!”, and forced her lips to smile, and watched them retract. He did it again.

“Smile. No smile. Smile. No smile. Smile. No smile.”, and he paused.

“Jeannie!”, pointing at her, “You look funny!”, laughing at her blood stained cheeks.

“Aah…now, now, now… lets put a smile on that face.” he said, sounding pleased. He pointed out his finger, wet it with the blood on the floor and retraced the stain marks on her cheeks into a smile.

“There now – that’s a happy family. You – smiling, me – smiling.”

“NO Jeannie, I am smiling! Look!”

“You are right Jeannie, you are always right. I don’t look as funny as you. You – funny. Me – not funny. Not a funny family huh?”

“Why so serious Jack?”, he said while trying to sound in a woman’s voice. Smiling like her, breaking into a sigh.

“Now, lets put a smile on my face”, all enthused he held her hand, folded all but one finger, wet it in blood, and forced it onto his face and moved his head.

“There you go. We are a funny family now Jeannie. A happy funny family. You and me. And the baby.”, he said palming her dead face in a quaint affection.

The sirens were nearing.

While changing it in his hands he was observing the contoured reflections on its surface. He closed his eyes, and contemplated the plausibility. It was simple, yet profoundly consequent – none of which, he would see to face, it thrilled him – to know death was just a trigger away, the power in it was in making that choice. He doubted if he would do it, someone inside of him was yelling to him, ‘do it’, the other argued, ‘you know you wouldn’t dare’. Unconsciously the gun moved into position aiming his temple, his finger on the trigger, slowly beginning to cast pressure. One face of him inside was smirking at his apathetic other. He was imagining firing the bullet, the sound he would hear, the instance of the warm bullet cracking into his skull, and before he knew fear or pain, it would have all ended. It suddenly felt it was too fast – the emotions were lost. What interested him was the adrenaline rush in teasing death, in roaring at it. He wanted to know death, and yet not surrender to it. A gun was a tasteless choice, he thought.

Slowly he opened his eyes, relaxed the trigger, placed the gun back in the desk and just as he began to get hold of his glass, he heard his wife opening the screechy door of his room, the music was still playing. She seemed puzzled at the look on his face. She walked towards his desk, and leaned on it next to his sitting.

“Whats wrong Jack? why so serious?”, she said looking at him.

“Nothing Jeannie, just the usual”, he said in indifference.

“Now lets put a smile on that face darl… I have something to tell you…”, she said while easing the palm holding the glass, lifted it and held it over her neck in warmth. Gently felt it over her cheeks and kissed it.

“What is it Jeannie?”, he said. His aloof eyes gaining her attention.

“We are going to have a baby Jack… I m pregnant.” she announced smiling.

Jack Niper – Part 2

(the images show here are cut in the sides, you have to open and view them in a different browser tab)

While i wait for my code to execute the insane loops, i will upload some of the trend searches that psych me. The funda of the google trends is simple, just normalized (per density)search counts. (as how google counts it)

read the notes below each image…

trend for “academics” – note the sharp dips at Christmas vacation, the broader ones are the summer vacation.

trend for “iit” – the first small peaks are the online announcements or online forms, the second sharp ones are when the results are declared.

trend for “yahoo, google” – surprisingly yahoo is over google. American users eh?

trend for “Facebook, Google, Twitter” – Facebook is THE thing, twitter beh…no wonder google introduced Google Buzz.

trend for “MJ, YSR” Death brings fame. YSR (ex-chief minister AP, India)

trend for “PC” – counts rise during Christmas/Boxing day. Gift me one too…

trend for “oil, dollar” – Something obvious is it? note the small peak in dollar right after the oil’s (the oil crisis followed by the rise in dollar value followed by recession)

trend for “Airtel, Bsnl, vodafone, Hutch” (just India).. see how Hutch fades into Vodafone!

also try…
porn, academics
India, Usa
Pc, Mac
Apple, Microsoft
bush, obama

I m in love with this…

Experiment:
After eating some biscuits, spit on a wet floor [bathroom] and observe [from about 50-75cms] carefully at the point where you spit and its immediate surroundings.

My observations:
1) A sudden circular clearance grows starting right after the circumference of spit whose radius expands rapidly which slows down and halts.
2) I also noted that apart from circular portion expanding, there were tiny circular disturbances on the wet floor portion right after the wet clearance from above. These disturbances [circular – like the ones formed when a drop falls on a calm water surface] continue to move in the radial direction even after about 1 n half to 2 sec after spit + clearance formation.

What bugged me:
1) Why the hell is there an exploding wet-clearance radius?
2) What continues to travel even after 2 secs! after impact? that too in the horizontal plane?
This was my KVPY project for scholarship. Or so i thought i’d be.

Summer of 2006:
I tried reading books on thin films etc to know if the problem is addressed, however, i was completely lost in jargon. i thought, may be a a more sophisticated observation would reveal a looks-complex simplicity and make me avoid the books. Honestly tried for a cam but no luck. One day forced myself to a very old govt. library and guess what!

The reason there is an explosion, is because of a simple elegant thing called surface tension! if you guessed it right away – great! ever seen oil drop on a surface of wet water floor? apart from the colorful diffraction patterns, the centre heavy oil drops sinks, and there is a clearance of the wet floor around. force of surface tension acts according to perimetric length, so the clearance [border of water on wet floor] expands till the force equals the outward force of the surface tension of the oil. [in our observations the oil drop was the spit+biscuit particles] [will be valid in case of any two liquids (fluids?) with relative differences in surface tension]

I still could not reason the second observation untill yesterday my dear buddyVikram [read as Denny Crane] showed me this video. [Never completed the project on time]
October 22, 2009:

So the reason for second observation is, at the time of impact – tiny water drops [/spit drops?] are thrown away in a radially outward horizontal direction, which skim the surface of the wet water surface while simultaneously reducing the drops volume all this causing small delicate superb ripples! skimming! – hence the time! Like a ballet dancer! Musical !

Case closed?
Further:
1)What is the role of biscuit particles in the spit? or will just the spit do?
2)What creates the tiny drops right after the impact?
3)The tiny drop motion – the physics of the projectile and ripples under an ultra slow cam!

Thanks da Vikram!. That feeling on finding a piece of a puzzle I love!

PS: You are a good observer if you must have wondered what i was doing – eating biscuits in a bathroom, spitting and observing it from a distance of 75cm.

there is lot more to goa than just beaches, i ll try to document about a few, as it turns out i got a fetish for water scapes.

if you are around in goa during this time of the year a must see, -takes a day, spot is the dudhsagar waterfalls. the falls open only during the 2nd or 3rd week of october, before which it is not very easy to reach. but this is the best time of the year to see them, which otherwise dry up pretty fast. the falls are on the river mandovi and get the name obviously from the milky white foamy water.needless to say very exotic, serene and thankfully isolated sufficiently from humans. if one is an adventure enthusiast, here is a must go.

to reach there is a thing in itself. nothing good comes free effort. so gang up and go get goa. destination dudhsagar.incase you dont have time for a complete day for this make sure you see it atleast when on train on the konkan railway lines [left side] when enroute the hubli-londa-madgoan[marmagoa]-vaso track, right after castle rock station, and between the tunnel numbers 17 and 13[?]

to reach there, from goa, one has to first reach kulem. [local trains starting ~7am from vasco via madgoan], this is the best bet to reach there in most comfortable way, instead of burning out money on road transport and time. from kulem, the falls are about a 15 kms away into the sanctuary. here is where the ride begins

first the boring way. there are mahindras in kulem, exclusively which operate to take people to the falls, [the other reason your hired vehicle is useless] not any vehicle is allowed into the sanctuary, the mahindras ride costs a bit, 500 per person odd. up and down. the road into the sanctuary is real bumpy and needs crossing the mandovi river twice [trice?] whichis fun in itself. during this time of the year one cannot walk the way because of the same reason. the river turbulence is real high. that you do need a mahindra for it. [during other seasons when the falls are open one can walk upto the falls] ok, so mahindra takes you there gives you sufficiently good deal of time and gets you back. suits family – kids and elders. sometimes have weird conditions. ask full details.

option 2. you walk down on train tracks[13kms]/take a life from one of the trains[yes! a lift! talk to the goods train drivers ] from kulem.there are always good number of trains leaving kulem at any given point of time. the driver would likely slow down the train n ask you to get down mid way [after about 8-9 kms from kulem] and leave you there amist a spooky hilly no man zone, with the tracks, that point you to where you ought to go. and so one has to walk the extra 4-5 miles to the falls. however, i promise that will be one of most memorable walks ever. that lanscape, dripping train tunnels, the first glimpse of the falls -is a #$@#%#$^% feeling [that is not sensorship -i just dont think there are wrds for that], and then comes the real deal in this train track detour, the train track is at about mid of the height of the falls. so now, one is gotta get down to ground zero! there is a small unnoticeable tunnel between tunnels x and y. [i know x and y! i just dont want to be a spoiler] which takes you or a rather green slippery steep path down to the falls. monkeys and leaches await to welcome you. [as much as i love to tell you how good that trek is, its best left unsaid in the spirit and code of adventurers]

pure cold water! rejuvenating experience.

the rocks below there are real slippery. and flow of water is real turbulent and gushy. each year atleast 2 people die at the falls. there is a big billboard WARNING sign asking people to be careful.

DO NOT try to swin near to the vortex of the falls. there is no getting any help [not even a cell signal or easy transport] for about 10kms. BEWARE.

some pics from last year
to the most awesome set of guys i went there with.
love them all.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY PUNCH