etc

Meanderings

2010-06-27T23:29:00.003+05:30

I have just taken a long walk in the IISc campus. The rain has left a pleasant chill in the air. The fireflies have come flitting out. The tree opposite MCBL is creaking ominously to the passing bystander. The moon is calmly watching the grey clouds saunter across the sky. It has been almost a year here and I have had many walks.

The quick ‘I have to get to lab before cell recovery is over’ walks (Very annoying. No time for contemplating on the deeper meaning of science or on any deeper meanings).

The post-General Biology class philosophical banter walks (When one is overpowered by the exalted sensation of being in science nirvana and concludes that anyone who isn’t doing science should dig a pit and bury himself).

The ‘Oh-my-god, the campus looks so Photoshop-ed walks’ (A common phenomenon in the month of March when someone seems to have cranked up the colour saturation dial of the surroundings).

The smug ‘Ha! I’m in IISc’ walks (As you bestow a look of condescension on the flurry of students scrambling for next year’s admissions).

The gazing at the sky till your neck aches walks. (I’m never going to get cured of my deep reverence toward the night sky).

The dodging crow-shit walks. (Recommended at around 6 p.m. when the birds all amass and decide to take a good dump, while also treating us to cacophonous cawing).

The ‘Why are there so many believers in a scientific institute!’ walk (When one has generally lost all faith in the human race, is very agitated over it, and bumps into a fellow atheist for a mutual cribbing session).

Some walks are defined by the music you are listening to:
The freewheeling ‘whatever’ walk. (‘All I want is you’ by Barry Louis Polisar from ‘Juno OST’).

The ‘I wish I were a sprite and could gambol all around the campus’ walk (‘Wedding Day In Troldhaugen, Opus 65 N° 6’ played by Andrei Gavrilov and composed by Edvard Grieg).

The ‘Ah. The world is beautiful and I love life’ walks (‘Per Te’ by Josh Groban from ‘Closer’).

Well I should get some sleep. Toodles!

Io, Saturnalia!

2009-12-25T00:01:00.002+05:30

I was first introduced to the Saturnalia concept on The Big Bang Theory Christmas episode (where Sheldon says "We don't celebrate the ancient Pagan Festival of Saturnalia").

Saturnalia was a Roman festival, initially celebrated on Dec 17^th, but then extended for a week from Dec 17-25^th. The festival was introduced to lift the spirits of the defeated Roman military and citizens after the war in 217 BC. Farmers had completed their autumn seed sowing and the festival was supposed to celebrate the god of seed and sowing, Saturnus.

It soon became the most popular Roman festival characterized by a 'period of lawlessness'. Courts and judicial order were temporarily abolished. The slaves exchanged placess with their masters. Gambling, intoxication, naked rambling and general merriment was the norm.

Theories suggest that when Pope Julius I selected 25^th December as the date of Christ's birth, it was primarily to embrace the festival of Saturnalia and concurrently to embrace & convert the pagans to Christianity. Thus, early instances of Christmas celebrations illustrate festivities very similar to Saturnalia.

The customary greeting for Saturnalia is Io Saturnalia! (Io is pronounced as e-o). So Io Saturnalia to you!

Hail His Noodly Appendages

2009-12-24T23:04:00.003+05:30

Oh Come, All Ye Faithful parody by John Danty

O Come All Ye Pastas

Tender and benignant,

O come ye, O come ye with par-me-me-san.

Come and behold Him,

Meatballs sized like Saturn;

O come, let us adore Him,

Flying Spaghetti Monster

O Sing, choirs of penne,

Sing emancipation,

Sing all that hear above of FSM's holy word.

Give... to our waitress, glory in the Highest;

O come, let us adore Him,

Flying Spaghetti Monster

Oooo yes we're excited,

Half price at Olive Garden

His wheat-based appendages are so so adored.

Word of Your noodle,in white wine alfredo;

O come, let us adore Him,

F…S...M the Lord.

-John Danty

(Are you new to the Flying Spaghetti Monster? Here are some links:

1) Wikipedia article
2) The Church of FSM)

Warning

2009-12-19T00:01:00.001+05:30

As I turn 22 today, I'd like to share this poem with you.

Warning

When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn't go, and doesn't suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals, and say we've no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I'm tired
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
And run my stick along the public railings
And make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
And pick flowers in other people's gardens
And learn to spit.

You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat
And eat three pounds of sausages at a go
Or only bread and pickle for a week
And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes.

But now we must have clothes that keep us dry
And pay our rent and not swear in the street
And set a good example for the children.
We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.

But maybe I ought to practice a little now?
So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.

-Jenny Joseph

Strawberry Swing

2009-11-30T10:50:00.005+05:30

Probably the best music video I have ever seen.

Strawberry Swing - Coldplay

They were sitting
They were sitting on the strawberry swing
Every moment was so precious

They were sitting
They were talking under strawberry swing
Everybody was for fighting
Wouldn't wanna waste a thing

Cold, cold water bring me round
Now my feet won't touch the ground
Cold, cold water what ya say?
When it's such…
It's such a perfect day
It's such a perfect day

I remember
We were walking up to strawberry swing
I can't wait until the morning
Wouldn't wanna change a thing

People moving all the time
Inside a perfectly straight line
Don't you wanna curve away?
When it's such…
It's such a perfect day
It's such a perfect day

Now the sky could be blue
I don't mind
Without you it's a waste of time

Could be blue
I don’t mind
Without you it’s a waste of time

Could be blue,
Could be grey
Without you I’m just miles away

Could be blue
I don’t mind
Without you it’s a waste of time

My Long Overdue Pro-GM Food Post

2009-11-06T14:45:00.009+05:30

Ok I’m going to rant.

STOP SUPPORTING ORGANIC FOOD.

Organic food is technically food that is grown with ‘natural’ pesticides. Like neem. It’s natural. If I extract the neem protein, get its structure and synthesize it chemically, it stops being natural and people screw up their noses. Amazing, ain’t it? If I modify it so that it becomes an even better pesticide, it’s even more unnatural and people march out and set my lab on fire. Fascinating behaviour.

Now to quote Christopher Wanjek (Author of Bad Medicine)

”Synthetic pesticides can indeed cause cancer, but the risk is very low. The Environmental Protection Agency requires that pesticides carry no higher than a one-in-a-million risk of cancer. (You have about a one-in-a-hundred, or 1 percent, risk of choking on your food; just ask the second President Bush). After thirty years, no study has shown that eaters of organic food are healthier than eaters of conventional food.”

To quote Bruce Ames (Inventor of the Ames test which detects carcinogens):

"A single cup of coffee contains natural carcinogens equal at least to a year's worth of carcinogenic synthetic residues in the diet."

Natural carcinogens are those that plants produce themselves to ward of pests, for example, the toxins the neem plant produces.

If you are still so concerned about pesticides, support Genetically Modified food! The Sense About Science handbook lists some of the few advantages.

1) They increase crop yields (something that developing countries are in dire need of).
2) They improve the nutritional value of food in very specific ways without changing other features.
3) They reduce reliance on chemical pesticides by using genes that are available in, for example, soil microorganisms.

And before you bring this argument that it’s not ‘natural’, let me digress.

I have this enormous problem with the word ‘natural’. Define ‘natural’. Define ‘nature’. Define ‘going against nature's laws’.

Firstly, every atom in you and that pesticide came from the big bang. The pesticide is as natural as you are.

Secondly, (and I’m tired of saying this), farmers have been doing genetic engineering for AGES. The fellow sees two plants which gives juicier fruits. He mates (‘crosses’ technically) them on and on so till all the kid plants have juicier fruits. We just speed the process up by taking that juicier fruit gene and putting it directly into seeds which can be distributed to all farmers everywhere. Oh, but sex is natural genetic engineering, it wins because it has ‘natural’ on its side.

That brings me to: There is no metaphorical woman called nature who puts you right. There is nothing like nature hits back. There isn’t some sacrosanct equilibrium in the universe which will be horrendously disturbed if we do genetic engineering. Guess what, a bacterium called Agrobacterium tumefaciens has been doing genetic engineering since time immemorial. It jumps in and puts its genes into plants. Your genome, right now, is made up of 45% transposons. Parasites. Not your genes. They genetically engineered themselves into your body. ‘Nature’ put them. Sorry, but she has an evil side to her. Welcome to the real world.

Thirdly, ok what do you mean by natures laws? Spell it out. Give me an equation. Come on. There, now you’ll shrug and give me vague statements about being so bad at math and not really sure about it but you know, you have an overwhelming intuitive feeling that there is some sacred law of nature. Guess what, you once had an overwhelmingly intuitive feeling that the Earth was flat. So wake up, science doesn’t work on intuition.

As far as I know, pesticides don’t violate any of nature’s laws. They follow all three rules of thermodynamics. They do not lead to a decrease in the entropy of the universe. They do not hover in the air against the law of gravity. They don’t make time go backward. They definitely do not go ‘bang’ and disappear.

Oh did I hear that right? By adding pesticides we are disturbing the biodiversity of the insects. Fine, let’s shift to plan B. Let’s all sit here and refuse to kill anything. Let the bacteria kill you next time you get a fever. Don’t you dare run to the doctor. It’s blasphemy! You are disturbing the biodiversity of the micro-organisms! What, just because you can’t see the bacterium means it deserves less respect? How shocking! The bacteria should yell discrimination and sue you.

If you are so against genetic engineering, stop drinking commercially made beer and wine. Those yeast that ferment it, are genetically engineered. Stop buying insulin for your diabetic mom. It’s 100 % genetically engineered. No you won’t. Because when it comes to your life, you get selfish. How hypocritical is that. You won’t support GM foods and let those people in Africa die. What about when it comes to you?

Finally, let me attempt this by logic. For the sake of argument let me accept that there is some mysterious unexplainable sacred force (or energy or quantum order or whatever other term you decide to dishonour) called nature who we should be terrified of meddling with. Nature made you, right? Nature made you intelligent? Nature knew that if she/he/it made you intelligent you would figure out how to remove genes from one thing and put them in another? So nature meant to do this. Nature wants you to do this. It’s an inevitable by-product of making intelligent humans. The transposons do it. Agrobacterium does it. They have evolved for as many years as you have. You aren’t some sickeningly virtuous, morally upright species that is at the top of the evolutionary tree. Throw the arrogance into the bin. We need genetic engineering because it saves your own species. If nature has shown any predictable pattern, it is that species that survive more and reproduce more, stick on the planet. Listen to her.

Carbon Persecution

2009-11-03T16:44:00.008+05:30

A month ago, I had downloaded a free English dictionary cum thesaurus that works off-line called 'WordWeb'. I loved it and I use it everyday. Today it pops up saying that I will be able to continue using the free version if I answer a simple question. I assumed it is one of those polls that companies want to take. The question was roughly this:

How many commercial flights have you taken in the past one year?

1) None

2) 1-2

3) more than 2

Since I have flown quite a lot between Bangalore-Bombay, I selected option 3.

And this is the result (click to enlarge).

I'm stuck between indignation and admiration.

The God Delusion

2009-10-30T11:40:00.003+05:30

I recently bought The God Delusion by Dawkins. I had delved into a library copy previously, but I figured out it’s the kind of book you have to have sitting impudently on your bookshelf.

For one, it is something you want to scramble to for comfort after having your senses assaulted by some stubborn, irrational believer.

Secondly, it is one of those bible books (forgive the expresssion), like ‘Voet & Voet’ for biochemistry. You should have it because it just is too much a part of your life to not. You fantasize your child turning its pages on a long summer afternoon. You want to rediscover it on a grumpy, unfriendly evening. You want to run back to it every time you get a déjà vu in an atheism discussion.

And finally, it just feels cool to have The God Delusion blatantly staring into the face of every guest who tilts his head to skim across the titles behind the glass.

I have this major dilemma about the word ‘God’. As an atheist, I’m least obliged to capitalise the ‘G’. But whenever I type ‘god’, the grammar nazi part of me starts waggling her finger. (In her defence, Dawkins has capitalised ‘God’ in his book.)

Well, I leave you with some excellent quotes that Dawkins has quoted in the book:

“If it turns out that there is a God, I don’t think that he’s evil. But the worst than you can say about him is that basically he's an under-achiever” –Woody Allen

“Inspect every piece of pseudoscience and you will find a security blanket, a thumb to suck, a skirt to hold” –Isaac Asimov

“The religion of one age is the literary entertainment of the next” –Ralph Waldo Emerson

Wodehouse Quote #1

2009-10-01T15:04:00.002+05:30

"What ho!" I said.
"What ho!" said Monty.
"What ho! What ho!"
"What ho! What ho! What ho!"
After that it seemed rather difficult to go on with the conversation

- P.G. Wodehouse in My Man Jeeves

Sense About Science

2009-09-28T16:39:00.003+05:30

While I was researching for my beta galactosidase assignment, I came across this organisation called 'Sense About Science'. To quote their aims:

Sense About Science is an independent charitable trust promoting good science and evidence in public debates. We do this by promoting respect for evidence and by urging scientists to engage actively with a wide range of groups, particularly when debates are controversial or difficult.

What I particularly liked about the site were these concise, coloured .pdfs you can download called 'Sense about..Homeopathy' and 'Sense about..GM foods', among others. If I had the money, I'd print an entire pile and distribute it to everyone I knew. :)

Links:
1) Home
2) Making Sense of GM
3) Sense About..Homeopathy

The Emperor Of Scent

2009-06-18T13:44:00.008+05:30

Hi.

The post has been removed, because it is now published at Bitesize Bio! :D

Cheers!

June 8th

2009-06-10T13:58:00.005+05:30

This is a delayed post. Why? Because it should have been written on the 8th. But I was succumbing to Sleep by the time I got the 'OMG! I have to write a post' itch. So I made a quick note of what I wanted to write. And here it is:

The 8th was an exciting day. Not exciting in the conventional sense (I get excited over trifling events.) Anyway, I learnt several sundry things. Here they are with the person who handed down the knowledge attributed in each

1) What's your Uterus - Hertz? (Anonick) Mine is 361 nano hertz.

2) Two excellent homeopathy and alternative medicine debunking posts by Phil Plait.

3) How to make bhendi bhaji. (Mom)

4) How to make a Bloody Mary (Jibin)

5) The Law Of Diminishing Marginal Utility (& how it applies to drinking a Bloody Mary) (Jibin)

6) How to make paper MIG 21s (Jibin)

7) How to cycle (First attempt, have to learn to move around in IISc) (Dad & bro)

8) Let me Google that for you (Aditya & Srikanth) LOL! Can't wait till someone asks me a silly q now.

9) Snow Leopard @ WWDC 2009 (Aditya) We really need the Finder update

10) Why entropy isn't a subset of energy. (Anonick)

11) How one can paint a nude dispassionately. (Achal)

12) How to retrieve and save You Tube videos from the cache (me) here. I always knew this was possible. Never got to finding out.

13) Anti-Islam documentary, Fitna (Srikanth)

Ah, that's all. I should scoot now. The pizza will be at the door any moment.

Toodles,

Firefox Add-ons: Part 2

2009-05-23T14:50:00.000+05:30

Over a year ago, I began a post on my favourite FF add-ons. Here, I continue to list them, in no particular order.

1) Cooliris: Stunningly smooth. It is just SO bee-yew-ti-ful. I think it beats iPhoto aesthetics, which is saying something. It's great for scanning images on Google Images & now it even allows me to look at pics on my hard disk.

2) Locationbar: One of those really tiny but really awesome add-ons. It 'linkifies' your url, so that one click directs you to the home page of the site you stumbled upon.

3) Copy Plain Text: Copies the selected text as plain text saving you from the formatting nightmare. (Copy>Paste in Notepad>Copy>Paste in Word). You can even make it your default copy function.

4) UnMHT: If there was anything I missed about IE/Maxthon, it was this. When you save web pages to your hard disk as .html, each page creates it's own folder with all the embedded graphics blah blah. And the page won't open independently. This can be bypassed by saving it as an MHTML file, which saves the whole web page, all baggage included, as ONE file. This option wasn't available on FF for very long. Finally someone got around to make an add-on that works. :D

5) Xmarks: Previously known as Foxmarks. You are probably using it. Non-invasive, seamless backup + syncing of your FF bookmarks across computers. (It has some social bookmarking feature too now, but I just inactivated that). Saved me a panic attack many a times. I get palpitations at the very thought of what I'll do if my bookmarks get erased. The reason being, I save all my research work as bookmarks. I don't use Zotero/Google Notebook and the like. I simply save all relevant tabs (>Bookmark all tabs) in a separate folder lets say "Synthetic Biology". Next time I want to refer to it> Open all in tabs. As Xmarks syncs across OS, I don't have to bother about whether I surf on the PC/Mac.

6) Screengrab: Takes a screenshot. Period. Nothing very spectacular unless you are a Mac user (because Mac has a harebrained scheme of saving screenshots as .tiff).

7) Firesizer: I cannot believe I took so long to find this one. I resizes your screen. I use it especially to make sure my blog works fine on the 800 X 600 resolution.

8) Stylish: To quote, "Stylish is to CSS what Greasemonkey is to JavaScript". What I loved about this is that it allows you to preview the styles before you install. I am new to Stylish myself, but I found three neat uses:

about: blank brushed: Simply gives you a nice grey brushed background for about: blank. There are dozen similar styles available, one even lets you choose you use your selected picture as the background.

Google reader OS X Style: Finally, I found a great Greader theme. I know a lot of people use the Better Greader themes. I am a big Lifehacker fan, but the 'Better' add-ons are pretty lousy in my opinion.

Add to Bookmarks Plus: Very useful. It displays 'keyword' and 'description' field in the 'Add to Bookmarks' box.

9) Wolfram Alpha Google: Nod to Aditya for finding this. It came just as I was wondering if the Wolfram toolbar was worth the screen real estate. It displays Wolfram search results in Google search. Honestly, I have yet much rummaging to do with respect to Wolfram.

That's all. I know I should make it 10, a nice, contented, round number. But I don't have a 10th one. Any suggestions?

A Word List

2009-05-04T11:39:00.000+05:30

Hello. This is one of those things I had 'wasted' time on as I struggled to study for the exams.

I was browsing through the Mac dictionary and made a sticky of some cute words that begin with 'pas'. Here they are:

1) passe-partout: noun: From French, literally "pass everywhere"

A master key.

2) pastiche: noun: from Italian pasticcio "medley, pastry cake"

an incongruous combination of materials, forms, motifs, etc., taken from different sources; hodgepodge.

a literary, musical, or artistic piece consisting wholly or chiefly of motifs or techniques borrowed from one or more sources.

3) passel: noun: Represents a pronounciation variant of 'parcel'

a large group of people or things of indeterminate number; a pack : a passel of journalists.

4) paseo: noun: Spanish literally 'step'

a leisurely walk or stroll, esp. one taken in the evening; a promenade (used with reference to the tradition of taking such a walk in Spain or Spanish-speaking communities).

(also paseo de cuadrillas) a parade of bullfighters into the arena at the beginning of a bullfight.

a plaza or walkway for strolling.

5) Pascal's wager: noun [in sing. ]: Philosophy

the argument that it is in one's own best interest to behave as if God exists, since the possibility of eternal punishment in hell outweighs any advantage of believing otherwise.

What is Swine flu?

2009-04-28T19:14:00.010+05:30

Swine flu is splashed all over the news and the Internet. I thought I should illuminate readers on how it actually works, because it is rather interesting.

Firstly, what's the big deal with influenza? Why don't we see similar pandemic outbreaks with let's say the Rabies virus, or the Measles virus? The answer lies in the structure.

Influenza virus is a spherical virus having two kinds of receptors on its surface coat which help it to infect a host: Haemagglutinin (H) & Neuraminidase (N). Think of it as a sphere with two kinds of embedded rods in it.

Accordingly, different strains of the virus are called H1N1, H3N2 etc. depending on the type of H and N rods they have. Inside this sphere, there is the nuclear material (RNA) of the virus. Here's the catch. Most bacteria and viruses have a single piece of DNA/RNA as their nuclear material. Influenza's nuclear material is split into 8 pieces or segments. These segments code for, amongst other things, those H and N rods. (Nucleic acids code for proteins remember?)

This 8-segmented genome property of influenza allows it to undergo a process called 'Antigenic shift' which is responsible for these sudden pandemics.

Here's how antigenic shift works:

Firstly, it occurs often in pigs, because pigs can be infected with two influenza strains at the same time (which is why we have 'swine' flu).

So lets say we have a pig 'The Empress' (nod to Wodehousians). The Empress has been infected with two strains of influenza, H1N4 and H4N1. Both the strains infect cells in the pig. They do this by

1) Using their H 'rods' to bind to the lung cells.

2) Entering the cells.

3) Releasing their RNA into the cells.

4) The RNA is multiplied to make many copies.

5) These many copies of RNA serve two purposes: One, they make new H and N rods and new coats. Two, they get packaged into these new coats (eight segments each) to make new complete viruses.

6) The cell bursts releasing new viruses that infect more cells

Now here's the awesome part:

Strain A (H1N4) and Strain B (H4N1) BOTH release their RNA. The viruses multiply in the cell and make four types of receptors: H1, N4 AND H4, N1. All these are floating in the cell. During the packaging, there's a mix up. The RNA segments of both strains mix up and get packed into the wrong coats i.e. of the OTHER strain.

This gives a new strain with H type 1 (from strain A) and N type 1 (from strain B). It is thus called H1N1.

All the vaccines for influenza were specific for H1N4 and H4N1. Similarly all the natural immunity we have is specific for those two only because we may have been exposed to it before. No vaccine is for H1N1 because it didn't exist before! So now, for the moment, the virus is invincible.

Well not exactly, some drugs still work for this new 2009 strain. Eg: Oseltamivir (Tamiflu) and Zanamivir (Relenza) though it is resistant to Amantidine & Rimantidine.

Vaccines for the same are in development. The problem is viral vaccines take a month or so to make and then they have to pass a rigorous set of safety tests.

Addendum 1: Influenza isn't the only virus that has multiple segments. So do HIV and the Rotavirus (common cause of infantile diarrhoea, you must have seen the vaccine ad). However in Rotavirus the phenomenon is called 'reassortment' and in HIV 'recombination'. 'Antigenic shift' is a term solely for influenza. Now in rotavirus and HIV infection/reassortment/recombination doesn't occur between very genetically diverse strains, thus minimising the damage done by the recombined strains. This is because the new strain is still significantly similar to the two parent strains and is thus susceptible to a certain extant to previously used vaccines/drugs. I don't know why it doesn't occur. A probable guess is viral receptor interference.

Addendum 2: Whether the packaging is specific (taking one segment of each of the eight types) or random (randomly any 8 fragments are taken) is unknown. In the random process one would get only 1 functional virus for every 400 assembled. However, recent evidence indicates that the process might be partially specific.

Addendum 3: A little bit on how the drugs work. Oseltamivir and Zanamivir are neuraminidase inhibitors. You see, once the complete spherical viruses are ready to leave the cell, the H receptor still anchors them to the host cell. Here's where Neuraminidase (N) kicks in. It breaks the bond between H and the host cell, so that the virus can be free and infect neighbouring cells. Now these two drugs bind to N and inactivate it. So viruses remain attached to one cell and cant infect others.
Thus Oseltamivir & Zanamivir don't kill the virus, they just limit its spread. Something like 'damage control'

On the other hand Amantidine & Rimantidine bind to a protein called M2 on the virus. This protein is required for the virus to release its RNA into the cell. However, mutations in M2 that prevent the drug from binding to it can make a virus resistant to the same.

Well, that's about all that I know. I might have made some mistakes, if you spot them, do tell me.

Cheers,

The Dot Song revamped

2009-04-28T00:09:00.001+05:30

Raj revamped the song for me :D

Here it is, even better:

A line is a dot that went for a walk,
a curve is a dot that flew like a hawk,

An icosahedron is a dot that didn't know where to stop,
A Bucky ball is a dot that was out there to shop,

A circle is a dot that just goes round and round,
a coil is a dot that keeps getting wound,

A scribble is a dot not knowing what it sought,
a bot is a dot, out of silicon wrought,

A star is a dot that's really really hot,
a doodle is a dot that dances a lot,

A division sign is a dot looking at the mirror in vain,
a curl is a dot that had too much champagne,

A shooting star is a dot that can't be caught,
So dot is not just what you and I thought,

An asterisk is a dot with lot and lots of hair,
A comma is a dot with just one to spare,
(But a tilde is a dot that swerves here and there...)

A squiggle is a dot that lost the plot,
really, who comes up with so much rot,

A knot is a dot that lost its path,
An @ is a dot that needs a bath,

A semicolon is a dot taking a dump,
Ellipses are dots that decided to clump,

An O is a dot that was sneaking a yawn,
an exclamation is a dot that was watching porn,

A colon is a dot who found true love,
Umlauts are two dots flying high above,

A bull’s eye is dot that is tough to spot,
a dot is a dot is a dot,

A fuzz ball is a dot with goose bumps,
Z is a dot acting like a rude drunk,

A comet is a dot with a wild streak,
a tittle is a dot, so to speak,

So a dot is but a symbol that ends every line,
And hence with a dot I stop this silly rhyme.

A double helix is a dot that is entangled and can't get out,
(Couldn’t fit this anywhere! I tried DAMN hard!!)

The Dot Song

2009-04-26T10:09:00.006+05:30

The whole thing started when Bimal introduced me to that quote and I put it up as my status message on Gtalk. Then Anonick and Madhura came up with their lines and Anonick thought of making a whole poem out of it. So here it is:

A line is a dot that went for a walk.
- Paul Klee (contributed by Bimal Bharath)

A curve is a dot that flew like a hawk.
- Rahul "Anonick" Dandekar

An icosahedron is a dot that didn't know where to stop.
- Madhura Rane

A scribble is a dot not knowing what it sought.
- Anisha "Anne" Zaveri

A circle is a dot that just goes round and round,
A coil is a dot that keeps getting wound.
-Aditya Sengupta

An exclamation is a dot with an erection.
-Bimal Bharath

An asterisk is a dot with hair.
-Srikanth Viswanathan

A Buckyball is a dot that was out there to shop.
-Shatabdi "Express" Chowdhury

A doodle is a dot that dances a lot.
-Rahul "Anonick" Dandekar

A colon is a dot who found true love.
-Siddharth "Sid" Joshi

A knot is a dot that lost it's path.
(disclaimer: in a closed space)
-Ravitej U.

A star is a dot that's really really hot.
-Aditya Sengupta

A tittle is a dot.
-Anandi Rajan

Z is a dot after too many drinks.
-Shivam Gupta

A bot is a dot, out of silicon wrought.
-Preyas P.

A semicolon is a dot taking a dump.
-Ranaji Deb

A division sign is a dot looking at the mirror in vain,
A curl is a dot that had too much champagne.
-Anisha "Anne" Zaveri

A comet is a dot with a wild streak.
-Nikita Mehra

A shooting star is a dot that can't be caught.
-Shatabdi "Express" Chowdhury

A squiggle is a dot that lost the plot
-Nikita Mehra

An O is a dot yawning.
-Bimal Bharath

A bulls eye is dot that is tough to spot.
-Preyas P.

A fuzzball is a dot with goosebumps.
-Rajani Rajan

A double helix is a dot that is entangled and can't get out.
-Anandi Rajan

A dot is not what you and I thought.
-Achal Agarwal

A dot is a dot is a dot.
-Nikhil Karthik (A Gertrude Stein reference)

Spot The Diff

2009-04-08T20:39:00.010+05:30

Last Sunday, for a second I was wondering what Dr. John Carter is doing in that Toyota waiting for the rain to cease.

Noah Wyle

Timo Glock

Pi

2009-03-31T22:33:00.002+05:30

The admirable number pi:
three point one four one.
All the following digits are also just a start,
five nine two because it never ends.
It can't be grasped, six five three five, at a glance,
eight nine, by calculation,
seven nine, through imagination,
or even three two three eight in jest, or by comparison
four six to anything
two six four three in the world.
The longest snake on earth ends at thirty-odd feet.
Same goes for fairy tale snakes, though they make it a little longer.
The caravan of digits that is pi
does not stop at the edge of the page,
but runs off the table and into the air,
over the wall, a leaf, a bird's nest, the clouds, straight into the sky,
through all the bloatedness and bottomlessness.
Oh how short, all but mouse-like is the comet's tail!
How frail is a ray of starlight, bending in any old space!
Meanwhile two three fifteen three hundred nineteen
my phone number your shirt size
the year nineteen hundred and seventy-three sixth floor
number of inhabitants sixty-five cents
hip measurement two fingers a charade and a code,
in which we find how blithe the trostle sings!
and please remain calm,
and heaven and earth shall pass away,
but not pi, that won't happen,
it still has an okay five,
and quite a fine eight,
and all but final seven,
prodding and prodding a plodding eternity
to last.

-Wislawa Szymborska
Translated by Joanna Trzeciak

PS: Before you math nerds start throwing a tantrum, I know that the digits match to only half of the poem; from there on she's just using random numbers

The Rise Of Brawn GP

2009-03-28T13:43:00.006+05:30

Anyone who has followed F1 in the past two years will know that Honda has been a team that had great drivers, ample cash, and excellent technical prowess. Everything that an F1 team needs to hit the podium. But they never did. It baffles a lot of people, including me, about how Honda could never make it to the top ten, forget the top five. And the frustration for the drivers must have been incredible. It’s amazing that they never abandoned the ship. (Presently, my vocab is invaded by Fb’s Pirate version)

I have always been partial to Honda for all kinds of silly reasons. Jenson Button is the nicest looking guy in F1. And Honda is one of the more environmentally conscious car manufacturers. In fact I had my name on Jenson’s car in 2007. :D

Anyway, so halfway through last season, Team Principal Ross Brawn (ex-technical director of Ferrari) ceased all developments on their 2008 car, which basically means they had resigned to a terrible 2008. (I remember Steve Slater saying that the car handled like a shopping trolley.) And instead rechanneled all resources to the development of the 2009 car. Which means, this car was in making for longer than any F1 car on track this season.

But in a stupendous announcement, in December 2008, Honda decided to exit F1 due to the global economic crisis. Uptil then everyone was trying to believe that F1 with all it's glamour of being the most expensive sport on the planet is immune to the crisis.

Now, that left Button and Barrichello in the lurch. Thankfully, on March 6th, Ross Brawn himself bought the team and renamed it Brawn GP. Even though this was 3 weeks before the start of the season, development in the Honda F1 team hadn’t ceased over the winter in the hope that someone would buy it. (I'm so glad someone bought it. Imagine Honda quitting with such a great car for 2009)

Today was the first qualifying of the season, that of Australian GP. And guess who is one-two. Brawn GP. With Button leading up from the front. :)

If they maintain this form tomorrow and throughout the season, it’ll be the loveliest surprise stories in F1 in a long time.(Probably just second to the rise of Hamilton).

Now part of the controversy that Brawn GP and some few other teams are in is the diffuser. You see, every year FIA overhauls the rules of F1 car design. The reasoning behind being that otherwise there won’t be any opportunity for the lousy cars to get somewhere and the top-class cars to slip down spectacularly. And besides, it adds to the whole excitement and pre-season fervour of F1.

Unlike the big three (Ferrari, McLaren, Renault), Brawn GP and a few others, have interpreted the rules slightly differently and used a loophole in the rules to create this rear-wing diffuser. Note that throughout the development, they informed the FIA of it and it was approved. One week before the race, alarmed by the pace of Brawn GP, the rivals threw a fuss. Apparently, the diffuser is against the principles or 'the spirit' of the rules. As I understand it, the rules of F1 in the past years have favoured less downforce for safety reasons and although the rules didn’t explicitly state that a diffuser is illegal, it increases downforce and thus shouldn’t be allowed.

For now the stewards have given Honda and other teams the green signal but there is an appeal scheduled for Apr 14th. If it goes against Honda, they could be stripped of any points they earn in the preceding races.

I’m all for Brawn GP here. As Steve Slater says, if Brawn GP has been intelligent enough to play around the rules and be creative, they should be applauded!

Here’s hoping for some great action in tomorrow’s race!

Silly Post

2009-03-27T23:10:00.003+05:30

The problem with writing quality posts is that you can't go all silly and blog about mundaneness anymore.

I am looking forward to tomorrow, with pleasure and worry. Pleasure because it is the first qualifying of the season. And besides KERS, and weight reporting, there's Brawn GP, and adjustable front wing flaps.

Worry because procrastination continues with regard to my exams. The once systematic Anne who would mentally scoff at people who had concentration problems is falling into the same pit. Just shows that you should never mentally scoff. In 2009, two things that I mentally scoffed at happened to me. (No, I'm not telling you the other one).

What do you mentally scoff at?

I am pseudodrunk. It's the word Anonick uses when he hasn't had alcohol but feels drunk nonetheless.

Okay, thank you for reading my silly, below-par post and pleeease don't remove me from your reading list. (But it's my blog isn't it? I shall do as I please. Gah! Remove all you want)

Love,

PS: GO FERNANDO!!!

Her Morning Elegance

2009-03-12T12:51:00.004+05:30

Lovely stop-motion video. Even nicer song. :)

Her Morning Elegance: Oren Lavie

Sun been down for days
A pretty flower in a vase
A slipper by the fireplace
A cello lying in its case

Soon she's down the stairs
Her morning elegance she wears
The sound of water makes her dream
Awoken by a cloud of steam
She pours a daydream in a cup
A spoon of sugar sweetens up

And She fights for her life
As she puts on her coat
And she fights for her life on the train
She looks at the rain
As it pours
And she fights for her life
As she goes in a store
With a thought she has caught
By a thread
She pays for the bread
And She goes...
Nobody knows

Sun been down for days
A winter melody she plays
The thunder makes her contemplate
She hears a noise behind the gate
Perhaps a letter with a dove
Perhaps a stranger she could love

And She fights for her life
As she puts on her coat
And she fights for her life on the train
She looks at the rain
As it pours
And she fights for her life
As she goes in a store
With a thought she has caught
By a thread
She pays for the bread
And She goes...
Nobody knows

And She fights for her life
As she puts on her coat
And she fights for her life on the train
She looks at the rain
As it pours
And she fights for her life
Where people are pleasantly strange
And counting the change
And She goes...
Nobody knows

Einstein & the Atheist Professor

2009-03-03T09:31:00.010+05:30

My friend, Raj, sent me an email concerning Einstein and the Atheist Professor. (You can read it here). I replied saying that the story is false as validated by snopes here. Now he responded with "It's not about who was the student... it's about what he said and how he said it!!"

This is my take on the issue.

1) The prof says that god cannot exist because there is evil and the student defends it by saying that cold and darkness doesn't exist either.

Now this is something I never have propagated. I used to be a believer and I perfectly could reconcile the existence of evil with god. My reasons for not believing are otherwise.

2) The student says that the process of evolution hasn't been observed and therefore it isn't true.

Now, the process of evolution has been observed. An elementary layman example is industrial melanism. (I am going to write a post soon on misconceptions that most of us have about evolution. Evolution is NOT just 'survival of the fittest'. 'Survival of the fittest' is a teeny part of evolution.)

Besides, there is proof that humans have evolved from monkeys. Even though it isn't SEEN doesn't mean it isn't true. Of course, you can argue that the basis of these proofs are invalid. I address that argument a little later.

3) Student : Is there anyone here who has ever heard the Professor's brain, felt it, touched or smelled it?.....No one appears to have done so. So, according to the established rules of empirical, stable, demonstrable protocol, science says that you have no brain,sir. With all due respect, sir, how do we then trust your lectures,sir?

This is so silly. But anyway, read Russel's teapot for an explanation.

4) Student: "Sir, science can't even explain a thought. It uses electricity and
magnetism, but has never seen, much less fully understood either one. "

I love this one. Richard Dawkins has addressed it beautifully in 'The God Delusion' and calls it 'The Worship of Gaps'. I quote:

Creationists eagerly seek a gap in present-day knowledge or understanding. If an apparent gap is found, it is assumed that God, by default, must fill it. What worries thoughtful theologians such as Dietrich Bonhoeffer is that gaps shrink as science advances, and God is threatened with eventually having nothing to do and nowhere to hide. What worries scientists is something else. It is an essential part of the scientific enterprise to admit ignorance, even to exult in ignorance as a challenge to future conquests. As my friend Matt Ridley has written, "Most scientists are bored by what they have already discovered. It is ignorance that drives them on." Mystics exult in mystery and want it to stay mysterious. Scientists exult in mystery for a different reason: it gives them something to do. More generally, one of the truly bad effects of religion is that it teaches us that it is a virtue to be satisfied with not understanding.

There is, then, an unfortunate hook-up between science's methodological need to seek out areas of ignorance in order to target research, and the need of proponents of intelligent design (ID) to seek out areas of ignorance in order to claim victory by default. It is precisely the fact that ID has no evidence of its own, but thrives like a weed in gaps left by scientific knowledge, that sits uneasily with science's need to identify and proclaim the very same gaps.

Now these specifics are endless. There is a philosophical problem that I want to talk about.

Any argument of truth requires some pre-requisites. When you start geometry, you begin with axioms like 'Two points define one and only one line'. These axioms one accepts blindly. Similarly, in science, you have the scientific method. Scientists have built up science on axioms which rely on our senses and believe that something that our senses can perceive is true. (Quantum mechanics and wave particle duality have gone beyond these limitations of our senses too, but we'll leave that aside for now).

Believers may argue that nothing validates these set of axioms. And we can have a whole different set of axioms that validate god i.e. god is beyond the realm of science. (This is similar to Gould's Non-Overlapping Magisteria). But then, you can have set of axioms for everything. For proving that pigs can fly, that aliens are there on Mars, that the world schizophrenics see is true and ours is false blah blah. One cannot argue with that can we?

To Be

2009-02-28T19:16:00.004+05:30

Do you personify life? I see her as an inscrutable, slightly plump woman with her arms spread, smiling benevolently at the end of the day. I see her like a whirlwind of colours when I'm having a panic attack- colours that metamorphose into greyer hues as the panic deepens. I see her peeping out with enigmatic eyes from behind a shrouded cloud when I'm blue. Her clothes change with the situation, but they are always long and disappear into the haze below. I like her. :)

PS: The style of this post is inspired by Chumly.

Phil Plait & Carl Zimmer

2009-02-22T18:05:00.003+05:30

I love these two. :)