Amongst hipsters and techies

3D printing: First batch of prints

2014-03-24T09:27:00.001+05:30

So I've been toying with the idea of 3D printing for almost an year now. Last October, after much research I went for the ultra-low budget printrbot. It was a complete disaster from shipping to installing to printing, every step of the process was slow and painstaking. Right now, 3D printing is still much of an enthusiast movement, and it is by no means user-friendly. Much like the maker movement, it's held together by a community of geeks that troubleshoot their problems on internet forums and come up with their own solutions to tool malfunctions and poor calibration interfaces.

As a materials engineer, I'm excited about the future of manufacturing. I do have a vested interest in getting to know the nooks and crannies of the industry, but also I like the philosophical idea of letting people print their own stuff. As opposed to letting economy-of-scale dictate what's freely available to buyer (due to high initial cost of hard-masks), 3D printing will bring forth an era of printing whatever shape that we desire (due to the flexibility of soft-masks) at the comfort of our own homes .

Hence my initial failures with printrbot didn't deter my ultimate goal to start 3D printing on my own. The next printer I got was a Solidoodle 3. So far it's failed on me twice: first, the y-axis of the printer didn't move, and the printer was printing on a single line. After adjusting the belts and pulleys to get them going, I ran into another problem: the plastic got stuck on the extruder. This was a cleaned up by completely removing the hot-end and pulling on the plastic manually. With the correct socket-driver and tweezers for the job, this was also a breeze. And now, I'm able to print without a problem. There are still some issues with the bed-leveling and the plastic getting twisted by itself, but for the most part I can print simple models like these:

Name tag I made for work

Agent47 on top of Mr. Samuel

Minion, Companion Cube and a Pooh Buddha!

[Photoblog] Hoyt Arboretum

2014-02-05T08:14:00.000+05:30

Last weekend I went to see the Hoyt with Theresa. She was eager to give me a lesson in Botany, and I was craving for a morning walk, so we chose the Arboretum in Portland. It seemed like a good place to visit in the fall, although the evergreens and morning sun peaking through the branches are fairly good excuses to visit it in the winter. We roamed around for about an hour, trying to identify the trees, got some dog shit stuck to our shoes, and spotted a few birds: a redheaded woodpecker, a blue jay and a few humming birds. Ideal way to spend a lazy Sunday morning.

The Ethics of Friendship: Make friends, not bank accounts!

2014-01-21T09:29:00.003+05:30

We live simultaneously in a market-driven world and a social-driven world. And I feel like some people don't know how and when to differentiate between the two. I'll tell you a personal story that happened to me not so long ago; see if you can pick up where my friend got mixed up in the two worlds.

Background story:

My friend, let's call her Sarah to hide her real identity, wanted to buy a piano. She saw an ad on craigslist, but was too afraid to go by herself, so she called me up and took me with her. I graciously accepted and she picked me up sometime after work. We went to the sellers house, inspected the piano, she paid him the money and we came back. On the way back she made small talk but was clearly distracted with something else. She was texting a friend, and simply wanted to get rid of me. Well alright, I thought, she must be busy with something today, so I went my own way.

The next day after work, she calls me up and says that the seller has arrived with the piano but needs help moving it up her stairs. Even with the hint of neglect that I felt the other day, I reluctantly agreed and went to her house and helped the seller bring up her piano. The seller, wanting to make me feel appreciated mentioned that she had earlier said that I was the most muscular guy she knows. In a different context, this would've made me happy: I spend a fair amount of my time working on my strength and I'm rather proud that I can deadlift 250lbs without a problem. But in this situation, it made me feel a little sick.

But that's not the end of the story. After the task was well and done, she told me that she can buy me dinner, if I wanted to. I politely declined, saying that I already had something cooking at home, and left. A few days later, she tells one of my friends that I'm invited to a party because I lifted the piano for her, but he's not invited until he proves himself. She probably mentioned this as a joke, but the events leading to this, really had me take a double-take on her words. To this day, I'm not sure if she actually meant what she said to my friend. I never went to the party. A few days later, at work I see a lunch box in my cubical with Sarah's signature. She doesn't come and talk to me face-to-face, but she leaves a "tribute", so she doesn't feel guilty about using me. Now I really felt sick to my stomach.

The ethics lesson

So where did my friend go wrong? What made me feel uncomfortable, and what the hell does market-driven and social-driven worlds have to do with this? In a market-driven world, trade is key. When you buy and sell, you exchange goods/services for money or if you don't have money, you exchange it with goods/services of your own. In a socially-driven world, reciprocity is expected, but never explicitly mentioned. A price is never negotiated and even the mere mention of reciprocity or expectations is frowned upon.

Say for instance a friend invites you over for dinner. He cooks the meal, does all the cleaning before and after and leaves you entertained for the evening. Now, when you take his leave, do you say "Hey thanks for the Dinner. Here's $50 for your troubles!"? Or do you say "That was a great dinner. I don't know how to cook, and I'm kind of broke right now, so is it okay if I wash your car instead?" In case you're wondering, both these replies are insulting in a socially-driven world. Reciprocity should never be immediate but most of all should never try to "compensate" for the value that he's shown you. If you're wondering whether you should feel guilty about asking for help, no: that's what friends are for. You can always do something for them, but make sure it's not a "repayment" to what they've given you. In cases like these, the thought really counts, and making sure that your heart is at the right place, goes a long way.

To illustrate the insult of "compensating" for acts of friendship, let's go to an extreme. Let's imagine my friend Sarah offered me sex in return for my help in moving the piano. What do you think would happen? Not only would I be appalled at her propagating the sterotype that men would fuck anything that moves and are starving for sex all the time, I would be enraged that a friend would think that sex can be used as a commodity that can be exchanged rather than a passionate event that occurs between two consenting adults. If you're in the market-driven world, there are more female prostitutes than male prostitutes, because more men are willing to pay for sex than women. In other words, there's price for sex. But in the socially-driven world, sex is not a commodity that can be sold. Even the very notion of exchanging sex for anything in return, breaks down the intimacy involved in socially-driven sex. It's not that prostitution is inherently bad and socially-driven sex is inherently good: They are different beasts and should never be allowed in the same room.

So if a prostitute offered me sex in exchange for money, I wouldn't be offended. But if a friend/lover insinuated the same thing, I would be damn right mad. This same principle applies to any other service that you find in the market-driven world and socially-driven world. The insult stems from the fact that friendship cannot be bought or exchanged for goods or services.

If you remember the film Godfather, there's a famous scene in which the Godfather shows his disdain towards a man who comes to him with money in exchange of assassinating a man. It goes a bit like this:

[Photoblog] Aerial photography: Winter landscapes

2014-01-20T10:04:00.001+05:30

When I meant aerial photography, what I really meant was I took some photos on a plane during a trip from Portland to Houston. The cameras on mobile phones these days are comparable to what you would get if you would shoot with a kit lens of a DSLR, so the photos aren't actually bad. In fact, I'm quite amazed at the quality you can achieve with processing the photos with an in-phone app.

The first photo is of Mount Hood, Portland's signature cascade volcano. I went on a hike there not so long ago, when the sun was still shining on our gloomy city.

I also saw what's known as a "circle of glory", which is a rare optical phenomenon that only occurs when the atmospheric conditions are just right. It's a kind of a like reflection of the plane (or any observer for that matter) into the clouds surrounded by a rainbowish halo. I didn't think of it much then, so I didn't take a photo, but I remember thinking that if this ring occurs due to diffraction we could possibly calculate the distance to the sun if we knew dimensions of the plane and did a little bit of math. It was later when I looked up the phenomenon did I realize that it's an uncommon citing, pretty much like a double-rainbow.

Fight for Paternity leave, not flexible workplaces!

2014-01-17T05:45:00.002+05:30

Seriously, this is why men need to be more vocal about gender. Or at least those who speak about gender, speak with empathy towards men.

Helaine Olen, writing to Reuters, claims that the lack of workplace flexibility is sexism towards women! At one point she goes as far as to saying that government should intervene and penalize companies that don't offer flexible work hours. (How much more of a first-world-problem-mindframe can you have?) But then she backs down and admits it could be a bit more complicated than that. Imagine what would happen if companies were taxed for not offering women flexible work hours; it would further drop companies from hiring women, and women's wages will plummet in sequence. Can someone please give these columnists an Economics 101 lesson?

Why don't these women who complain about workplace inequality see the other side of the problem? They could easily fight for extended Paternity leave for Men; it would make more economic sense and cultural sense. You can't ask companies to forego profit, and our culture direly needs more fathers to help with child rearing. Fight for 18 months of paternity leave for men, and I guarantee you that gender equality will be propagate not only in the work place but also at home! No but really, you get gist of the argument... allow men to play a stronger role in households, empower men to help raise children and give them time to enjoy what they do.

You can't fight against a meritocracy but you can distribute merit in non-traditional ways to break a habit.

And for those of you who think men are not fit to take on child-rearing, here's a video that might convince you otherwise: (titled "My greatest achievement")

2013: Five things I learnt

2013-12-27T03:46:00.001+05:30

The last year has been quite an eventful year. I earned a PhD, got a kick-ass job, moved to the west-coast, settled down in a new city, a new home, met some amazing people and learnt a lot about myself and the world I inhabit. Here's five.

1.) I like doing things more than I like debating about things.

My PhD committee was a tough one. With the exception of my adviser, everyone had failed a student at least once. But after the defense when we were celebrating over a round of beer one professor came up to me and said

"Ranga it's been a real pleasure working with you. There are two kinds of people in this world. Ones that talk about doing things and the ones that actually do things. You belong to the latter."

This hit me hard because he was not the kind of guy that speaks candidly with students and never a person that shows emotion or affection. But he was clearly sad to see me leave and those words struck me hard more than all the goodbyes given that day.

Thinking back, I realize that he was right. I don't like debating over useless things, especially when something can be done about it. I'm passionate and stubborn about many things in life but I'm rarely confrontational over them. If someone has a different view point, I explain my perspective as concisely as I can and leave it there. It's not that I'm apathetic towards the cause or the person, I simply value action over senseless bickering. I've always thought I was a philosopher, but this year I realized that there's more of a doer in me than a thinker.

2.) The Universe is made out of Fields!

This was a game-changing realization. I never realized the standard model said this. Like many of you out there, I thought the Universe is made out of particles. Apparently not. Particles are just excitation of a quantum field. And thus particles are a subset of Fields. The Universe is made out of Fields. Not particles!

Not familiar with Fields? Here's a basic introduction.

3.) Feminism is a poor religion that preaches Patriarchy. It is by no means the only avenue for gender equality.

Not going to spend much time on this here, but if you want to read more here's my anti-feministFAQ.

4.) Exercise is probably the most potent drug you can administer.

Sleep and diet comes a close second. There are different kinds of exercise: aerobic, anaerobic, exercise that involves rhythm and flow, musicality and co-ordination, exercise that involves both flexibility and core strength. Do them all! Dance, climb walls, do hatha yoga, do acro-yoga, do aerial yoga, practice martial arts, play with a blunt weapon, go skiing… did I mention you should dance?

Seriously, if you can make one resolution for the next year, make this one. Exercise more, both in extent and diversity.

5.) Social hierarchies occur because you're not putting yourself out there.

For the average person who doesn't actively build relationships, the Friendship Paradox will be inevitable. What the friendship paradox basically says is that your friends probably have more friends than you do. Similarly, your sexual partners will likely have had more sexual partners than you.

If you can't follow the mathematical expression on wikipedia, the simple explanation is that the reason your friends are friends with you is because they are social butterflies. Not because you have anything in common or a deep metaphysical connection. Friendships and relationships don't happen because of compatibility. They are a work in progress. This is probably the same reason that arranged marriages have a higher probability of happiness over time than marriages where the partners fell in love before the marriage.

This is an easy rational conclusion arrive at. But it's rather hard to internalize. Not unless you approach and engage lots of strangers. And that's something I focused on in 2013. I talked and initiated friendships with anyone and everyone I could start conversations with. Men, women, old people, young people, middle aged people, I engaged them all. From coffee-shops and bars to house parties and dance parties: I developed a hunger for human connection. And in the process of getting to know similarities and differences of seemingly average human beings, I internalized the concept of everyone having some sort of insecurity they struggle with. I internalized why social hierarchies occur and why centrality occurs.

If you have the time and freedom to do so, I highly encourage this exercise. It will make you more appreciative of the life you live as well as the lives of those around you.

The Rape of Men. In honor of International Men's day.

2013-11-21T05:07:00.000+05:30

This is a sensitive issue. Aside from comments like "That's cute, but men can't be raped", "He probably enjoyed it. Men always enjoy sex." and "How do you get an erection if you're not aroused?", there is a general disregard for male victims - both from other men and women. I'll talk about why later, but let's first look at the statistics.

Look at the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence survey conducted by CDC, and in bold letters it's written that nearly 1 in 5 women and 1 in 71 men have been raped in their lifetimes. But what's interesting is how they define "Rape". Apparently, being "forced to penetrate" is not considered as rape. So the only way a man can be "raped" is by oral or anal penetration - which obviously occurs less than females getting forcefully penetrated, because anal/penetration is not the usual way for man to have sex - unless of course if the man in question is gay. CDC is not the only organization to have a sexist definition of rape. It's was only last year that the FBI recognized that men can also be raped by women.

Comparing the last 12 month's data in 2010, 1,267,000 men were made forced to penetrate compared to the total of 1,270,000 women who were either attempted/complete rape (which also includes sex under the influence of drugs -coerced or consensual). Considering the demographics of the United States (151 million men and 178 million women), and considering the gender of the perpetrator, 0.66% of men are likely to be raped by a woman and 0.69% of women are likely to be raped by a man. Compare that to the numbers you see in television and other media! By only showing sexual violence against women and defining rape as something that only happens to women, feminists are creating a culture of benevolent sexism (ie women are fragile and therefore need protection). When in reality, men are equally prone to sexual coercion. This in turn leads to victim blaming and eventually hostile sexism towards women. So essentially, feminists are creating an adverse environment for women by hiding the rape statistics of male victims.

And male rape is not confined to the United States. A cross-cultural study that included 7,667 participants from 38 sites around the globe including China, Europe, Australia and Canada report that female-on-male sexual coercion (2.1%) is higher than male-on-female sexual coercion (1.6%). (The lifetime statistics that CDC reports are questionable for comparison reasons between men and women because it asks the question "have you ever been raped?" rather than how many people will get raped in their entire lifetimes. For men, as they grow older and as their sexual value increase, it is expected that sexual coercion will occur more frequently.) But this is not even considering prison-rape, which is highly prevalent in the United States. 94% of sexually abused youth incorrectional facilities reported being abused by female staff. Among inmates reporting staff sexual misconduct, ~ 65% reported a female aggressor.

So the statistics speak for themselves. Not only is the rape of men real, it's swept under the rug and not considered a priority when it comes to gender politics. Why? The answer to this question probably lies in the way we treat gender identities. I like to call this the Red Riding Hood syndrome. Men getting raped (or even being vulnerable) is not sexy. A man who can't fend for himself or even protect himself has no chance of protecting his wife and children. But for women, being a damsel-in-distress is kind of like a mating call. Hordes of white-knights will stand up to prove their worth and sweep her off her feet. Killing dragons and metaphorical big-bad wolves on their way. So while men who are raped, aren't considered "real men", women who are raped receive undivided attention. Victim-blaming happens to women more often, but it's nothing compared to the social stigma that's associated with a "failed man". At least there is advocacy against victim-blaming, there is no sympathy for men who don't live up to masculinity. Men are the overwhelming majority of rape, but every news article you read, every def-jam poetry session you will hear will be about the rape of women.

And ultimately by writing and speaking about these "men's issues", I automatically devalue myself as a man. At this point, I really don't care. I achieved what I want in life, and I abide to no one. But for others who are aware of these issues, writing and speaking out against the double standards of society is akin to committing social suicide. Both women and men will consider them a sissy. An invalid, who is not worthy of the title of a man.

So, in honor of International Men's day, here's to all the men who can't speak about their troubles. Here's to 80% of suicide victims, here's to 76% of homicide victims, here's to 84% of fathers who loose custody battles over their children, here's to 99% of the soldiers killed in the front-lines, here's to the men who get an average of 2.5 times the sentence of a punishment given to women, here's to the 41% men who are accused of rape that are later found to be false allegations, and finally here's to the countless men who are hated on by false notions of patriarchy - the notion that there is a organization of men out there trying to consciously restrict the rights of women. Remember this the next time you talk about gender. Remember the forgotten sex.

Why you should go watch Ender's Game.

2013-11-03T08:19:00.000+05:30

As a much needed company outing, we went out and watched Ender's Game in one of those fancy lounge cinema places where you can order drinks and food and can also sit comfortably in a rather extravagantly decorated room with couches/loveseats etc. Surprisingly the film that we watched was pretty good too.

Ender's Game, a film based on the 1985 novel of the same name, is not a superhero film. It's not about some morally superior space alien coming to earth and behaving better than everyone else. Nor is it about a multimillionaire playboy running around in a dark suit fighting petty street crime, while the oil tycoons and wall street bankers steal billions from the poor. (Let's not get started on the Avengers because I might not be able to stop.)

In fact, Ender's Game has nothing going on for it save for perhaps the shining Harrison Ford prancing around in a military uniform. The protagonist is just a kid, not old enough to know the rules of the adult world and also stubbornly bold enough to question the authority of the "Good guys". I'm pretty sure if this was an superhero film, he would be the spoilt brat who schemes to destroy the world.

But in the child protagonist lies the strength of the film….. In the real world that we live in, we don't need any more heroes, or "real men". In fact we have more than enough of them. If you look at Stanford Prison experiment or the famous Milgram experiment, it's apparent that the root of evil among humans is not there's a lack of law and order, it's because the law and order is rarely scrutinized. Hitler was a maniac, sure; but who carried out his orders? Who tortured, enslaved and killed thousands of people in concentration camps? The American military personnel who tortured, raped and killed the prisoners in Abu Ghraib, were not sociopaths or psychopaths. They were ordinary men and women (like you and me) who gave in to institutional circumstances than rationalizing the absolute nature of their actions.

There are billions of us inhabiting the earth today. To blame genocide or crimes against humanity on a small number of "unusual" people is insane. Hitler is a scapegoat, the the real evil is within us. If you see systems that are broken everyday and you do nothing to fix them, then you are equally at fault with the ones who created the rules. This is the ultimate lesson that Ender's Game leaves us with.

The child protagonist is an ideal vehicle to get this idea to the younger generation. Will it work? Probably not as well as I would hope. But the film leaves a tear in my eye, because it's left the ever-so dainty-feel-good-happily-ever-after hero's tale amiss.

Greg Egan: one of the best science-fiction writers I've ever read

2013-10-28T07:29:00.002+05:30

Photocredit: abrinsky

In the beginning, man thought the mind and body were separate from each other. Religion and philosophies based on a "soul" or a metaphysical substance that goes beyond rules of day-to-day life was embraced, partly due to the grandeur of having a spiritual existence, partly due to our egoistical and narcissistic notion that humans are somehow different from nature.

But as neuroscience begins to unveil the inner workings of the brain, the once mystical and abstruse idea of the inner Self, is being boiled down to an information array of neurons that are accelerated or antagonized by chemicals and hormones.

Yet popular culture has been slow to pick up on this. I'm not surprised because people are still struggling with simple ideas like that morality can be independent of religion, or that gender equality can be independent of feminist theory (ie patriarchy, male-priverlage, rape-culture).

But I've started reading Greg Egan recently, and I've fallen in love with his ideas. He's one of the human beings that rise above all this popular rollercoaster of political correctness. From speculating about general relativity to physcopharmcology and neurofeedback, he integrates the wisdom of modern science to fiction like I've never seen before.

Here's an expert from his 2013 short-story collection Luminous. It's an inner dialogue of a idealistic criminal who in his search for the ultimate high, stumbles upon what Buddhists refer to as Nirvana.

There is no second Self inside the [my]self. No inner puppeteer to pull the strings and make the choices. There is nothing, no one to kill for, no emperor in the mind to defend to the death. And there are no barriers to freedom to overcome. Love, hope, morality… tear all that beautiful machinery down, and there'd be nothing left but a few verve cells twitching at random - not some radiant purified, unencumbered Ubermensch. The only freedom lies in being this machine, and not another.

If you're new to Greg Egan I highly recommend his novel Permutation City, which was first published in 1994. And frankly, I still can't comprehend why his ideas aren't embraced by more writers, even after all this time.

[Photoblog] Mount St. Helens - Ape Canyon trail, attempt #1

2013-10-22T09:44:00.003+05:30

Remember Mt Saint Helens? I went there again this weekend. This time attacking the volcano from the southeast side. I started on the Lava Canyon trailhead but couldn't complete it because the sun was setting on me sooner than I expected. Yes, the winter is coming! I managed about 2 miles and then started to head back because I didn't want to stay in the woods after dark. I also did a bit of aerial yoga beforehand and was a bit dizzy to begin with.

The trail itself is not crowded, but I ran into a few bikers along the way and because of its narrowness at certain points, you have to stop and stand out of their way. It's not an easy trail and I wouldn't recommend it for families with kids. The elevation gain is around 1500 feet so it's not terribly hard, and you could do without getting any gear involved.

In about the 2 mile mark, the hike is mostly inside the woods

Sun setting on the volcano

Self-portrait.

Autumn colors were present, but were slowly fading away.

Mount Hood in the distance.

[Photoblog] Angel's Rest Hike

2013-10-08T09:04:00.000+05:30

I wanted to go to Crater Lake this weekend but US government had better ideas. I really hope the shutdown doesn't last any longer because there are so many national parks that I want to go to before it gets cold. Anyways, I decided to go see Angel's Rest, which seems to be one of the favourite spots among locals.

Much like Multnomah Falls, Angel's Rest is another steep hike that with a >1000 feet elevation change in the Columbia River Gorge. The total hike is around 4.6 miles both ways, will take you around 3 hours to complete, and is not terribly difficult. You're granted a 270 degree view at the top, overlooking Hood river and a gorgeous sunset if you time your hike accordingly. There's no sign of the cascade volcanoes from the top, but that doesn't take away the majesty of the view. The winds can be pretty heavy at the top, and if it wasn't for my 200lbs of weight, I'm pretty sure I would've been lifted off the ground.

The first part of the hike is blessed with flowing water and green woods.

The elevation change seems daunting at first, but eventually you get there.

Taking a break.

At the very top.

The winds coming through this pass nearly threw me off balance.

Kite surfing at Hood River. This is where the sport originally took off.

Idealized female beauty. Objectification and other fun stuff.

2013-10-07T09:04:00.000+05:30

I don't deny it. I'm attracted to sexy women. From the irresistible Hannah Simone to the luscious Kate Upton (nsfw links), I enjoy and appreciate the female form. I don't know anything about these women; their education, livelihood, sense of humor or political ideology: it is quite irrelevant really, and my brain has no space for such subtlety. I just admire them for their insanely good looks and the way they carry themselves. Am I to be blamed for this?

There is a difference between attraction and love. And most women don't seem to see a difference. If you're a woman contemplating about the "unfairness" of male sexual preference (or as feminists like to put it "objectification"), let me clear up a few things.

1.) Love and Lust: completely different things.

Neurologically speaking, they are different. Lust induces dopamine and activates the reward system of the brain, followed by vasopressin that is said to mediate male arousal. Romantic love on the other hand activates oxytocin and longterm pair bonding. Hence the phrase, "I'd probably fuck her/him, but wouldn't date her/him."

The problem with these seemingly conflicting motivators for sex and intimacy is that, the shortterm lust seeking behavior gets overrated and overemphasized in social situations when compared to the longterm pair bonding motivators. For example, it's easier to put on some makeup, wear a red-dress, and emphasize your hips and boobs rather than showing that you're a loving, loyal and empathetic human being. But believe me, the latter has a permanent longer lasting effect, literally.

Hannah Simone or Kate Upton may have captured my lust, but they certainly haven't captured my yearning for long-term pair bonding. The belongingness and comfort that I feel when I'm with my female friends that I know and trust, is far more greater than any lust-induced sexual motivators that these idealized models can bring to the table. I would gladly put myself in harm's way, jump in front of a speeding train or run into a burning building, to save the lives of people I love and care about. And I wouldn't think twice. That's the power longterm pair bonding.

For each woman that make themselves emotionally distant to bring about an aura of "an object of desire" (rather than a subject of worth), please spare me the self-pity. I have none to give. You have brought this up on yourself. The only exception to this rule is women who are brought up in cultures that promote gender segregation (single sex schools and religious fundamentalist cultures that separate interaction of boys and girls). Such men and women are brought onto a world of benevolent sexism, that simply doesn't comprehend relationships of equal standing.

2.) Women are naturally more body-conscious than men, because of innate self-objectification.

According to a studydone by Meredith Chivers, PhD, heterosexual women are sexually aroused by any sex: men or women. Men on the other hand are only aroused by women. This implies that women are capable of objectifying themselves on a sexual level, while men usually do not. By judging themselves on beauty alone, women have created mass-markets for cosmetics, fashion and boy-bands that sing "you don't know you're beautiful".

Since heterosexual men are not aroused by other men, they have no internal yardstick to compare themselves by. Hence they're not as self-conscious as women tend to be. Even if they are, any remnants of self-objectification is washed out by society that tells them to "suck it up and be a man." So rather than having the luxury to bitch about not being attractive enough, men usually focus on other aspects of their lives.

Btw, if you have the time, read the whole of Chiver's work. The anatomy of female sexual desire is no longer a mystery to science and can explain a lot of the sex discrepancies we observe in the human mating game. You will learn to appreciate the practical side of human sexuality that is often fogged by political correctness and mainstream feminism. I may write a separate post on this in the future.

3.) Sexual objectification occurs both ways.

From Michelangelo's David to modern-day Hugh Jackman, the male form has always been sexually objectified. If you haven't noticed this, you're either selectively blind or completely aloof. The tall, dark, mysterious stereotype of the ideal male sexual provider, is so prevalent among nearly all of the women I've met, it cannot be missed. One of the reasons why such men are not wolf-whistled on the street, is that looks alone is not enough to satisfy the heterosexual female appetite (see next para). The other reason is that the typical woman plays the responsive game of sex. She would prefer to be approached, seduced and "won-over", rather than initiating the first move. Even if she's completely aroused, and doesn't need any winning over, it's highly unlikely that she'll initiate first contact. This translates into social dynamics where men are always seen as the perpetrator and women are always the victim.

But objectification of men doesn't stop at the eye-candy level. It goes deeper. It occurs in levels of wealth, power, and resources. Okcupid, the world's largest online dating site reports that if you're a man over 23, and earning less than $30,000 per annum, you'll be in the lower 10th percentile of those receiving messages. The translation is that, men not only have to be attractive, but also wealthy, resourceful, can approach a woman (risking rejection), and capable of seducing her (and risking falling into the perpetrator-victim loop).

It's a unhealthy dynamic in this modern age where we consider gender equality to be the norm. There are some interesting subcultures that have arisen because of this discrepancy. In Japan, there's a group called Herbivore Men that are refusing to chase after women for various reasons. In the United States, there's a similar self-ownership movement called Men Going their own Way (MGTOW), arisen due to the increasing misandry, sexist legislation, and impossible expectations pushed onto men by society.

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So get over it. Sexual objectification occurs both ways. It's natural, and like all natural things it's unfair. Women are more self-conscious about it, but that doesn't make the plight of women more severe than the plight of men. And in the longrun, lust and sexual objectification doesn't even matter in longterm pair bonding. What matters is (to be corny as Shania Twain) is that "the woman in you can bring out the man in me". For that you don't need to be a perfect 10, nor do you need to have a PhD in Astrophysics. Get over this "first-rate girl" nonsense and carry on with life.

Context: This post was written as a reaction to this. I'm appalled at the increasing number of "unhappily single" women who blame everyone else for their misery. I don't' know if this is due to the jezebel generation of tumblr first-world feminists who have solipsistic views of social constructivism, or just the hormones kicking in that leads to find the faults of everyone else than themselves. Either way, I'm not amused by the lack of empathy and the self-pitying propaganda of these women.

[Photoblog] Gaming PC build: A beast has awakened!

2013-09-19T12:45:00.003+05:30

I'm pretty psyched about this.

I haven't had a proper desktop for nearly 5 years now, so I didn't plan on going kosher on this. So without further adieu, let's get on to business.

CPU: Intel i7-4770K. This is the flagship 4th generation Intel processor, until the Haswell-E lineup comes to the market. And it is damn fast. The stock speed is 3.5Ghz, but with adequate cooling most of us can overclock this baby to 4.5Ghz and above. And obviously it's Intel, and won't fail on you.

Motherboard: Asus Z87 Pro. This has Intel's latest chipset that was released a couple of months ago and has some very nifty features. On-board wifi and bluetooth, UEFI bios, automatic overclocking system, automatic power saving mode, just to name a few. It doesn't have a thunderbolt port (that allows upto 10Gb/s transfers), but meh, I can live with that.

CPU Cooler: Corsair H55 57.0 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler. This is liquid cooling on a budget. I'd probably get something more substantial on Black Friday, but for now this is good enough.

Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1866. I found these at a discounted price at newegg, and they seem to be decent. Will probably upgrade to 2800 and a better latency when I have the means.

Storage: Intel S3500 SSD 160GB. Intel's midrange enterprise SSD is so good in terms of speed and price point, I don't see any reason to go for a consumer grade SSD. See Anand's review here.

Video Card: Now this is something I don't want to compromise. I did think, for a brief moment, to go full retard and buy a Geforce Titan. But then came to my senses and bought a GTX 780. And this is by no means a compromise. The superclocked EVGA GTX 780 has been a champ and ran every game that I threw at it at maximum graphics settings.

Eyecandy for the soul

It's not a Titan, but it's nothing short of looking like one.

Those RAMs look pretty darn nice.

Top view.

Lightning fast. There is literally no load time for Windows 8.

Everything in place.

Isn't she a beauty?

Assasin's Creed III on nVidia Surround. Highest graphics settings. Runs like a charm.

[Photoblog] Silverfalls hike

2013-09-16T08:14:00.000+05:30

After a rough week at work and nearly 24 hours of staring at a LCD screen I needed to get out. I recently got a neutral density filter for my lens as well as a travel tripod, so I wanted to go out and capture some flowing water. So naturally, silver falls state park was my go to destination.

The hike is around 4-5 miles and can be completed under 3 hours. The park has 10 waterfalls, a picnic area, functional restrooms and a log/cabin that had some information about the history of the region. The parking fee was $5. The elevation change isn't that bad, and the trail for the most part is paved with shortcut connections to the road. Being accessible has it's downsides, because the places near the waterfalls are densely crowded. I was talking with a volunteer for awhile and he told me the best time to come is in the winter, when there is less crowd and more water. It seems that the summer gets less than 1/10th of the water that they get in the winter. Well, that's one item to add to the winter hiking to-do list.

Moss covered trees

From inside the waterfall

Yes those little guys are humans. (for scale)

The region surrounding the state park is a huge farmland and stretches as far as the eye can see.

[Photoblog] Mount Hood: Zigzag mountain trail

2013-09-05T09:32:00.002+05:30

Last weekend I went on a hike to Mount hood. It's a dormant volcano and the highest point in the state of Oregon. The top of the mountain is covered with snow even in the summer and people do ski in that area. The skiing season really begins in late autumn, and apparently it gets really busy. So I wanted to go on this hike as soon as possible.

Mount hood is essentially a hikers paradise. There are more than 1200 miles in the surrounding area and they range from deep forests to lush meadows to barren lands to glaciers. We started off by having lunch at the zigzag inn, which was amazing btw; they serve the really good pizza and amazing sandwiches. The trail started off at Timberline Lodge and overlaps the Paradise Park trail up until the zigzag overlook. We went to the overlook and then some more to find a nice waterfall among some rocky grounds. Had to turn back at this point because we were both tired and out of time. I think we hiked around 6-7 miles in 5 hours, but the we also covered a lot of vertical ground (around 1200 feet both up and down), and that was probably the hardest part of the hike.

Along the hike, I met an interesting backpacker who had started off at the Mexican border and plans to hike to the Canadian border. She's 80% done and it's taken her around 5 months to come to Oregon. She seemed to be a brave soul, quitting her day job and hiking by herself cross-country: heck I wouldn't even dream of doing it. She had also previously trekked the Appalachian trail in the east coast, which also had taken her 4 months to complete.

I'll be visiting Mount Hood again soon, perhaps to see the Meadows in Autumn.

Why I love Intel's Wireless Display (WiDi) technology

2013-09-03T06:33:00.000+05:30

I feel like this is the least talked about and underrated technology out there.

Ever wanted to wirelessly broadcast a video from your PC to your TV? How about a web-browser window or a powerpoint presentation or netflix, or youtube or any goddamn application that you can run on your PC? How about your entire desktop, reproduced with HD clarity, 5.1 surround sound with absolutely no lag, no additional processing power and no cables?

Well if you have a 2nd gen or higher Intel CPU and a SmartTV, you can do this. Even if you don't have a SmartTV, but have a display with an HDMI input, you can buy a wireless dongle for around $30 that enables dual band wifi, and you're all set with the hardware.

Personally, I prefer watching selected stuff from youtube, vudu or netflix, rather than watching the bland stuff on cable TV. Since my TV is hooked up to a better sound system, I prefer listening to music this way too. (Yes WiDi broadcasts both audio and video!). So if I want to cook or do something else away from the TV while listening to my favourite podcast, I can simply run my podcast player from my PC and broadcast it to my TV speakers.

Hey look ma! No cables! Broadcasting Django to my TV.

And perhaps the most compelling reason why I like WiDi so much is that I can simultaneously work on my laptop while the video is running on the TV. For this you'll need to install the WiDi widget, which let's you broadcast specific applications rather than the whole desktop. And so far, I haven't noticed a difference in speed while running CPU intensive programs like photoshop while simultaneously broadcasting a film to my TV.

The film is broadcasting, but I can still work on other applications on my laptop.

First World Anarchism in Portland

2013-08-28T11:57:00.003+05:30

Blatant disobeying of rules.

I came across this while visiting Crystal Spring's Rhododendron garden the other day. Looks like someone thoroughly enjoys breaking the rules. Btw, if you're planning to visit the garden: don't. It's a unkept mess with no flowers what-so-ever. The people at the front gate charge you $4 for entrance without warning you of the parks condition. If you really want to see the Rhododendrons, go there in early spring like April or May. I wouldn't be surprised if this posted Bills was a work of someone who came to the garden and left equally underwhelmed.

[Photoblog] Mount St Helens - Hummocks trail

2013-08-27T07:09:00.001+05:30

Last weekend I visited Mount St. Helens in the state of Washington - around 2 and half hour drive from the city of Portland. It's an active volcano that last erupted in 1980 killing 57 people and destroying over 250 homes. It's recorded as the deadliest and most economically destructive eruption observed in the recent history of the United States. Just before the volcano erupted, half of the mountain also came collapsing down, and is said to be the largest landslide ever to be recorded by humans.

The surrounding area is now preserved as a national volcanic monument and is studied by scientists as to how nature recovers from such a catastrophy. Human involvement is restricted to a minimum and hiking is strictly limited to trails.

I hiked along the Hummocks trail, and it took me around 3 hours (with ample stopping for photos and talking to other hikers) to complete. It's possibly the easiest trail there, but your if you want to take on the advanced trails, trekking poles are recommended. The trail goes into the blast radius and you can see huge areas of land struck by devastation as well as how nature is blossoming in-spite of it. Supposedly there're herds of Elk that you can see in the distance, although I couldn't capture any from my lens. There were however, several local eateries that had elk burgers, so there's probably plenty of them around. I'm pretty sure I'll be back in a couple of months to hike the eruption trail and visit the Johnston Ridge Observatory.

Nature bounces back

Some of the areas had bright red soil. Indicating copious amounts of Iron Oxide.

Wild Flowers are abundant in the trail.

Coldwater creek. Ideal for a leisure day of canoeing.

Apparently, if you're lucky you can spot herds of Elk in this area.

The base of Mount St. Helens.

Scortched land.

More wildflowers.

The top of Mount St. Helen's was covered by clouds.

[Photoblog] International Rose Test Garden

2013-07-29T10:13:00.001+05:30

Walked around the rose garden at Washington Park today. Being a sunny Sunday, parking was a nightmare. But eventually found a spot. The whole place had a lingering aroma of spring and happiness. I was drinking my first Kombacha tea as I walked around, and that may have also helped with the heightened senses, but it certainly was a pleasant experience. Lots of families with kids up and about, a few professional photographers taking pictures of girls, and a lot of couples lying about. An amphitheater is also placed next to the rose garden, and I learned that there's usually a live band playing on Friday. Something to keep in mind, if I have a Friday open.

4 reasons why I disdain Feminism

2013-07-29T01:12:00.001+05:30

From a gallery at MoMA, NYC (2010)

1.) Blaming everything on the "Patriachy"

"OMG Patriarchy!" One of the most common things that you would hear a feminist say. Apparently everything in her life, all her trails and tribunals, all the unsuccessful endeavors she started but couldn't complete, and everything she didn't start because of her irrational fears, is due to Patriarchy.

Patriarchy, according to Wikipedia, is "a social system in which the male is the primary authority figure central to social organization and the central roles of political leadership, moral authority, and control of property, and where fathers hold authority over women and children. It implies the institutions of male rule and privilege, and entails female subordination."

There is no doubt that Patriarchy might have been the prevalent social system in medieval Europe, but this is the 21st century and other than radical Islamist nations, I have not witnessed systematic oppression of women by a male hierarchy. The claims of gender gaps in pay-scales are highly exaggerated and there are certain reasons behind it. The claim that women are underrepresented in Science and Technology is true, but it's not because there's a organization of men conspiring against women joining STEM fields - it's because girls prefer the soft sciences than hard sciences. From my experience, female engineering students are appreciated to the same extent as male engineering students, if not more, due their scarcity.

The list of weak patriarchy conspiracy theories are endless, but you have to ask yourself a simple question: What would men gain from systematically thwarting the efforts of women? Especially in the context of a capitalistic society where profit triumphs everything else, there is no reason to discriminate between a woman who does the same job as a man.

Let me leave you with a hilarious take from Richard Dawkins about Patriarchy invading science.

2.) Asking for chivalry and equality at the same time

This is not really a big issue, but more of a pet peeve of mine. I always smile to myself when a girl talks about wanting men to treat her equally and chivalrously at the same time. It probably stems from not knowing what equality really means, or what responsibility means. She's probably asking not to be abused, and I get that, so I usually shrug it off with a mental note thinking that this person has a limited vocabulary. There are so many instances where gender equality and sexual preference is confused with each other, and it's so hilarious that it's worthy of another post. So onto the next point, which is significantly more of chronic case of confusion.

3.) Discouraging all forms of slut-shaming

Let me make this clear. If you are in a monogamous relationship, and you have sex with another person that isn't your significant other, you are a fucking slut. You are not a whore, because a whore is not deceiving anyone, and is earning a honest living. It would be unfair on prostitutes to call you a whore. You are a shameful, deceitful, good-for-nothing slut. And also a disgraceful human being. This goes for men as well as women. If you're Tiger Woods and you didn't tell your wife about your sexual escapades, guess what? You are a fucking slut! If you are Kristen Stewart and forgot to tell your boyfriend that you slept with the director of your upcoming film, guess what? You're a fucking slut!When feminists were up and arms against the slut-shaming of Kristen Stewart and saying that it was a part of the "war against women", I could seriously feel my blood boil.

Now that we've defined who a slut is, let's define people who are not sluts. If you're NOT in a monogamous relationship, and you sleep with say a hundred people, you are NOT automatically qualified for the title of a 'slut'. Simple as that. I cannot comprehend why this is such a hard thing to grasp.

4.) Perpetrating the idea that men cannot be victims

"What about the menz" is a common snaky attitude that feminists will bring up when men try to talk about their issues. Apparently in the minds of most feminists, women are the only victims in relationships, society, and life in general. Either they don't acknowledge that men can also be victims or they don't acknowledge men who are victims to be "real men". I sincerely don't know which is worse. The former implies that these so-called feminists are incapable of empathy towards 50% of the people they interact with, and the later implies that they want nothing to do with men who are vulnerable.

Framing sexual assault as a women's rights issue, rather than a criminal issue - is one of the most dangerous things that feminism has done. First of all, don't you realize that this kind of stereotyping actually encourages and normalizes sexual assault? Secondly, sexual assault can happen to both men and women, and contrary to popular belief women can actually be the perpetrator. It baffles me how most female criminals get lesser sentences than their male counterparts, but more interestingly how the male victims of female sexual assault don't even prosecute to the extent they could. This is especially true in the case of domestic violence. In the United States the statistics for male-on-female domestic violence vs female-on-male domestic violence are roughly the same. But The feminist doctrine makes us believe that women are the only victims.

Forget sexual assault, forget domestic violence: let's focus on relationships. How many of you think that men cannot be victims in a relationship? And if they are a victim, then they're just not "manning-up" or not "real men". How many of you think that women are incapable of emotionally traumatizing men? Since feminism has gone mainstream, the "women are wonderful" effect is prevalent among men as well as women. Men who are not aware of the feminist agenda or just femme fatale in general, constantly ignore helping other men, and fulfill their altruistic desires by focusing on damsels-in-distress. Of course, the damsel-in-distress mentality is what brings forth benevolent sexism and induces hostile sexism in the long run. But mainstream feminism doesn't seem to doesn't seem to be troubled by this, their focus on victimhood is so damn perverse that they forsake long-term gender dynamics in the interest of short term funding. Harming both men and women in the process.

A final word:

I know I'm going to get a lot of hate mail for this post, but all this has been brewing in my mind for a long time and I needed to vent. Most of the hate will come from people who skim through this and take it as anti-feminist misogynist rhetoric. I am not a misogynist, and I'm not an anti-feminist, IF the word "feminism" would take on the real meaning it was given: gender equality. But feminism in America is not about gender equality. It's a social construct that is slowly destroying the very values it seeks to uphold. Instead of taking advantage of the system, I am trying to point out that the system is broken. And if you wish to crucify me for it, so be it. All I want to say is that there are people who take advantage of the broken system (both men and women) for personal gain, without thinking about the long term consequences. Be weary of them. And be weary of the stories they weave. You have been warned.

[Photoblog] Oregon Airshow from afar

2013-07-27T10:16:00.003+05:30

[Photoblog] Cannon Beach

2013-07-23T11:56:00.002+05:30

So last Saturday I crawled my way towards Canon Beach. It's a bit more than a one hour drive from Hillsboro but I had my Pandora setup on the car so time wizzed by. The tide wasn't heavy, but maybe it was because of days ahead of the full moon and neap was in effect. Planned to see the sunset, but unfortunately the day was cloudy and the sun was no where to be found. Even though it was the middle of the summer, the day had a light jacket feel to it. People were making fires on the beach and warming themselves. There were a few kids playing kites as well. It wasn't a busy beach, but that could be due to the weather.

The beach is marked by the characteristic Haystack rock, which towers 72 m high. Supposedly, it's one of the mostly heavily photographed things on the west coast. The town of Cannon beach is quaint and filled with restaurants, coffee shops, pubs, galleries and boutique shops.

Canon Beach - mostly deserted.

Close up of Haystack Rock. Yes those are two humans, for scale.

[Photoblog] Multnomah Falls

2013-07-15T08:00:00.000+05:30

Spent my Saturday visiting the Multnomah falls and surrounding area. Being a summer weekend in Portland, the place was packed. Had to drive around for about 20 mins before I could find a parking spot. Lots of families with small kids (even toddlers) were out and about.

The trail leading up to the fall is 1 mile long. Not worth the uphill hike imo, but it's one of those things that everybody does. The fall it self 600 feet in height and is one of the largest waterfalls that I've seen. I later found out that it was also the tallest waterfall in Oregon. It's breathtaking to look at even when it's full people.

This blog has been transformed to..

2013-07-03T19:53:00.004+05:30

I completed my PhD at Carnegie Mellon last month, and so my stay at the city of Pittsburgh came to an end. So it's kind of redundant to call this blog "Notes from the Iron city" anymore. Also reading back on my earlier posts, I feel like they were cramped up, written out from a stressed out grad student's point of view. I intend to change that, and I promise to write more regularly.

I also intend to write less about the growing epidemic of "Entitled Feminism" in the western world. I've realized that movements "against" things are bound to fail, and even worse, cause more harm than they would do good. Instead I'm going to focus on constructive posts that might help fellow men and women alike. I'm also planning to focus more on topics such as cognitive science, behavioral economics, physics, and philosophy.

The blog will be titled "Among hipsters and techies", for reasons that will be soon be clear.

Who am I? The person that remembers, or the person that lived?

2013-07-02T20:01:00.003+05:30

I listened to Daniel Kahneman's TEDtalk several years ago, and it didn't strike me as very important. I didn't realize he was a Nobel laureate and neither did I catch Chris Andersson casually thanking him for inventing behavioral economics at the end. I could tell you that I was ignorant, childish and didn't know any better at the time. But the fact is, I'm still ignorant, childish and don't know any better. What got me lost was the various definitions of happiness and the scientific jargon that seemed to be superficial of any actual message.

Years later I read his book "Thinking fast and slow", and I realized the context of his talk in terms of the bigger picture he paints. Today I watched his talk again and it immediately struck me as groundbreaking. The way we spend our lives, the decisions that we make, the experiences we choose to have will ultimately depend on the battle between the Remembering Self and the Experiencing Self. Not only that; the pain, the suffering, the joy, the serenity and all other emotions that we have are not based on reality. Cognitive biases such as focusing illusions, creates a coherent but completely different story than the actual events that took place. Holy moly, Admiral Ackbar! Good luck on making that important decision that will determine the course of the rest of your life.

Of course, for the great of many of us, making decisions in our lives is not very critical. There's a recipe that most everyone follows. You grow up, get an education, get a job, build a family, find some hobbies, travel now and then, get a different job, hate your life, mid-life crisis, find meaning in life again through your children, find some spiritual connection and then die. The real big decisions in life are already made for you. The only thing you need to do is survive, go through the motions, and ignore all other possibilities as moral sins.

But what if you don't subscribe to this classical notion of life? You will have to make a conscious decision every step you take. This is obviously taxing on our limited cognitive endurance, and is why most people don't do it (seriously, there's such a thing as ego-depletion if you work your brain too hard). But for those of us who do choose to write our own destiny, it's somewhat of a warning sign. It's not only women that don't know what they want, we as a species have terrible intuition of what's actually making us happy. The public policy implications are tremendous and people will use this to argue for and against personal freedom. If you do exercise your personal freedom, the illusion of knowing thy happiness is something to constantly hold onto in your 3-second lives.