Whiskey and Trekking: back from the mountains with stories to tell

Yeah, me back from ze mountains of Virginia. a place called Whitetop.. so bloody remote that it lies within the 3% of US soil not covered by cellphone service. And, no, they do not have internet up there...it was a pretty awesome time... and let6 me just tell you two things and wrap up for now... :

1. do not drive a Chevy Trail Blazer: that is an SUV which handles like a cow (although in all fairness, this is the only SUV I have driven.. perhaps all SUVs handle badly).
2. if you drink copious amounts of whiskey at night and dance, and then climb mountains the next morning.. the whiskey will seep through every pore in your body.

The nature of physical theory.

So, the question being asked here is whether physics and the laws of nature are just tidy bookkeeping in nature, or are they here for some other, perhaps higher reason. Paul Davies, from the Arizona State University speculates about the nature of physical theory, and complains that at the core of rationality, as exemplified by science, lies a firm belief that the Universe is ordered and comprehensible. Such a belief is not too far removed, perhaps, from believing that the Universe was coughed up by a huge fish, or that the world sits on top of a huge turtle, or perhaps even that it was made by a nice old white man with a huge beard (think a Caucasian Rabindranath Tagore) who rested on the 7th 24 hr cycle.

The problem is again one of the chicken and the egg, what was it that breathed fire into equations, to borrow someone's very picturesque phrase? This discussion carries a lot of weight, including amongst others, opinions by Weinburg and Hawking. Well, I don't know what to think.... personally, I feel a mechanistic view of the Universe is all we can achieve... any further beyond that, and we begin questioning the whole reason for existing anyway, and that leads to ruinously long coffee hour discussions.

Magic Bus?!?!?!?!!?

The University runs a free bus service. Good.
The free bus service runs at all odd hours, long after the city bus service has packed up and gone home. Better.
The University operates a service called 'magic-bus', whereby GPS systems on buses locate them on a map/line and the webpage tells you when the next bus at any given stop will arrive. Awesome!
This service is down on a Saturday night with a snowstorm on its way, I have to finish this experiment and get home, and the city service has packed up hours ago. Yeah, bad.

My oh my, its almost Christmas week!!

And here I am in the lab at 9 on Sat night... (this is a recurring theme in my liff, and hence, my blog). Anyhow, I decided to give Tom Clancy a chance.. normally I am very leery of technothrillers.. and war fiction, in general... but hey, the man is popular.. must be for some reason. Quite well written, but still, regretfully, merely a technothriller. The greatest war novel of the last half century, and perhaps of all time is probably 'Bomber', by Len Deighton. This is a book that I had dissected with immense care (both literally and figuratively) about 17 years ago. I would like to find and read it again.. and see what I think, two decades later. Anyways, we are done with teaching for the semester (well.. the sem itself is almost finished).. so that is a load lessened. The building is to be evacuated at midnight for some major overhaul of the ventilation system. I guess there can't be more than ten people in the whole building.. (there are usually a thousand).... yeah.. Sat night.......

How can we save the world?

I found out recently that Honda has released the Civic GX which runs on compressed natural gas (CNG). CNG is mostly methane (CH4), which has the highest calorific value amongst all hydrocarbon fuels. That means, gram for gram, CNG delivers more punch than petrol or diesel. CNG technology has been around for a while now... Several third world countries have started moving towards CNG technology because it is cheaper than petrol/diesel, and also because it is a cleaner fuel.

This might require some explanation... unlike petroleum, which is mostly available from oilfields in the Mid East, natural gas is more widespread. It does not take very advanced technology to convert regular Otto cycle (petrol) engines to CNG engines. It is clean, because it is chemically very simple: it burns to give out water and carbon-dioxide. Fossil fuels burn to give these, and a whole array of complex hydrocarbons including some pretty toxic ketones. Leading to pollution. Then, we have "antiknock". This is something that helps engines to run smoother. It can be just alcohol, or tetraethyl lead. Of course, it wasn't alcohol for the better part of a century, because anyone with some potatoes and a still in his backyard can make alcohol.. and hence antiknock. That would go against commercial interests, and forget about lead pollution in the air. It took legislation(and the fact that catalytic converters sort of curl up and die in the presence of lead) to enforce the use of unleaded fuel. CNG has none of these problems, and neither is it as volatile as, say hydrogen. But CNG is a politically bad fuel.. one that would reduce the world economy's shackled down relationship with oil companies. Hence, the First World has never seen it fit to experiment in this technology. Except that now... there is Al Gore and his Nobel Prize... times are a-changing, and trust the innovative Japanese to come up with clean technology.

I remember the hullaballoo when the Indian Government decided to start using CNG in cars and buses. It took a Supreme Court verdict against various transport unions to enforce CNG usage... but the turnaround has started, and the results are already visible in New Delhi. The other metro cities are catching up, and this is one field in which India (and Pakistan, and Bangladesh, too) are leading the world. Surprised?

Superhero journal - techsupport

The daily work of a superhero is difficult, I kid you not. Well, just yesterday, my computer got hacked. I mean, seriously, would you take a superhero seriously if his PC got hacked? (Ok, I used two 'seriously's' in a sentence, sue me, I went to superhero school, and I did not major in language.) So, anyway, I find myself on the pheun with Superhero Techteam, and that conversation did NOT go well....
Me: Hey.
Superhero Techteam Bitch (hereafter referred to as techbitch, or TB): ei.
Me: I have a small problem here.
TB: yesh shar?
Me: WTF?
TB: yesh shar?

brief interlude while I curse the God of outsourcing...

Me: Here's the thing.. everytime I try to check my Superhero Network Evildoer Update, the browser goes to this weird blue screen and I get this message "stick your head up the penguin's arse". Any ideas?
TB: Ish your computer turned on, shar?
Me: WTF? Are you listening to me?
TB: Yesh shar, what O-esh are you running?
Me: O-what?
TB: O-esh.
Me: DO you mean OS?
TB: oh yesh.
Me: Panorama X (dumb broad.. but said sotto voce)
TB: yesh shar, Panorama eksh has thish problem, but we can fiksh it. Eashily. There is a pyanch you have to download, let me gibhe you the link.
Me: I have to download a. .. what?
TB: A pyanch shar.. it ish a short of shoftware update.
Me: You mean a patch? (screwball.. also muttered)
TB: yesh shar, you are right.. a pyanch also means a shcrew, but there ish no ball!
Me: ...! Ok, so I need the patch.... and then?
TB: that ish all shar, the pyanch will cover the shecurity hole... ash they shay, a shtich in time shaves nine.

Dear me.

The point of view problem in any relationship.

I love theorizing about all kinds of shite. No, actually, I do not... I might if I ran a pathology clinic or had something to do with natural fertilizer.. but I suppose you get my point. I frequently talk (usually at length) about optics, economics, politics, random flicks and many other things ending with 'icks'. Ok, that was what.. two bullshite jokes in 3 lines? Sometimes I exceed myself..... Ok, getting there.... anyway, I have here, for your perusal, two opinions on relationships, one clearly written by a slightly damaged bloke, and the other from a bird. I am personally not taking a stand.. no I am... and it is as follows:

WTF!!!!!!!!!!

1st post:

"What Happened to All the Nice Guys?"

---

Date: 2007-11-19, 3:52AM PST


I see this question posted with some regularity in the personals section, so I thought I'd take a minute to explain things to the ladies out there that haven't figured it out.

What happened to all the nice guys?

The answer is simple: you did.

See, if you think back, really hard, you might vaguely remember a Platonic guy pal who always seemed to want to spend time with you. He'd tag along with you when you went shopping, stop by your place for a movie when you were lonely but didn't feel like going out, or even sit there and hold you while you sobbed and told him about how horribly the (other) guy that you were fucking treated you.

At the time, you probably joked with your girlfriends about how he was a little puppy dog, always following you around, trying to do things to get you to pay attention to him. They probably teased you because they thought he had a crush on you. Given that his behavior was, admittedly, a little pathetic, you vehemently denied having any romantic feelings for him, and buttressed your position by claiming that you were "just friends." Besides, he totally wasn't your type. I mean, he was a little too short, or too bald, or too fat, or too poor, or didn't know how to dress himself, or basically be or do any of the things that your tall, good-looking, fit, rich, stylish boyfriend at the time pulled off with such ease.

Eventually, your Platonic buddy drifted away, as your relationship with the boyfriend got more serious and spending time with this other guy was, admittedly, a little weird, if you werent dating him. More time passed, and the boyfriend eventually cheated on you, or became boring, or you realized that the things that attracted you to him weren't the kinds of things that make for a good, long-term relationship. So, now, you're single again, and after having tried the bar scene for several months having only encountered players and douche bags, you wonder, "What happened to all the nice guys?"

Well, once again, you did.

You ignored the nice guy. You used him for emotional intimacy without reciprocating, in kind, with physical intimacy. You laughed at his consideration and resented his devotion. You valued the aloof boyfriend more than the attentive "just-a-" friend. Eventually, he took the hint and moved on with his life. He probably came to realize, one day, that women aren't really attracted to guys who hold doors open; or make dinners just because; or buy you a Christmas gift that you mentioned, in passing, that you really wanted five months ago; or listen when you're upset; or hold you when you cry. He came to realize that, if he wanted a woman like you, he'd have to act more like the boyfriend that you had. He probably cleaned up his look, started making some money, and generally acted like more of an asshole than he ever wanted to be.

Fact is, now, he's probably getting laid, and in a way, your ultimate rejection of him is to thank for that. And I'm sorry that it took the complete absence of "nice guys" in your life for you to realize that you missed them and wanted them. Most women will only have a handful of nice guys stumble into their lives, if that.

So, if you're looking for a nice guy, here's what you do:

1.) Build a time machine.
2.) Go back a few years and pull your head out of your ass.
3.) Take a look at what's right in front of you and grab ahold of it.

I suppose the other possibility is that you STILL don't really want a nice guy, but you feel the social pressure to at least appear to have matured beyond your infantile taste in men. In which case, you might be in luck, because the nice guy you claim to want has, in reality, shed his nice guy mantle and is out there looking to unleash his cynicism and resentment onto someone just like you.

If you were five years younger.

So, please: either stop misrepresenting what you want, or own up to the fact that you've fucked yourself over. You're getting older, after all. It's time to excise the bullshit and deal with reality. You didn't want a nice guy then, and he certainly doesn't fucking want you, now.

Sincerely,

A Recovering Nice Guy


2nd Post.

Why "Nice Guys" are often such LOSERS

You hear it all the time: "He was such a NICE Guy, and she's such a Heartless Bitch for dumping him."

I get letters from self-professed Nice Guys, complaining that women must WANT to be treated like shit, because THEY, the "Nice Guy" have failed repeatedly in relationships. This is akin to the false logic that "Whales are mammals. Whales live in the sea. Therefore, all mammals live in the sea."

If you have one bad relationship after another, the only common denominator is YOU. Think about it.

What's wrong with Nice Guys? The biggest problem is that most Nice Guys (tm) are hideously insecure. They are so anxious to be liked and loved that they do things for other people to gain acceptance and attention, rather than for the simply pleasure of giving. You never know if a Nice Guy really likes you for who you are, or if he has glommed onto you out of desperation because you actually paid some kind of attention to him.

Nice Guys exude insecurity -- a big red target for the predators of the world. There are women out there who are "users" -- just looking for a sucker to take advantage of. Users home-in on "Nice Guys", stroke their egos, take them for a ride, add a notch to their belts, and move on. It's no wonder so many Nice Guys complain about women being horrible, when the so often the kind of woman that gets attracted to them is the lowest form of life...

Self-confident, caring, decent-hearted women find "Nice Guys" to be too clingy, self-abasing, and insecure.

Nice Guys go overboard. They bring roses to a "lets get together for coffee" date. They try to buy her affections with presents and fancy things. They think they know about romance, but their timing is all wrong, and they either come-on too strong, too hard and too fast, OR, they are so shy and unassertive, that they hang around pretending to be "friends", in the hope that somehow, someway, they will get the courage up to ask her out for a "date".

They are so desperate to please that they put aside their own needs, and place the object of their desire on a pedestal. Instead of appreciating her, they worship her. We are only human, and pedestals are narrow, confining places to be -- not to mention the fact that we tend to fall off of them.

They cling to her, and want to be "one" with her for fear that if she is out of sight, she may disappear or become attracted to someone else. A Nice Guy often has trouble with emotional intimacy, because he believes that if she learns about the REAL person inside, she will no longer love him.

Nice Guys are always asking HER to make the decisions. They think it's being equitable, but it puts an unfair burden of responsibility on her, and gives him the opportunity to blame her if the decision was an unwise one.

Nice Guys rarely speak up when something bothers them, and rarely state clearly what it is they want, need and expect. They fear that any kind of conflict might spell the end of the relationship. Instead of comprimising and negotiating, they repeatedly "give in". When she doesn't appreciate their sacrifice, they will complain that, "Everything I did, I did for her.", as if this somehow elevates them to the status of martyrs. A woman doesn't want a martyr. She wants an equal, caring, adult partner.

Nice Guys think that they will never meet anyone as special as she is. They use their adoration as a foundation for claiming that "no one will ever love her as much as I do." Instead of being a profound statement of their devotion, this is a subtle, but nasty insult. It is akin to saying to her: "You are a difficult person, and only *I* can ever truly love you, so be thankful I'm here."

The nice guy -needs- to believe that he is the best person for the object of his desires, because otherwise his insecurities will overrun him with jealousies and fear. The truth of the matter is that there are many people out there who can be a good match for her. We rarely stop loving people we truly care about. Even if we no longer continue the relationship, the feelings will continue... But love isn't mutually exclusive. We can (and do) love many people in our lives, and romantic love is really no different. Though he may love her immensely, there will likely be other people who have loved her just as much in her past, and will love her just as much in the future. The irony of it all is: "Who would want to go out with someone who was inherintly unlovable anyways?"

More than loving the woman in his life, a Nice Guy NEEDS her. "She is my Life, my only source of happiness..." YECH! What kind of a burden is that to place on her? That SHE has to be responsible for YOUR happiness? Get a grip!

Another mistake Nice Guys make is to go after "hard luck" cases. They deliberately pick women with neuroses, problems, and personality disorders, because Nice Guys are "helpers". A Nice Guy thinks that by "helping" this woman, it will make him a better, more lovable person. He thinks it will give him a sense of accomplishment, and that she will appreciate and love him more, for all his efforts and sacrifice. He is usually disappointed by the results.

This ultimately boils down to the fact that Nice Guys don't like themselves. Is it any wonder women don't like them? In order to truly love someone else, you must first love yourself. Too often Nice Guys mistake obsession for "love".

Get this Guys: INSECURITY ISN'T SEXY. IT'S A TURNOFF.

You don't have to be an ego-inflated, arrogant jerk. You just have to LIKE yourself. You have to know what you want out of life, and go after it. Only then will you be attractive to the kind of woman with whom a long-term relationship is possible.

Oh, by the way, I personally think that every relationship requires any combination of the items mentioned below:
1. Point of view gun: when fired at someone immediately causes that person to understand your point of view.
2. Total Perspective Vortex: (pronounce the capital letters please) a device which really makes you see and understand your place in the Universe. Powered by a piece of fairy cake.
3. A linux terminal with a really high quality keyboard. And tetris. Any arguments running above 5 hours will be decided by highest score on tetris.

Nice guys?

I think this is what a lot of wimmen need to hear.

XKCD rules!!

Thanks XKCD

Big bro is here

look at what is cooking for the 2008 Olympics...

Sci Fi List link

here..

Reviews of science fiction stories...

A few things to start off with... in the purest form, science fiction is philosophy, and has very little to do with stories which involve the blowing up of spaceships. The object of pure SF is to contemplate the changes that continued scientific innovation will bring upon us, and the role of humanity in particular and the Earth in general in a possible larger milieu. 'Hard' SF is usually written by people of a scientific bent, and concerns itself with the immediate changes due to radically new science emerging within a few lifetimes from now. Hard SF dovetails into sociological commentary where we see speculation into how humanity might be fundamentally changed, not just in observable technological ways, but in the far more subtle ways of thought. Indeed, at one point, one asks in such works if humanity remains recognizable as humanity any more. Asimov, Clarke have pioneered the field of hard SF. The masterworks in this field are 'The End of Eternity'. by Asimov and Clarke's '2001: A Space Odyssey' and 'Rendezvous with Rama'. Then we have purely social commentary.. where the future is used merely as a backdrop for making statements about the nature of socio-political-military environment and which direction it might evolve in. The best known among such works is Orwell's '1984'. Other very influential works (and sometimes nastily reviled) are Bradbury's 'Farenheit 451', and Heinlein's 'Starship Troopers'. Then we come to the subcategory of 'disaster SF'- this is quite self explanatory. The best representative of such works is Wyndham's 'The day of the Triffids'. People will find echoes of Triffids in many well received films like '28 Days Later'. Brian Aldiss had described Wyndham's work as 'cosy catastrophes'.. a very unfair judgment, in my opinion. And finally, we bring ourselves to the last category under examination: 'immediate' SF: which deals with changes within a perfectly recognizable society, but still much more advanced than ours.... one of the best here is 'Doomsday Book', by Connie Willis.. interestingly the only authoress mentioned here. I should say that her works display a degree of scientific understanding equalled by the giants.. Asimov and Clarke, but a degree of compassion which hard SF tends to avoid. The greatest of SF writers is the one who worked across such genres, in fact, before such genres were even created.. HG Wells. 'The Time Machine' is the first, and still one of the greatest speculative works ever.

Robert Jordan's 'Wheel of Time', Tolkien's 'Lord of the Rings' are not SF. Aldous Huxley's 'Brave New World' is also a political commentary beyond parallel. But to understand the extent of Huxley's genius, one must read his last work 'Pala'.

And, to complete this little review... the single greatest work of science fiction ever written is 'Nightfall', a short story written by Asimov when he was 22.

Henry Fonda not at his best.

For some people, the greatest filmmaker ever has been Sergio Leone... yeah, yeah there are the greats like Satyajit Ray, Kurosawa, Fellini.. yadda, yadda, but the one who worked with style and flair beyond comparison was the man who gave us the Dollars trilogy. And, one would argue that his greatest film ever was 'Once upon a time in America'... which had Henry Fonda in a role people could scarcely imagine him doing... a cold blooded, brutal killer. So, the point of this entire para is to talk about the great Henry Fonda... and how I was disappointed in seeing 'The Long Night', a shallow melodrama, at best and a cheap tearjerker at the worst. The only redeeming thing about the movie... which revolves around a man who has taken another man's life.. yeah, quite obviously, for louvv is a partially redeeming performance by Vincent Price. Avoid.

Ebooks....

I don't like reading books on a computer screen.. apart from the eye strain involved.. I simply love the luxury of sitting back with a well thumbed old paperback. There is that absolute joy of reading which I associate with everything that comes with reading. Back in the old days, this used to be an afternoon trip to Gariahat, or a day trip to College street (or more usually, bunking some classes while at Presi) and rummaging through second hand bookstores. The world's best second hand bookstores are at College Street, Calcutta, especially that amazing stretch, between the College Street Market at one end, and the Ashutosh Prangan of Calcutta University at the other end. For me, that has been my Kabah, and my Benares. That was a holy pilgrimage which I made every day for three glorious years, and I hope to go back to at some point in my life. But these days, it is merely an occasional trip to the District Library, or more normally, an online search on the amazing library at the University which does the job. I must say, for all the convenience, the zero cost, there is something missing.

Amazon plans to offer digital books... a sort of hybrid laptop like device which will mimic a real book, except that the content will be electronic, stored in a disk and displayed on a screen. And this device will communicate with e-resources, and 'update automatically'. Very convenient. But also somewhat scary.

Now, any vision of an Orwellian future scares me as much as anyone else. The fact is that the ubiquitous nature of mass electronic media has made the world a much smaller place, but also a much easier place to police. In this context, I would like to think that the battle between the forces of stability (governments of every description) and the dissenting folks should always be a finely balanced one... if it tilts too far in the direction of anarchy, then we have a breakdown of that which seems to stifle.. and if it falls too far in the other direction, then, why, we have 1984.. all over again. It is in this fine balance that society can live, breathe and even move its arms and legs a little. It is against the overall matrix of homogeneity that the radicals can think of themselves as such.. for if the radicals take the day: they will, in their own time become the same sated bourgeoisie they despise so much.

Hence, while I think that the juggernaut of technical innovation cannot be stopped, it should be met by equal counter-innovation which prevents any form of control over content from becoming absolute. Hence, I raise a toast to the makers of the iPhone, OS X, Vista and other beautiful innovations. and also to the people who spend their time hacking the guts out of them. Finally, here is what some people have to say about this new 'book'.

Snow, grading blues, work and other things

have come together to make me feel a leetil bit under the weather.. pun fully intended. But, I fully intend to bounce back with astute observations about the economy. and words of wisdom for the governments of the day (which, somehow, they always seem to ignore). But in the meantime, here are a few thoughts.. I caught a bit of the Republican CNN Youtube debate... and while Rudy Giuliani comes across as the most reasonable man amongst the GOP lineup, one wonders whether he is the man for the job. On the other hand, my impression of the Democrat race is that Obama might be the right person (observe the use of the gender free term), but compared to Clinton, he is a lightweight. But, back to the GOP, some people just plain scared me... I understand that abortion is a sensitive issue, and it would be nice if people never came to the point where they had to extinguish life. Having said, I think it is important to repair the social fabric which makes teen pregnancies, broken families all too common... but in the short term, abortion should be accessible to whoever needs it, It appears that many doctors in this country do not prescribe birth control medication on request.. because it goes against their faith. This, in my book, is a violation of professional ethics. Anyway, abortion, taxes, illegal immigrants and an unnecessary war. For the most powerful nation in the world, it is a luxury to have 'problems' of this nature, as opposed to the more real problems of widespread HIV, malnutrition and continued war in many other parts of the globe.