Captain, a ship floats yonder, steadfast
Meditated, on now, even with a trace,
Beloved, shattered fallacies, intrinsic.

Dexterous dreamer, evolving, surviving
manholes and pitfalls, still walking tall.
Mutually seduced and stripped, iron to cotton.

A delicate lotus, blooms, ‘midst raging sea,
A split soul, earned, past deeds, karma;
A yoke formed, sublime fruition inevitable.

Ye celestial suns, witness, bless an union.
Thank thee elements, fire and water, pure.
Dawned today, afresh; A new day, bright.

Related posts:

1. Particles do converge … Fluid is life, flowing incessant, unyielding, Punished by vagaries will,...
2. And Death Shall Have No Dominion Another one by Dylan (Do Not Go Gentle Into the...
3. Depth of the heart It is so very confusing trying to figure out the...
4. Another year, another day. It came by, it passed, Like every other day, the...

He is lost in the heart, in the cavern of Nature,
He is found in the brain where He builds up the thought:
In the pattern and bloom of the flowers He is woven,
In the luminous net of the stars He is caught.

In the strength of a man, in the beauty of woman,
In the laugh of a boy, in the blush of a girl;
The hand that sent Jupiter spinning through heaven,
Spends all its cunning to fashion a curl.

There are His works and His veils and His shadows;
But where is He then? by what name is He known?
Is He Brahma or Vishnu? a man or a woman?
Bodies or bodiless? twin or alone?

We have love for a boy who is dark and resplendent,
A woman is lord of us, naked and fierce.
We have seen Him a-muse on the snow of the mountains,
We have watched Him at work in the heart of the spheres.

We will tell the whole world of His ways and His cunning;
He has rapture of torture and passion and pain;
He delights in our sorrow and drives us to weeping,
Then lures with His joy and His beauty again.

All music is only the sound of His laughter,
All beauty the smile of His passionate bliss;
Our lives are His heart-beats, our rapture the bridal
Of Radha and Krishna, our love is their kiss.

He is strength that is loud in the blare of the trumpets,
And He rides in the car and He strikes in the spears;
He slays without stint and is full of compassion;
He wars for the world and its ultimate years.

In the sweep of the worlds, in the surge of the ages,
Ineffable, mighty, majestic and pure,
Beyond the last pinnacle seized by the thinker
He is throned in His seats that for ever endure.

The Master of man and his infinite Lover,
He is close to our hearts, had we vision to see;
We are blind with our pride and the pomp of our passions,
We are bound in our thoughts where we hold ourselves free.

It is He in the sun who is ageless and deathless,
And into the midnight His shadow is thrown;
When darkness was blind and engulfed within darkness,
He was seated within it immense and alone.

– Sri Aurobindo

No related posts.

I knew about the act that involved an Aria by the Queen of the night, even before I went in. I was looking forward to it and wasn’t disappointed. It enraptures one and leaves you speechless in its highest tempo and emotions conveyed.

The vengeance of Hell boils in my heart,
Death and despair flame about me!
If Sarastro does not through you feel
The pain of death,
Then you will be my daughter nevermore.
Disowned may you be forever,
Abandoned may you be forever,
Destroyed be forever
All the bonds of nature,
If not through you
Sarastro becomes pale! (as death)
Hear, Gods of Revenge,
Hear a mother’s oath!

Sublime. Such intensity and passion in music. And the F’s flailing about and the Queen delivering her emotion with depth that only an opera well written can showcase.

A heart bulges with emotions, of something familiar, with music scales rising and falling, a story one can understand, an aspiration binds two far away souls to connect and conquer even death on the quest for wisdom. I wish a magic flute would present itself to me, to make everyone merry and burn away thoughts sombre.

A great cast and a wonderful performance. I’m very glad that I didn’t miss it.

No related posts.

And death shall have no dominion.
Dead men naked they shall be one
With the man in the wind and the west moon;
When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,
They shall have stars at elbow and foot;
Though they go mad they shall be sane,
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;
Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.
Under the windings of the sea
They lying long shall not die windily;
Twisting on racks when sinews give way,
Strapped to a wheel, yet they shall not break;
Faith in their hands shall snap in two,
And the unicorn evils run them through;
Split all ends up they shan’t crack;
And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.
No more may gulls cry at their ears
Or waves break loud on the seashores;
Where blew a flower may a flower no more
Lift its head to the blows of the rain;
Though they be mad and dead as nails,
Heads of the characters hammer through daisies;
Break in the sun till the sun breaks down,
And death shall have no dominion.

– Dylan Thomas

That is sublime. Dylan with an interesting background reminds me yet again that writing is an outlet powerful enough to sap excess emotions. Stronger the emotions, often sweeter the poetry, respite imminent…

No related posts.

Love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much perfoms much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is done well.

–Vincent Van Gogh

Ha. A man with my outlook. Another genius artist among countless others, who died depressed and poor. RIP.

hmm.. Perhaps short a time remains to not be doing what you love and involved with people you adore.

Related posts:

1. Quotes – 3 Quote of the day “Sure, the lion is king of...
2. Quotes – 4 Quote of the day “Sure, the lion is king of...
3. Quotes – 8 One of the best moving quotes about Mathematics, something I...
4. Quotes – 19 It always bothers me that, according to the laws as...

It always bothers me that, according to the laws as we understand them today, it takes a computing machine an infinite number of logical operations to figure out what goes on in no matter how tiny a region of space, and no matter how tiny a region of time. How can all that be going on in that tiny space? Why should it take an infinite amount of logic to figure out what one tiny piece of space/time is going to do? So I have often made the hypothesis that ultimately physics will not require a mathematical statement, that in the end the machinery will be revealed, and the laws will turn out to be simple, like the chequer board with all its apparent complexities.

- R. P. Feynman, Character of Physical Law, November 1964 Cornell Lectures, broadcast and published in 1965 by BBC, pp. 57-8.

Related posts:

1. Quotes – 20 Love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and...
2. Quotes – 14 “You know what people should do? Tell the truth, in...
3. Quotes – 3 Quote of the day “Sure, the lion is king of...
4. Quotes – 7 “Beware the leader who bangs the drums in war to...

How many people do we meet everyday who change our lives in ways unfathomed. It was not just their act of helping me through my physical disability, even if it was their occupation, but it was much more. The mental support, a conversation that showed you care and a genuine interest in your patient’s life. And that, I can never do. Nor even remotely replicate. I am not selfish by any means but to maintain that kind of attachment to someone you’ve known for a short while makes me humble. Humble because they think that everyone at the clinic is worth it. Without judgement. Without bias.

Like best friends afar, I will miss another session. It is the most depressing times that brings closer the like minds. I will surely spit on anyone who says otherwise.

No related posts.

It’s only on the brink that people find the will to change; only on the precipice that we evolve. This is our moment – don’t take it from us.
– The day the earth stood still

Another one of those things that is so right on the point. Its cliched to say ‘Necessity is the mother of invention’ but putting it in different words as above lends new meaning and purpose.

I’ve learnt that all best thoughts have already been said before. And that’s why I am proud to do my re-search. And it is why I thrive on great quotes. Kudos to the great minds before and after me.

Without that final edge, how mundanely bleak an occurrence this would be. And with or without an external change, it really is about time to rethink the possibilities…

No related posts.

Is this what you call maturity ? Is this the misconception that prevails ? If the intuitive thinking of kids was unblemished, would this not be its opposite ? Confusing yes, but life without questions is not worth living. And so we continue, searching …

No related posts.

This psyche communicates better in code
than in a language foretold.
It is maybe the recursion, the patterns
that fit like solutions to a maze.

I stumble and bumble my way across,
stepping on foots of people misunderstood;
Numbers, alone, stay above, beyond criticism,
You get it or you just dont.

Amadeus, Pi, Matrix, Fight club, Inception,
Movies of infinite precision;
What I perceive, no one else does;
Childish yes but vast the possibility.

I have no regrets. I am what I am.
Folly is ye to interpret.

No related posts.

Seriously, if I live that long, I’d be happy to walk around the block without pain in my knees and back. Kudos to pushing the limits George Hirsch !

No related posts.

Some of the comparisons are quite interesting and mind boggling. But it is unfair in many cases due to the fact that the results are not normalized based on available land area and/or total population. I mean literacy rate, murder rate and beer drinking capita seem way off, just to name a few. No but seriously, the results are informative and if truly factual, gives a nice overview of avenues for India to improve.

Link via India Vs United States: Economy, People, Environment & Military.

I am very proud on how far we have come and maintained the stability and growth with more than a billion people in a land that’s only twice the size of Texas. And all that, without leaving behind much of the cultural heritage and the vagaries of languages and religion omnipresent in every corner. There is so much I want to do for her, but so little time, before I go to sleep…

No related posts.

[Malik] When did you come to believe that now you had the weapons-grade uranium?

[Khan] In Kahuta, we achieved 60 percent result in our enrichment program; it was a
very difficult task though. We faced a lot of challenges in the ensuing stages but
successfully managed to overcome them, and we had achieved 90 percent result in the
//enrichment// program by the early 1983.

[Malik] So when was the bomb ready?

[Khan] It was ready by 1984. I wrote a letter to Gen Zia on 10 December 1984, telling
him that the weapon was ready and that we could detonate it on a notice of one week.

[Malik] Why did you not decide to test that device as soon as it was ready?

[Khan] We were allying with the United States in the Afghan war. The aid was coming.
We asked Gen Zia and his team to go ahead with the test, but they said they could not
conduct the test as it would have serious repercussions. They argued that, since the
United States had to overlook our nuclear program due to our support in the Afghan
war, it was an opportunity for us to further develop the program. They said the tests
could be conducted any time later.

Even though there is no value in pointing fingers at anybody, it is horrifying that repercussions of the US involvement in the Afghan region is still coming back to bite everyone, US included, in diabolical ways. Read the rest of the transcript to get a better perspective on things.

Link to the transcript in PDF via Secrecy News.

No related posts.

Of course, you do have to be a staunch meat-eater to understand some of the plight that this couple went through but mostly, I think this is entirely possible if you cut down de trop spending. Especially during tough economic times like these.

Link: Can two people eat on $67 a week?.

Update: I must have missed this before but apparently, in 2007, several members of Congress budgeted just $21 a person, the national average a food stamp recipient receives weekly. Damn. Now that’s tight.

No related posts.

Kudos to Team Hoyt.

Related posts:

1. NYC marathon. Finally, the day came and I conquered the 26.2 miles....
2. George Hirsch Runs 4:06:14 Every now and then, you find something so insane and...
3. I run. And I love it. In case you have not known, or I haven’t updated,...

Read the article about a guy who got cited for Disorderly Conduct, a misdemeanor, for swearing in a Texas restaurant.

Reminder to self: The next time you are in a restaurant, watch what you say !

No related posts.

Whoever he is, I am so damn jealous. Photo via PROTO-JP TUMBLER.

No related posts.

Read David Samuels’s account about the truck driver, John Coster-Mullen, who conducted more than a decade of research to successfully build the first accurate replica of Little-Boy, the master-blaster that annihilated Hiroshima, ending WWII. The article itself is quite interesting and leaves you wanting for more. Here’s an excerpt:

I recently wrote to Coster-Mullen and suggested that we take a trip across the country to visit his Little Boy replica, which is currently housed at Wendover, a decommissioned Air Force base in Utah. After some negotiation, we agreed to ride together on his late-night delivery route between Waukesha and Chicago. We would then drive to Wendover. Along the way, he would explain the inner workings of the first atomic bombs, and I would learn how he got it right and the experts got it wrong.

Atomic John: The New Yorker.

I can’t wait to get my hands on the his book “Atom Bombs: The Top Secret Inside Story of Little Boy and Fat Man”.

No related posts.

For the past few days, piecemeal I’ve read and it is beautiful. My only regret is that I did not discover this gem before.

The tale of Faust is supposed to be Goethe’s greatest work into which he poured a lifetime of experience; the entire work took him his whole life and he finished the second part only a year before his demise. The literary work is written as a play (a poetical drama actually) and it portrays an interplay of religion, the supernatural, love, tragedy and the surreal. To give you an introduction about Faust, here’s a brief synopsis.

Faust is an old man, a sage or an alchemist, wise, learned and very pious. We see a conversation between God and Mephistopheles (satan) in which God remarks that Mephistopheles may try all he likes to tempt Faust; God is confident that Faust is too moral an individual to be tempted by anything. Mephistopheles sets to work, appearing to Faust and conversing with him. Faust is weary of life, and Mephistopheles is soon able to convince him that he could sample something more.

The story concerns the fate of Faust in his quest for the true essence of life. Frustrated with learning and the limits to his knowledge and power, he attracts the attention of the Devil (Mephistopheles), who agrees to serve Faust until the moment he attains the zenith of human happiness, at which point Mephistopheles may take his soul. Faust is pleased with the deal, as he believes the moment will never come.

In the first part, Mephistopheles leads Faust through experiences that culminate in a lustful and destructive relationship with an innocent and nubile woman named Gretchen. Gretchen and her family are destroyed by Mephistopheles’ deceptions and Faust’s desires and actions. The story ends in tragedy as Gretchen is saved and Faust is left in shame.

The second part begins with the spirits of the earth forgiving Faust (and the rest of mankind) and progresses into rich allegorical poetry. Faust and his devil pass through the world of politics and the world of the classical gods, and meet with Helen of Troy (the personification of beauty). Finally, having succeeded in taming the very forces of war and nature Faust experiences a single moment of happiness.

The devil Mephistopheles, trying to grab Faust’s soul when he dies, is frustrated as the Lord intervenes — recognizing the value of Faust’s unending striving.

This has been one of the most interesting drama’s I have ever read. It portrays one of the imminent weaknesses of the human kind; The quest for knowledge and the impossibility to attain enlightenment without the passion. And It punches in all that with philosophical poetry. Enough said. Go grab a copy now and enjoy it.

Download from Google for free.

No related posts.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

–Dylan Thomas

Beautiful !

No related posts.

Some might argue that when somebody has 40b $ as assets, it should be easy to give away 32b $. But in my opinion, that is one of the best philanthropic action i’ve seen in my short life till now. I personally respect Gates for the huge effort and involvement in the foundation and all the support he has provided to eradicate diseases in the different third world countries. I am glad to see that someone is willing to spend time, money and effort to accomplish this when even the respective governments are having a hard time to stay afloat.

Kudos to Buffet for the thought and i pray that the Gates foundation will make an impact and improve the overall human lifestyle, all over the world !

Here’s an excerpt from one of the articles i’ve read on the news. Read on.

Warren Buffett, 75, known as the Oracle of Omaha for his stock-picking ability, is a quintessential capitalist and the world’s second-richest man. He’s also no fan of greed, or of inherited wealth.

Rather than pass on his $44 billion fortune to his adult children, whom he notes are already quite well-off, Buffett announced Sunday that he is giving away the bulk of his assets to a foundation run by his friends, Bill and Melinda Gates. This will double the $1.5 billion that the world’s richest foundation spends annually — mostly on health and education programs.

The gift is notable in several ways.

First, its sheer size. The donation makes industrialist benefactors such as John Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie look almost stingy and is rivaled only by the Gateses’ own gifts of $25.9 billion. Calculating the impact that money might have is impossible, but neither Buffett nor the Gateses think small. “There’s no reason we can’t cure the world’s 20 deadliest illnesses,” Bill Gates said Monday.

They might.

The gift also underscores a little-noticed trend: a renaissance in philanthropy. In 2004, the latest year for which data exist, the USA had 70,000 foundations — double the number a decade earlier. They gave away $33 billion.

But perhaps most striking is the way Buffett’s decision stands out in this greed-is-good era, in which, to cite one example of gross excess, the average pay for top hedge-fund managers last year exceeded $360 million.

To a large degree, of course, wealth-building — if not outright greed — is good. Before they gave away a dime, Buffett and Gates created jobs and raised people’s living standards by building spectacularly successful companies. But when should the wealth-building stop?

“I don’t believe in dynastic wealth,” Buffett has said, likening inherited wealth to choosing the 2020 Olympic team by picking the eldest sons of the gold medal winners in the 2000 Olympics. That’s why he opposes efforts to repeal the estate tax, saying that without it, America would have an aristocracy based on inherited wealth instead of a meritocracy that rewards ability and drive.

As Adam Smith, the father of modern capitalism, said in 1759 of generous capitalists, Buffett feels it’s in his self-interest to help others “though he derives nothing from it, except the pleasure of seeing it.” Here’s hoping others heed the message.

No related posts.

I linked previously to Dr. Michio Kaku. His site is loaded with information on Theoretical physics. Here is a comment that he made on Ed Mitten. (An excerpt from the article)

“I do believe there really is a category for a genius who is a supernova — a supernova that lights up the entire scientific landscape and that is Ed Witten,” said theoretical physicist Michio Kaku, the author of “Parallel Worlds and Hyperspace.”

“I think he is as close as you are going to get to a living Albert Einstein today.”

That is so freaking cool. When people compare him with Einstein, i feel guilty of not knowing about a person of such significance. Shame on me …

Here i am, off to go read more on him and work on my research some more

Update : Found some more stories and interesting posts on the same subject. One over at Kuro5hin and some posts by physicists at their blogs – Peter Woit and Lubos Motl. Both have interesting opinions and comments. Read on.

No related posts.

An excerpt :

Daniel Tammet is talking. As he talks, he studies my shirt and counts the stitches. Ever since the age of three, when he suffered an epileptic fit, Tammet has been obsessed with counting. Now he is 26, and a mathematical genius who can figure out cube roots quicker than a calculator and recall pi to 22,514 decimal places. He also happens to be autistic, which is why he can’t drive a car, wire a plug, or tell right from left. He lives with extraordinary ability and disability.

I mean, the first look at the article amazed me because like the article says, no one has ever explained on how they are able to do calculations in the mind, fast or slow, because it is all intuitive and it just comes. He talks about seeing numbers as shapes, and calculations meld these shapes together to create new shapes that represent new numbers – that sounds fascinating; it would be great to be able to do that. There is no way you can associate words with what is happening inside your head. But this genius wonder, explains it all, in terms of patterns, colours and shapes. Beautiful !

Another excerpt :

“I do love numbers,” he says. “It isn’t only an intellectual or aloof thing that I do. I really feel that there is an emotional attachment, a caring for numbers. I think this is a human thing – in the same way that a poet humanises a river or a tree through metaphor, my world gives me a sense of numbers as personal. It sounds silly, but numbers are my friends.”

I can exactly understand what he says. Probably every coder can understand that perfectly too. The way you see the design in your head and you just code it without having to think again about variable names or the patterns or the abstraction. It just flows !

Maybe this is what the next evolution of man should look like. Humans, independent of machines, performing zillions of calculations per sec and able to communicate across continents with just the mind. That just might be the right time to throw away all your computers but until then, if you are not a born genius, code on …

There are some more links and views about Dan Tammet. Read on …

@ Wikipedia
@ Spear’s Grotto
@ Digital Antichrist
@ Past Peak
@ MultipleSclerosis
And here’s a good picture of him

No related posts.

Here it is. No offense B-Gates !

Hey hey, Microsoft’s great,
They forcefeed bullshit onto your plate.
You’ll be working for Gates, that iconic dude,
Crooked marketer through and through!

Oh oh, you better watch out,
Someone installed IE, so don’t you pout.You’ve got a job with this mega-firm,
We’re spyware enablers from stem to stern!

Hey ho, heed our call,
And then we’ll have you by the balls.
Write some shit, there’s no remorse,
So long as you attack Open Source!

Yay yah, Microsoft’s great!
Come on in, let’s have a taste,
Now’s the time, no time to wait,
Time to bend over and take it for Gates !

No related posts.

Can you just imagine someone without whom a whole classification of a particular science might never have come into the picture at all ? Well there are several, in different fields, who have contributed so much but IMO, no one like this guy here.

He and his theories have paved the way for the evolution of nuclear science and the theory of relativity and his work on Brownian movement were so very critical for this. The article “Five papers that shook the world” gives a brief overview of his most important papers presented on 1905 and talks more about his work in general. Very nice. But there is one point which i would refute very strongly. If Einstein had never been in the picture, then there is a chance that someone else would have come up with similar papers and results. But it would definitely not have been a very flowing theory as i might phrase. You would know what i mean if you have ever been in one of those moments when designing a software or writing code, you dont have to think separately about the design and the code but the code is itself well refactored, formatted, extensible, flexible and just flows as though the fingers know what to do. And that will happen only on a string of thought and at one moment.

Eventhough each of his discoveries do seem to be a bit wide wrt one another, the basis for each of them are the same. It is to concentrate on the power of physical intuition rather than the mathematical precisions while trying to bring out new theories. We should remember that this man was contradicting everthing that was known during 1905 in Physics by giving out bold explanations and for some of which, people had to wait 20 years to prove.

I like this excerpt from the article too !

“And just in case the enormity of Einstein’s achievement is in any doubt, we have to remember that he did all of this in his “spare time”.”

What more can i say ?! Einstein still lives. And i say that, thou shall live even if mankind hath perished and joined the dust …

No related posts.

At Chicago Downtown. Me, Rajesh and Vishali.

No related posts.

No related posts.

No related posts.