To-WAR-ds nowhere

While reading about the current crisis of Hamas vs. Abbas over Gaza, I saw this photograph in Reuters.

© REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa (GAZA)

A Hamas fighter takes position inside a scanning machine in the customs hall of the Rafah crossing border, between Egypt and the southern Gaza Strip, after they captured it, June 15, 2007.
I wonder if the scanner ever went off because there was a gun inside it!

Then I recollected this strip I had read in Calvin & Hobbes a few years back.

© Bill Watterson, United Press Syndicate

Romeo and Juliet, 4000 BC

I started out on Google at 3:00 pm today for some information on emulsions, and at 3:20 pm I was looking at this. I felt vaguely strange.

Picture courtesy: CNET News.com

Archaeologists have unearthed two skeletons from the Neolithic period (5000-6000 years ago) locked in an "eternal embrace" and buried outside Mantua, Italy, about 25 miles south of Verona. Sounds familiar? It's the same city where Shakespeare set the tale of Romeo and Juliet. Here's the bigger catch - In Romeo and Juliet, Romeo is sent to Mantua for killing Capulet in a sword fight. Romeo then leaves the city and returns to Verona when he hears that Juliet has died.

It was found at the site where a factory is planned and many have speculated on the circumstances this goosebumps-giving spectacle. Flint tools, including arrowheads and a knife, were also found alongside the couple. Their teeth being intact, it is thought that the couple died young.

They are face to face and their arms and legs are entwined and they are really hugging.

When I was reading through the user comments on the related news pieces, almost everybody had the same thing to say - of not to disturb them from their grave. Unfortunately, it has already been done.

Doomed love?

Other sources of information:
BBC News
Dailymail.co.uk
CNET News.com

Whatsisname

Americans pronounce Indian names better than Indians do. Or at least they do it more accurately. Yes, it's true! I am not kidding!

The most ludicrous habit of many government officials in India is look at the first alphabet of your name, and then at the last, and fill up the rest themselves. Some of them even decide to correct the way it is spelled and then put in on record.
I have ended up being named (on official records) as Kokanad (most common error), Kokanand, Kokenad, Kokonath, Kokanath. Without the blink of one or more eyes.
On one hilarious occasion, my brother Sayontan was called Shaitan.
Prayatn became Prashant. Anushaily became Anshuly (Anshulee).

Correcting the mistake on an official record in India would be a big headache, but if I write about that it should be classified under the label *Sigh* in my blog. So I am not going into that now.

Americans do have a tough time understanding the complicated concoction of syllables in Indian names, but atleast end up reading it thoroughly and even pronouncing it right! And the icing of the cake lies in the fact that each and everyone asks if they pronounced it right. Your face invariably breaks into a smile. A lab mate once approached me with the name "Ramachandran" and asked if "Remakandran" (accented) is the right way to pronounce it, because she didn't want to embarrass herself.

My friends and I had been witness to this incident...
A good friend of ours, ABCXYZ Singh, has had a crisis since she landed in the US, because she decided to dump her last name. Now here's the catch - in the US, it's extremely difficult to survive without a last name because every official record is on the basis of a last name. So they found a workaround and made her first name ABCXYZ as her last name and attributed "Unknown" as her first name. So her name, officially is, Unknown ABCXYZ. While we were getting issued our State ID cards, our first names were being called out. When it was her turn, there was a voice from a sweet old lady -
"Un-known"?
While we all giggled away, our friend walks up to the counter. The old lady is visibly embarrassed because she is sure that is not the right way to pronounce "Unknown".
"Oh honey, did I get your name right?"

Just a note: For many who ask me this question, the meaning of Kokonad is "red lotus" in Sanskrit.

Energy saving

After having been to Boston, New York, Las Vegas etc. and gasped at the beautiful night views of each of these cities, I have often thought aloud - US has a lot of energy. And a lot of this energy goes just into aesthetics and ambience. That's a lot of waste in India, where we always switch off the light and fan when leaving a room.
I was just wondering, how many villages in India could be lit up 24/7 if all the advertisements on Times Square were pulled off the circuit. Or may be Las Vegas?

Talking of energy savings, visit Blackle. Blackle is a *suggestion* which is based on a blog post titled Black Google Would Save 750 Megawatt-hours a Year (January 2007) where a theory was proposed that a black version of the Google search engine would save a fair bit of energy due to the popularity of the search engine. So this guy, Mark Ontkush (Occupation: Green Computing Evangelist), did the math and figured out this (from his blog post) -

Take at look at Google, who gets about 200 million queries a day. Let's assume each query is displayed for about 10 seconds; that means Google is running for about 550,000 hours every day on some desktop. Assuming that users run Google in full screen mode, the shift to a black background will save a total of 15 (74-59) watts. That turns into a global savings of 8.3 Megawatt-hours per day, or about 3000 Megawatt-hours a year. Now take into account that about 25 percent of the monitors in the world are CRTs, and at 10 cents a kilowatt-hour, that's $75,000, a goodly amount of energy and dollars for changing a few color codes.

I liked it. Of course, there has been skepticism the world wide about whether the contribution of the energy savings is significant. And, as you might have noticed, the readability of black web pages isn't the best.

Still, as the About Page puts it, "We believe that there is value in the concept because even if the energy savings are small, they all add up."

Go ahead, search something on Blackle.

Show me the funny!

Russell Peters. He's got lots of famous ones... about Indian parents beating their kids, British accents, terrorists... just name it! I came across this one about asking directions in Toronto. It's hilarious!

(YouTube video, 38 seconds)

PhD comics!

As a big fan of PhD comics and being a graduate student myself, I am posting a couple of my favorites - there are so many more that I like! Are you new to this? Check this out for a hilarious teaser! Click the images for a bigger size.

And on a seemingly unrelated note, I found this too -

I am more equal than you are

I used to have a pretty strong opinion about the whole reservation-quota-being-increased hue and cry. That was till I read this story from Tehelka.com. It gave me a shocking revelation that casteism still exists among the students of my generation. I thought the whole concept of a higher caste looking down upon a lower caste existed only among a generation that was slowly phasing out. Was I too naive?

Excerpts from this article -

I told him I had stood first on the Scheduled Caste list. The next moment I found myself outside the room, on the ground; he had pushed me out. That was just the first day.

Ever since, I have been reminded of my “low” status every moment I have been here. I was the only “Category” student in my wing. One day, I found this on my door: “Nobody likes you here. F**k off.” On another day: “Everybody can use the carom board, but not Room No 45.”

It is true that not all General Category students are casteist, but caste cuts through everything at AIIMS. They won’t talk to us.

Derogatory remarks were common: “Yeh chamar log kya karenge?” They were always trying to start fights so they could bash us up.

I knew I would fail when the only question I was asked on my viva was: “What is your involvement with the Thorat report?” Six or seven students had scored lower in the internal marks than I — all passed, I did not. I was failed in medicine in my re-professional exam by one-and-a-half marks.

How effective is the education system really when all through till the 12th grade, it has been teaching us that all are equal?

Another question - would he have faced the same problem amongst his peers and superiors had he not claimed he was a "category" student?

Is tagging one as a "category person" really helping the country? (Previous post - Living in a box)

Bayerische Motoren Werke

Keeping aside all the BMW ad-films made, I love this particular advertisement the most. The ad-films are great too, starring Clive Owen in a tight corner in each of them, but always equipped with a great looking (etc.) BMW.

Youtube video (1:01 min)

The BMW film series The Hire was a series of eight short films (each about eight minutes long) produced for the Internet in the summers of 2001 and 2002. The films were directed by renowned Hollywood and international directors. All starred Clive Owen as "The Driver". Each film's story highlighted the performance aspects of various BMW automobiles. (Source: The Hire (BMW films) - Wikipedia). All the eight videos are available on YouTube.

Lightning bolt!

Mindless web-meandering brought me to this -

The original source - http://wvs.topleftpixel.com/archives/photos_skyscapes/060803_1637.shtml

© Sam Javanrouh www.ddoi.ca

As he says, it's the view from his kitchen - terrific view! And notice how beautifully one of the lightning bolts (center) climbs back up - like it forgot something back home! :)) A high resolution image can be viewed and downloaded here.

Losing focus: Moral policing

A fable:

Nationalism - He cut it, she wore it.

First it was Sachin Tendulkar.
Now it's Mandira Bedi.

There was a cake that had the Indian flag on it.
A saree was designed with 16 flags of the countries participating in the CWC 2007.

He cut that cake.
She wore that saree, with the Indian flag located near her feet.

Verdict:
He disrespected the country.
She disrespected the country.

And now there are charges against both of them. Are the law enforcers in the country succumbing to the whims and fantasies of the ones seeking publicity? After Tendulkar's cutting-the-cake came the Gere-Shetty episode and now Bedi's insulting-the-flag is the limelight of the so called moral police.
It would fall on deaf ears if I mention the unending list of things that need fixing in the country. Corruption, rape and female infanticide to name the top few. And while I was writing about this - a thought crossed my mind - the moral policemen have decided that the reason for rape in the country is actually provocative dressing by women. So the main culprit is not anatomy of the male genitalia, instead it is the choice of dressing by women.

Is the country's attitude slowly becoming irreparable?
Have we veered off the path to overall development by defining obscure and ridiculous things as a basis of discipline... what's happening of this country where whistle-blowers are being mercilessly killed or having their lives ruined by the ones in power?

On a completely unrelated note, the sari looks awful.
And my comment on Tendulkar and the cake - when we put a birthday boy's picture as icing on his cake - are we insulting him?

Perception of beauty

"...a little reminder that even supermodels don't look like supermodels..."

My roommate had come across this video and I had to post it on my blog. It's a really good morale booster to those who are intimidated (if at all) by those amazing models on billboards. Turn up your speakers - the accompanying music is really good.

Google Video duration: 1 min 14 sec

The video is part of a campaign by Dove - A self esteem project (http://www.campaignforrealbeauty.ca) It's really nice! Quoting from their website -

In a world full of impossible beauty standards and confusing media messages, 92% of the girls aged 15-17 want to change part of their appearance. What can we do about it?

Cool. 'Like it.
However, considering that Dove is a product of Unilever which also owns brands like AXE, Vaseline, Lux and Ponds, it is paradoxical that both have conflicting campaign USPs.
Anyway, I like what Dove has done here. It's really essential nowadays and should be targeted at teens striving hard to get the Lara Croft waistline, or the Victoria's Secret Model skin tone.

Eat Mor Chikin

Somewhere during my mindless web-meandering I read that the chicken is the closest living relative to the Tyrannosaurus Rex. LOL. Surprisingly it's true! I searched for some more of such useless trivia and found these:

• You can literally hypnotize a chicken by holding it and drawing a line in the dirt over and over. The chicken will stay still right there as long as you do this.
• According to National Geographic, scientists have settled the old dispute over which came first -- the chicken or the egg. They say that reptiles were laying eggs thousands of years before chickens appeared, and the first chicken came from an egg laid by a bird that was not quite a chicken. That seems to answer the question. The egg came first.
• Chimney's used to be cleaned by dropping live chickens down them
• The closest living relative of the t-rex is the chicken which makes the phobia 'Alektorophobia' (Fear of chickens) slightly more plausible. [:D]
• In Gainesville, Georgia - the chicken capital of the world - it is illegal to eat chicken with a fork!
• If a rooster is not present in a flock of hens, a hen will often take the role, stop laying, and begin to crow.
• The waste produced by one chicken in its lifetime can supply enough electricity to run a 100 watt bulb for five hours.
• The longest recorded flight of a chicken is thirteen seconds.
• There are more chickens than people in the world!

Ooooooh. Intrigued I am. *Wow* this is.

Sources:
Eat Mor Chikin® is the award winning slogan of Chick-fil-A®.
http://www.comedy-zone.net/triviazone/animals/page8.htm
http://www.vfr.net/~tbruce/facts.html
http://www.toysbymailorder.co.uk/acatalog/TE0158.jpg (The original chicken)
http://www.toysbymailorder.co.uk/acatalog/TE0020.jpg (The original dinosaur)
Cartoon creation by me, idea rights reserved.

Of cultural sentiments, hugs and kisses

From The Daily Collegian, 27th April 2007

This news article appeared in the daily published newspaper (The Daily Collegian) of my university - staring at everyone in big bold letters.

Click to view larger image.

Aaaargh! Don't publicity seekers (the judge, in this case) in India EVER realize what a big fool they are making of themselves voluntarily? A silent satirical mockery has been made of "publicity seekers" and frankly, many of us are plain EMBARRASSED that it has been printed in a paper with a readership of over 40000 students from all over the world. I actually tore it off and scanned it so I could just put it up here... my emotions are a mixture of ludicrousness, sympathy and embarrassment at the same time.

Spotted in this article -

"their kiss at a public function transgressed all limits of vulgarity and have the tendency to corrupt the society"

What tendency to corrupt is this judge (the one issuing the arrest warrant against Richard Gere) talking of, in a society riddled with fiscal corruption, rape, child trafficking and atrocities to womankind? A playful peck on the cheek to compliment someone is NOT corruption of social customs! Don't even get me started on that age-old argument of "hurting the religious customs and culture of India". Who gave them the license to rule what is the right culture? Isn't culture and open-mindedness a relative thing?

Railroad model club

The Penn State Model Railroad Club was founded by Glen Van Winkle and received official recognition as a Penn State Club on March 23rd, 1955. They had organized an exhibition of this, with over 2500 feet of a complex networks of track, fully automated trains scaled down to 1:87. It was amazing... and pictures can do only so much justice to a feeling of complete awe we guys had when we saw the magnificence.
Seeing them move flawlessly through the complicated network was the best part. On the lighter side, they provided sound effects in the engines too!

Penn State Railroad Club Exhibition (click to view album)

If you ever get an opportunity to visit any railroad model exhibition, do not miss it! It's worth all the time you give it, trust me. :)

The end of the world (Flash Video)

This one is hilarious! The end of the world, it says! Turn up your speakers...

Rating MA (for mature audience only)

(Original source: http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/end.php)

Shooting at Virginia Tech

Is it normal to feel so supremely devastated by something you are not (seemingly) related to? Well, I am. And I have been staring at the CNN website all day since I came to my office.

I am shocked and depressed by what has happened. Though I know no one among the ones who have lost their lives, I don't know - I am just unable to work today. I feel sick to the stomach reflecting on what has happened.
Yesterday I was fine and so were many around me. So were the many students who were talking to reporters all day yesterday. Today there is a heavy gloom all across my campus and this silence is making the hum of air conditioning uncomfortably loud.

I guess it takes a while till reality and gravity of shock sink in.

I pray for all the lives lost - may their souls rest in peace.

"We are Virginia Tech" (link):
A rather moving speech given by Nikki Giovanni, English poet and Professor at VTech (3 min, Courtesy: CNN)

We are sad today, and we will be sad for quite a while. We are not moving on. We are embracing our mourning. We are Virginia Tech ...

-- Nikki Giovanni
University Distinguished Professor, poet, activist