thescian | December 8, 2006"First think of the tiny fart that your intestines make. Then consider the heavens: their infinite farting is thunder. For thunder and farting are, in principle, one and the same."
Such obscene words! Who would have dared to utter these, you wonder. Well, surprise, surprise! The exalted farter was Socrates. Socrates!? S O C R A T E S??? I've always thought of Socrates as the wise old man who screwed himself in the end. He can say this? Well, what do you know. I learn something new everyday. Fart Literature is so vast.
Now, if I come off those pretensions, there remains a useful question to…
thescian | December 7, 2006Go read this at 3 Quarks Daily and come back because I have more.
The hand wringing by religious apologists has gotten desperate in the past weeks. Militant atheism is the name given and it is frowned upon. The fundamental reason boils down to what Dawkins has repeatedly pointed out. Religion has a special place in the society. While we will question and rigorously debate an economic or a political point we will not do the same for religious theologies. That, dear reader, is intellectually dishonest, to put mildly.
The real question you must ponder about if you are the intellectually honest…
thescian | December 6, 2006A reader contributed list at Creating Passionate Users blog. Wonderful.
When I sit at my bedroom these days I face a rack of books. This visual delight has been a long dream of mine. Moving around all these years made book collection almost impossible. During the recent move from US to UK I had to drop off loads of books at friends places and the local library. Having finally decided to stay for a few years in the UK, I can now start the home library. On those days of peace, wonder and quiet contemplation I'll grab a good book, put my legs up the desk and dream on with the author.
thescian | December 5, 2006A fine rant to keep everyone in line (link posted at the Kitchen by Anand).
Let me tell you a related story. When I was about 16 (1990? I feel so old), I went and joined the Sacred Heart College Library in Tirupattur (a dingy town in Tamilnadu). I was doing +1 at that time in Ramakrishna School (no connection to the Ramakrishna Mission). You are wondering what the hell was I doing in a college library while all my friends were cramming for the exams. I don't know. I needed to get an education and I asked the librarian if it's alright to join. It was alright, apparently. After reading…
thescian | December 4, 2006Town twinning indeed. Amersham is twinned with Benshiem Bensheim in Germany and Krynica in Poland sez a signboard in Amersham. Finally, after looking at the signboard in Amersham for a few months, I've looked up on what it is all about.
thescian | December 1, 2006Getting Started
There are many ways to die in this dirty clayball of ours. Among the myriad possible ways, the most enticing way for a subcontinental is to have sex in a shady bush or a hut on the highway roadside. The highway is a wonderous thing in my beloved country. Births, marriages, deaths and most of all unprotected sex happen on or beside it. The highway is truly the sign of all that India is.
This short guide explains how to die on the highway without having to get hit by a vehicle. The guidance is widely applicable and may be of use in countries other than India. I make no…
thescian | December 1, 2006
A few stats from the UN's AIDS Epidemic Update for 2006.
Total number of people living with AIDS as of 2006 is 39.5 Million. Of this number, 2.3 million are under 15 years of age.
5.7 million people are living with AIDS in India as of 2005. My home town Namakkal is among the places with highest prevalence of AIDS (directly attributable to the number of lorry drivers hailing from the region).
thescian | November 30, 2006As I was cycling on a street near my home I noticed some plumbing work going on in a house. The plumbing company van was parked outside. Of course, this mundane affair doesn't merit notice. What was of some linguistic interest was the name of the plumbing company. "Pipe Dreams" . That's right. "Pipe Dreams"! Surely, the proprietor of the plumbing company is out to prove the linguistic wisdom of the smoking crowd wrong. My hearty wishes to their indomitable naming spirit. They are taking Pipe Dreams to a place it has never been.
thescian | November 29, 2006Let me put it mildly. Mr Deepak Chopra's post on Dawkins book is an intellectual abomination. [via Pharyngula] The kind of vomit only a cauldron of idiocy can spew out. Chopra calls a muddled rant on color perception as a thought experiment and asks us to give up on scientifically analyzing the workings of our brain. The comments do a good job of showing why his argument is non-sensical so I won't do that here. Instead, let me suggest a thought experiment. Read Chopra's post with a critical and rational eye. I can predict with certainty that you will imagine yourself to be pulling your hair…
thescian | November 29, 2006Although it is hard to resist blogging, I've been taking a sort of reading break to catch up on my reading. Here's the last two books I've read.
How Mumbo-jumbo Conquered the World: A Short History of Modern Delusions by Francis Wheen - A collection of mostly political and economic stories of mumbo jumbo. I was surprised to learn the double talk by Al Gore on the Tobacco question. No holds barred and no holy cows. Good reading.
Quantico by Greg Bear - An engrossing and disturbing novel set in the near future with rogue states going nuclear and terrorists routinely using bio-weapons. The…
thescian | November 26, 2006Some sensible things happening over here in the rainy country. No copyright extension for songs reports the BBC. At present, copyright for artists (not the same as composers, who get 120 years of exclusive rights) extends for 50 years in Britain. Within this time artists can collect royalties for their performances whenever they are aired. In US of A this extension is for 95 years - which is, IMHO, greedy and that's what the British artists like Sir Cliff Richard want (the operative word is want. The other word to bear in mind is need, which does not apply in this case.) Of course, more than…
thescian | November 26, 2006Ramya has started reading The God Delusion and asked what's the reference to Imagine by Lennon in the first few pages. Here's Lennon performing Imagine at Google Videos. Imagine no religion. It's not that hard.
thescian | November 22, 2006I was watching many of the videos at Beyond Belief yesterday evening. They are well worth your time, particularly if you want to understand the historical narratives of science and religion. When Carolyn Porco was talking (video, last speaker) about wonder and showing some of the stunning astronomical images, I was struck by a thought. It is this: Whenever I see some beautiful astronomical images, I cannot get over the fact that they are real. Consider the image below. Each of these little swirly things are galaxies with millions of stars. How puny our imaginations and preposterous fictional…
thescian | November 21, 2006A very readable article in NY Times on Science and Religion. Here's something that I find inane that touches upon meaning and purpose of life."There are six billion people in the world," said Francisco J. Ayala, an evolutionary biologist at the University of California, Irvine, and a former Roman Catholic priest. "If we think that we are going to persuade them to live a rational life based on scientific knowledge, we are not only dreaming -- it is like believing in the fairy godmother."
"People need to find meaning and purpose in life," he said. "I don't think we want to take that away from…
thescian | November 18, 2006A fundamental difference between religious faith and science pertains to hope. Underlying religious faith is the belief that God knows everything and controls everything. In any religion, human capacity is at best subservient to God's will. This is a sorry state to be in for any human. Religious faith takes away any hope of advancing one's own understanding of the world. It takes away purpose from our lives. God is hopelessness and purposelessness deified.
Science, on the other hand, is squarely aimed at furthering our understanding of the world. It is eternally hopeful of advancing our…
thescian | November 14, 2006The Q&A session by Dawkins after the reading of The God Delusion in Lynchburg, VA . All the standard questions of the believing brigade properly disposed off. Fabulous. The video plays for about an hour.
The Colbert Episode. Dawkins plays the game very well.
thescian | November 14, 2006During my visit to India last month, I promised myself that I would accomplish one important task. I would do everything in my power to eliminate the tech support role that I was playing to my parents. You see, my parents had inherited (ah, sweet pun) a desktop computer from me and in my absence had taken the help of local young men who gleefully installed Microsoft Windows software (pirated, of course). Pirated software, you must realize, is like getting a new pair of shoes with godawful bugs in them. They bite and you can't ask for help from the seller or go to a qualified doctor. My…
thescian | November 8, 2006Hurray! Without further delay, here are the results of TheScian Science Fiction Short Story Contest 2006!
1. 'The Asylum at Bergen' by Aditya Sudarshan (Winning entry)
2. 'To Sleep Perchance to Dream' by Rohinton Daruwala (second best)
3. 'Now We Live a Full Lifespan' Cyril M Gupta (third best)
The other stories that I and the other panelists liked, ordered according to their scores:
4. 'WATERSMOKE' by Rajat Chaudhuri
5. 'Cell Death' Chetan Rao
6. 'Happy Happy Joy Joy' by Manisha Lakhe
7. 'The Forgotten Future' by Ramnath R Iyer
8. 'The Entomologist Laughs Last' by Vivek Nityananda
9. 'The…
thescian | November 1, 2006The panelists rankings are in. I need to average them out and publish the results. A lot of personal things to attend to at the moment and haven't got time to blog. Hang on a couple of days for the contest winners announcement. I still haven't got internet access at home. Typing this from the local library. Doh.