Hiatus

... for a week. Weather's lovely, thoughts of expeditions are beginning to sprout in our heads.

Cheers!

Is This For Real?

Anybody catch the "Darkside" episode of Trading Spouses? Can you tell me if this clip is for real?

Sheesh.

Tags:

• weirdness

Dissection!

In my previous post, I challenged y'all to find what's wrong with Adam Kisby's paper which supposedly proves God doesn't exist, or at least that God didn't create the universe (which might actually be the same thing, depending on your definition of God).

People responded. Their observations are included in the following dissection of Kisby's proofs.

Here is Kent Hovind's challenge:

Prove (1) false OR (2) or (3) true, and you get $250,000.
Option 1: The Universe was created by God.
Option 2: The Universe always existed.
Option 3: The Universe came into being by itself by purely natural processes (known as evolution) so that no appeal to the supernatural is needed.

Kisby rephrased the above in "more rigorous terms" as:

Hypothesis 1: God is the unique necessary cause of the Universe (~G ⇒ ~U)
Hypothesis 2: Nothing is the unique necessary cause of the Universe (~∅ ⇒ ~U)
Hypothesis 3: The Universe itself is its own unique necessary cause. (~U ⇒ ~U)

So far so good (... according to me. I should note that Saurabh thinks something's wrong with deriving H2 from Option 2, he just can't put his finger on it. Any thoughts?)

Note these two definitions; Kisby will play havoc with his own rules as he goes along:

G: the set representing “God” or “purely supernatural reality”; it contains all existing sets that are neither U nor subsets of U
∅: the set representing “nothing”; it has no existing subsets other than itself; all sets contain it as a subset

All set? Let's look at the proof for H1.

First Hypothesis: ~G ⇒ ~U (God is the unique necessary cause of the Universe.)

1. ~G ⇒ ~U Given
2. U ⇒ G Modus Tollens
3. U ⊂ G Definition of Subset
4. G ∩ U = U Definition of Intersection
5. G ∩ U = ∅ Definition of Intersection
6. U = ∅ Lines 4 and 5

If G "contains all existing sets that are neither U nor subsets of U" (see definition), then U cannot be a subset of G, and the intersection of G and U is ∅ by definition (as, indeed, line 5 states). The question is, how did this guy even arrive at Line 3? "Definition of Subset" he says... Let's take a look.

⊂ : ...it is logically equivalent to ⇒ insofar as all conditional propositions are directly translatable into universal categorical propositions...

Wha..? Since when is implication equivalent to subset? Consider this: Table implies Carpenter, therefore Table is a Carpenter. Where did that come from?

Also, Kr!sh observes -

But the glaring error was he proves that U=Null set in the first proof.. But then if you sub nullset in the #2, it becomes Null set => God. Which cannot be assumed..

Conclusion: Line 3 is bogus, I cannot find "equivalence to implication" listed in any paper or page listing the properties of subset, so the proof is ridiculous.

Spotting Credits: Saurabh spotted this one first when we were looking at it; Anonymous kinda-sorta caught it when s/he recognised that either Line 3 or Line 5 is arbitrary.

Second Hypothesis: ~∅ ⇒ ~U (Nothing is the unique necessary cause of the Universe.)

1. ~∅ ⇒ ~U Given
2. U ⇒ ∅ Modus Tollens
3. U ⊂ ∅ Definition of Subset
4. only ∅ ⊂ ∅ Definition of ∅
5. U = ∅ Lines 3 and 4

Once again, implication is used as being equivalent to subset: this is the first thing that's wrong with it. But there's something else.

When I was 12 years old, one of my dad's friends challenged me to find the problem with the following scenario:

a. I have 1 paisa.
b. 1 paisa = 1/100 of a Rupee.
c. 1/100 = 1/10 * 1/10.
d. But 1/10th of a Rupee = 10 paise.
e. So I have 10*10 = 100 paise = 1 Rupee.
f. Therefore, 1 paisa = 1 Rupee.

Anyone? Anyone?

It's simple enough. The problem occurs in both line b and line e, where I am forgetting to multiply the units properly: 1/100 of a rupee = 1/10 of the square root of a Rupee * 1/10 of the square root of a Rupee. Similarly, in line e, I have 10 paise * 10 paise which gives me 100 paise squared, definitiely not equal to 1 Rupee.

Similarly, Kisby forgets to qualify his ∅. In the statement ~∅ ⇒ ~U, ∅ means ∅ in the beginning (i.e. beginning of time or whatever it is). But as the proof moves along, ∅ begins to mean all sorts of things - "nothing" now, the set of "nothing" that has always existed, etc etc.

So. Substitute "∅ in the beginning" wherever you see just ∅ in this proof. The conclusion just says, "U means ∅ in the beginning", which is really what we started with.

Conclusion: A new bogus trick makes Kisby look worse.

Spotting Credit: Yours truly.

Third Hypothesis: ~U ⇒ ~U (The Universe itself is its own unique necessary cause.)

1. ~U ⇒ ~U Given
2. U ⇒ U Modus Tollens
3. U ⊂ U Definition of Subset
4. U = U Definition of Subset

This is a proof that says nothing and does nothing... and it still manages to incorporate a major blunder in line 3 (subsets and implication - same old, same old). utter nonsense.

Results: One Adam Kisby ought to be thoroughly embarrassed, but I suppose it doesn't bother him. And the rest of us look foolish being associated with the likes of him. :P

Tags:

• atheism
• misc

Mathematical Proof for Atheism?

Wendelin's Theory No. 2835: No matter what group you belong to, there will be some faction of that group that will give the rest of you a bad name.

I thought, I really really thought, there was no way this could happen in The Group Of People Who Think Creationism Is WACKO And Will Say So Loudly But Not Violently Or Anything. Well ha, ha. You may all point and laugh at my naivete.

Here's what happened. A guy called Kent "I Am Ze Nutcase" Hovind has issued a challenge on his website for years now: he says he'll pay $250,000 to anybody who can prove the theory of evolution*. (Of course, the challenge is asterisked; the fine print says that the acceptable level of proof is recreating the Big Bang in a lab. But let that be for now.) "I AM ZE NUTCASE!" Hovind cried. "Nobody can extract my quarter mil. from me!"

But his glee was to be shortlived... or was it? Wikipedia's entry on Hovind talked about some dude called Adam Kisby having met Hovind's challenge with a mathematical proof. I looked it up. With high hopes. I sorta deserved what was coming, no?

Okay, I've linked to the pdf file of the proof, but I gotta run (furniture shopping, whee!). Here's the challenge to you guys: figure out that's wrong with the guy's proof, all right? I did, so it doesn't take a rocket scientist or nothin'.

Bah. Humbug.

* Kent Hovind's own site seems to be down so I linked to an article detailing the challenge (and showing how bogus it is).

Tags:

• atheism
• rants

It's a LATE AMADay!

AMADay Vol V

Null Bit wonders...

If you wanted to murder someone, how would it be?

I actually have this very well thought-out. First, I'd only ever murder someone living in a city. City people don't notice people going into and coming out of apartments or walking on the streets or whatever. From the same logic, I will carry out the murder during lunch hour on Friday. I'd only ever murder someone I was (apparently) friendly with and never had a major argument with. My motives might include jealousy, jealousy and jealousy. (Yes, the green-eyed monster occupies a large part of my brain.)

I will wear "Friday casual" clothes to blend in (it will allow me to wear a scarf to cover my hair). I will be let into the apartment by the soon-to-be victim. Immediately after being let in, I will deposit a bag containing a carton of ice cream into this person's freezer because I was sweet enough to bring him one. Concealed in this bag is an ice-pick.

I will then take the StbV on his offer of iced tea or whatever, and will take this opportunity to deposit sedatives into his glass. I will get the sedatives months in advance by faking sleeplessness to my doctor. This means finding a doctor who knows nothing about me. :P

Then it's simply a matter of putting on an apron, delivering a couple of quick stabs, stuffing the apron into my oversized handbag and getting out quick.

All my clothes, the apron and the handbag will be burnt immediately and thoroughly. Ta da!

Notice I don't have a cool alibi planned. Normal, innocent people never have one. I was just wandering around the city during the lunch hour, cooking up stories. Why? Somebody killed that incredibly successful writer who was totally my friend? Oh, what a shame.

If you had a million dollars, what would you buy first?

An apartment in New York. Which means it's the only thing I'd buy... har har.

What's the ratio of your height and your waistline? :-D

Tut tut, trick question. My height is well known among the frequenters of this blog... and all you'd have to do is perform a simple multiplication operation to... Uh huh. Na na. No way-o. I'm going no further than to say it's greater than 2.1 and less than 2.4.

Anon asks...

Top five favourite movies ?

This varies a lot... but for now, in no particular order:

1. Z
2. Before Sunset
3. The Children of Heaven
4. Angoor
5. Pulp Fiction

Kr!sh wonders...

Would you recommend P.G.Wodehouse's short stories?

Ahhh... tricky, very tricky. I find the Oldest Member (golf) stories very, very boring, but OTOH, there're many Jeeves and Wooster shorts - and anything with Jeeves and Wooster is absolutely sublime. Blandings stories are also great overall, even if there're some duds mixed in with the lot.

What novel would you recommend for a person with ADD - a short attention span?

Thank You, Jeeves & Right Ho, Jeeves (P. G. Wodehouse)

Presumed Innocent (Scott Turow)

Fear of Flying (Erica Jong)

Anything by Bill Bryson (it's not novels but it's great nevertheless)

Harry Potters 1-3.

Is that good for now?

Chitra asks...

How much do you like Harry Potter?

Oh this is worthy of an essay. Let's do this telegram-style. Me likey HP 1-5, lot lot lot. Book 6 suck. Methinks book 7 will disappoint. But HP still awesome anyway.

If you could kill someone, whom would it be??

I think I've been over this before.
1. Govinda
2. Whoopi Goldberg
3. Johnny Lever

Recently others have been added tot his list:
4. Kent Hovind
5. Dubya

ermm... heehee.... Do you fancy any guys in the book? one of them or saurabh?

By 'the book' you mean The Book? Everybody knows I love Jesus and Jesus loves me.

(Psst: Faramir! Sirius! But mostly Harry! Don't look at me like that, it's not icky, he's a year OLDER than me!)

If there was one thing you could change in your life, what would it be?

I think I would've taken better care of my red bus that my cousin sat on when I was three. That's the root of all my troubles.

do you like me calling you "akka"??

:P You never do. Don't come on thsi blog and try to tell people you've gone all respectful now..

If you could change your looks..as in your figure... whom would you want to look like?

I'm fine, really, with me. A little taller wouldn't be bad. Say 5'8". And oh, oh, smaller thighs. Maybe nice, shapely fingers instead of the stocky stubs I have now. Ooh, and washboard abs... Heck, just make me look like Priyanka Chopra, OK?

How would you spend your *perfect* day?

Eh. What sort of idiotic question is this? I guess the perfect day is when I manage to write more than 5000 words, and also manage to send in two queries to magazines. There's no high like the 5000-word high.

Do you like to be alone, or with people?

Aw come on! What's this, a personality quiz in Seventeen magazine?

what would you like to change in me...if you could that is :P

I'd make you call me 'Akka' all the time. And program you to bring me nice hot snacks every half-hour while I write.

hmm.... whose your fav character in LOTR?

Gollum, baby. I've answered this before.

would you rather live *this* life, or that of one of the students in Hogwarts?

I prefer to believe in parallel universes... and in the universe adjacent to ours, I'm living the Hogwarts life right now. :D

What do you like and not like about saurabh?

I like how he is susceptible to my nagging to read this blog - how he even occasionally likes it. I hate that he's sitting beside me right now censoring everything I am trying to say in answer to this question.

hhmmm.... Have you enjoyed answewring these questions??? HEEHEE

Let's just call you a toe-sucking pimple on the face of the internet and be done with it, shall we?

one last one.... Whats your weight??? ;)

Yeah, yeah... you and Null Bit should get together and plot your evil plans better. I'll tell you that it's greater than 100 Lbs and less than 150 Lbs. Nyah nyah nyah.

Tags:

• AMADay

AMADay is coming...

A little later today (Sat). Unavoidable commitments, my dears. Sorry!

Old Drafts and Things

I found this old draft, dated 13 May 2004. Intriguing, if for no other reason than I now know what exact dream I had on the night of May 12th. Now that this has jogged my memory, I remember it vividly. There were pushpak vimans involved.

Title: Guess what?

My template has changed! That's right... look closely and you'll notice the numerous differences in colour scheme, design and fonts. How do you like it?

This, BTW, is more proof of what inane stuff people get up to when they have too much reading up to do. Don't get me wrong. Debating is totally interesting. So interesting that I can gladly read about it all day, then discuss it with well-meaning teammates and debate friends, and then frickin' dream about trying to convince LKY to go on a mission with me to rescue Aung San Suu Kyi.

Hope you guys have more of a life..

Ah, those college days.

In other news, my writing went pretty darn well today. I think I have the secret to writing publishable poetry figured out. I'm sending the one I wrote today in to Agni Magazine (serious literary shit, not Indian despite the name), and will keep you guys posted on its status. If it gets published, I'll let you in on the secret. How's that for a deal?

AMAday is coming up tomorrow, ask away. Not that I haven't enough questions to deal with, but in the interest of reaching ever-greater heights, you know? (Blame Kr!sh, yes, blame Kr!sh.)

I'm having second thoughts on giving five stars to Wicked. I hadn't finished it yet when I gave it that rating, and now that I have... meh. It's hardcore fantasy, which as y'all know I don't much like. Maguire is rather Tolkeinish in his attention to detail, and that was the worst thing about old JRRT. I'm bringing it down to three-and-half stars, OK? I liked the philosophical depth in the book, which, though a little too reactionary for my tastes (har har look who's talking) was better than you see in most non-Ayn-Rand fiction.

That's all.

Tags:

• misc

National Poetry Month: Got Frost?

A recognisable poet this time - Robert Frost, who is really one of my favourites. Mostly because he is accessible to even one as illiterate as me, but then again, accessiblilty is talent and vice versa; nothing so pretentious as deliberate indecipherability, I always say. (e.g.: lyrics to "American Pie".)

Fire and Ice

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To know that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

There's Frost's greatest strength, IMHO: copius subtlety. There is no thundering rhythm, no mounting spirals of alliteration, no clauses snaking and breaking across multiple lines; the rhymes are simple and clean. And the rhyme schemes are almost always more complicated than they first seem. I read "Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening" many times and never noticed -- until someone pointed it out to me -- that the rhyme scheme is not aaxa bbxb but aaba bbcb ccdc. I read "Design" a bunch of times before I realized it was a sonnet. Because, really, who writes sonnets about moths and spiders and weeds?

Here there're just nine lines, two of the rhymes are taken up with repetitions of "fire" and "ice", no word fancier than "suffice" (or "perish", depending on which of those is fancier), and the only word longer than two syllables is "destruction". It's so... innocuous and quietly effective.

It wasn't until some criticism here (see John Serio) pointed out these things that I became aware that the nine lines of the poem (may) represent the nine circles of Dante's hell, and that the poem, like Dante's hell, has a funnel/narrowing towards the bottom structure.

The page linked above recounts an anecdote (possibly apocryphal) where Frost asked a scientist at a party "How will the world end?" - and the two possibilities in this poem are actually pretty scientifically sound. Which is not the point, agreed, but a very nice touch nevertheless.

The thing I like best, though, about this poem is the mild acceptance quality of the throwaway lines like "if it had to perish twice" and "for destruction ice/Is also great/And would suffice" - the completely unquestioned,stated as perfectly natural, supposition that there is enough destructive human emotion in the world to annihilate it twice over, and the only question is, which will get there first. I mean, it's such a darkly cynical, black humour sort of view, but so comfortably stated!



Questions? Observations? Leave your smart, biting queries in the comments, and I'll get 'em on Ask Me Anything Day!

Tags:

• writing

National Poetry Month

Saurabh likes Kremlin Mountaineer, a poem by Osip Mandelstam, a poet who was imprisoned in the Gulag during Stalin's reign. And with progressive readings, I have come to see its genius. Full of visual and mechanical imagery, its vituperation comes across like a fist to the face.



Questions? Observations? Leave your smart, biting queries in the comments, and I'll get 'em on Ask Me Anything Day!

Tags:

• writing

Harry Potter vs Jadoo

Warner Brothers is suing Bajaj Auto for stealing Harry Potter!

All right. So Bajaj apparently has this ad (go to "download goodies" on the top left, and then click on "TV commercial") which features a guy in a Bajaj motorbike outpacing a Harry-Potter-like character on a broomstick. Cute ad, if a tad too long.

My question: is it really copyright infringement if the thing is obviously a parody? The ad had Harry Potter stopping to refuel his broom! Think of SNL sketches, parody books, even serious books with "Harry Potter" in their title that are obviously looking to hitchhike on the Potter phenomenon. If that's legal, why isn't this ad? Hmm.

But this is just BS -

"The West feels that anyone in a red bikini is Baywatch and any flying boy is Harry Potter. Our concept of Jadoo is unique and we don't believe it's copied from Harry Potter," a company official said. "We feel the claim is exaggerated."

Questions? Observations? Disagree with my opinions? Leave your smart, biting queries in the comments, and I'll get 'em on Ask Me Anything Day!

Tags:

• entertainment
• HP

It's Ask Me Anything Day!

This week, Kr!sh seems to have taken it upon himself to flood me with enough questions to last a year (literally: there's 50 questions in the meme he posted in comments). Well, ha ha. So that you don't suffer for his sins, dear readers, Kr!sh's questions come after I've answered all the rest of the questions I got. All set? Here we go...

AMADay Vol IV

What kind of a pompous ass asks "What's your brand of philosophy" to someone? I mean, just when I thought I'd seen all types.. :P
- Div

The pompous ass kind? Heh. But seriously, I wish people did have more conversations like that. I wish it was polite to go up to someone and ask them what they believe in, and then have a nice chat about it all. Neither party evangelising, of course... in a perfect world, it would be the same as asking someone, "So what's your favourite movie?" I was not at all offended by the question... only by the anti-Objectivist snobbery.

What would your dream book be about ie. what themes, what genre?
- Saurabh

In my dreams, I am as hilarious and witty as P. G. Wodehouse. I write about utterly inconsequential, yet honest things - musical comedies without the music, yes - purely for entertainment. Of course, we all know that's never going to happen... so I have to content myself with honesty. But I swear I'm never going to write anything bleak. If I do, I give you complete permission to tear it up.

What is the probability that if you chose 7 random letters from a scrabble set, you will get your name?
- Saurabh

1/776452. Go away.
(I could actually find out the number of ways to pick that set of letters and multiply each of them by no.Of(NthTile)s/100-N, but I won't. Anybody know an easier way to do it?)

The Kr!sh Questions

Were you named after anyone?
I was named after Jayachamaraja Wodeyar's pet cat.

Do you wish on stars?
Sorry, only nebulas.

When did you last cry?
Er.. yesterday? I cry easily. (This is true.)

Do you like your handwriting?
Sure. I spent years developing pretty loops and whirls and hearts to dot my i's, and then years taking them out. It's clean now. I like it.

What is your favourite meat?
Heh heh heh heh...

Ahem. I'm a vegetarian.

What is your most embarrassing CD on your shelf?
I am not that easily embarrassed. (It's just a CD, furcrysay!)

If you were another person, would YOU be friends with you?
Not unless I was exactly like me.

Are you a daredevil?
Sure, I'm up for anything.

How do you release anger?
By crying.

Where is your second home?
What the F&^% sort of questions are these?

Do you trust others easily?
Screw you. No.

What was your favourite toy as a child?
A red bus that my cousin broke by sitting on it. My mother hasn't forgiven him yet.

What class in school/college do you think is totally useless?
I'm absolutely the wrong person to put this question to.

Do you use sarcasm a lot?
No.*

Have you ever been in a mosh pit?
Once. I don't see the allure. Messy, hair gets stickly and tangled and you gotta spend hours combing them out, and there's just too many people. Ugh.

What do you look for in a guy?
A certain... shall we say... dopiness.

Would you bungee jump?
My tongue is hanging out.

Do you untie your shoes when you take them off?
As opposed to sawing shoes off to save myself the trouble with laces, you mean?

What's your favourite ice cream?
If the Universe had intended us to eat ice cream, It would have given us teeth of steel with no hint of nerve endings in them.

What are your favourite colours?
Orange. That's it.

What are your least favourite things?
Oh for F&^%'s sake! These questions are driving me nuts!

How many people do you have a crush on right now?
Four.

Who do you miss most right now?
My mommy.

What are you listening to right now?
The sound of a clacking keyboard, you dumass.

If you were a crayon, what colour would you be?
Twinkle twinkle little star.

What is the weather like right now?
Glorious. And you're keeping me in.

Last person you talked to on the phone?
Salesperson.

The "first" thing you notice about the opposite sex?
I "first" notice their "nose", unless they don't "have" one, in which case I try to notice their "hair".


Do you like the person who sent you this?
Considering how this task he has set me is less fun than running my nostrils down a cactus, I think he is a toe-sucking pimple on the face of the internet.

How are you today?
Ravishing as always, bughead.

Favourite non alcoholic drink?
The blood of innocents.

Favourite alcoholic drink?
The blood of Kr!sh.

Natural hair colour?
Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer had a very shiny nose.

Eye colour?
Flashing silver, with occasional butterflies flying out of them.

Wear contacts?
Go contact yourself.

Siblings?
....

Favourite month?
You've got to be kidding.

Favourite food?
All right. Potato chips.

Favourite day of the year?
Any day I can eat potato chips.

Have you ever been too shy to ask someone out?
Not when I'm eating potato chips.

Scary movies or happy endings?
Scary movies, especially if they feature killer potato chips.

Summer or winter?
Chip season.

Holi or Diwali?
Holi.

With chips.

Do you like your name?
I give up.

What book/magazine are you reading?
Neil Gaiman's American Gods.

What's on your mouse pad?
"Road Runner High speed online (TM) Time Warner Cable www.RR.com"

What did you watch on TV last night?
My Name Is Earl, The Office

Favourite Smell?
Eu de Chips

Have you ever regretted breaking up with someone?
No, but I've regretted not pretending I never knoew someone.

Most tiresome thing you’ve ever experienced/done?
Hmm.

Hmmm.

Let me think.


*Except in this question.


Questions? Observations? Disagree with my opinions? Leave your smart, biting queries in the comments, and I'll get 'em on Ask Me Anything Day!

Fat Wars

They're at it again: celebrities, mudslingers, tabloids and fanclubs. Recently, J. K. Rowling updated her website to include a rant about the unrealistic physical standards girls are held to by the media. Seen it, heard it, read it a hundred times, ho hum. Wouldn't have given it a second thought if it hadn't been for some British tabloid called The Mail zooming in on JKR's heated words about "this skinny-obsessed world" from the article and running a smear job with it.

I actually agree somewhat with the spirit of the article: leave that for later, though, because the examples the article gives are just... bogus! It's patently clear this was written by somebody who's just read the first few chapters of the sixth book and hobbled together whatever could be found.

Rowling happily mocks another Hogwarts pupil, Marietta, whose 'thick layer of makeup did not obscure the odd formation of pimples etched across her face.' Is that her fault?

Yes, dummy, it is. The "odd formation" thing there? That's the pimples spelling out the word "SNEAK". Any questions?

And here's another:

But Rowling is in awe of Fleur Delacour, who is sweet on Harry. ...(quote from "An Excess of Phlegm", describing how breathtaking Fleur is)... Tall and willowy? Skinny obsessed? Not Rowling.

Fleur is not 'sweet on Harry'. And I'm wondering how it's possible for JKR to be 'in awe' of someone whose nickname in the books is "phlegm". Yeah. The main character and his girlfriend invented it.

Harry’s girlfriend, Ginny—pale and with long, flowing, red hair—has an air of Hamlet’s Ophelia about her. Rowling frequently uses dancing metaphors to describe Ginny. In one section she waltzes across the floor ‘like a ballerina.’ There are few fat ballet dancers.

Ginny is actually dancing across the room here, in a mockery of Fleur's conceited airs. If this person had read even the paragraph surrounding this sentence, s/he would have known that.

This makes me think the misrepresentation going here is deliberate. Tabloids will do anything for a catchy headline, won't they? I only wish it was confined to tabloids.

A few years ago, I was mad about Objectivism. You know how it is when you first stumble across Atlas Shrugged or The Fountainhead - especially if you're in your teens when it happens. I was an instant convert, I had Saurabh buy me all Ayn Rand's non-fiction books as a birthday present, etc etc. I've outgrown the mania, of course, but I still find the precepts of Objectivism to be sound: the supremacy of reason, the validity of rational self-interest, the rightness of capitalism.

And yet I find people expecting me to apologise for these beliefs. In the "adult world" that I have recently entered, it is the hallmark of immaturity to confess to having one's philosophical roots in Ayn Rand. A couple of months ago, someone asked me, "So what's your brand of philosophy?" I told him, "I take my basic tenets from Objectivism and leave the dogmatism alone-" He wouldn't even let me finish my sentence. The moment I mentioned Objectivism, he was shaking his head, waving his hand and turning away. "Talk to me when you've grown past it."

Nice guy, too. Knows a lot, fun to hang out with.. but there it was. To him I had suddenly turned into an Atlas-Shrugged-thumping geeky freshie. And the reason it happened was because there's always been a wholesale misrepresentation of Objectivism in the stuff you read, most of it deliberate. Whether it's intellectuals who pooh-pooh Rand as having pretentions to philosophy but not the real stuff, or Michael Shermer branding Objectivism a cult, the smear campaign is out there.

It baffles me. There is so very much that can be rightly said against Objectivism as Ayn Rand defined it to be, where is the need to take the good stuff and misrep it? Does the latter actually make better headlines than the former? I wouldn't think so - "Immoral To Dislike Rachmaninoff, Rand Says" vs "Ayn Rand Is Immature, Nyah Nyah Nyah". Take your pick. (Okay, so you think the second headline is funnier, ha ha. :P Pick again.)

But what I deeply suspect is that the people involved in this random crap-shooting are too lazy to go dig up the actual dirt. It takes effort to read, understand and knowledgeably criticise someone's work, and who has time for that? It's precisely what happened with J. K. Rowling and the tabloids. Just find a monkey willing to hack out eight hundred words of snit against a celebrity, and you're set.

Having said that, let's get to the part where I actually agree with the spirit of that article in The Mail. JKR may not be 'skinny-obsessed' when it comes to standards girls are held to (which was the specific subject of her rant on jkrowling.com), but she does commit a subtly different sin: portraying fat people as losers, in general.

The idea is prevalent in the mass media - fat people are inept, incompetent, pathetic... and sometimes evil, but never in a smart way. Sharp, formidable, intelligent, cool villains are always thin. And so it is in JKR's world. The people who carry the show are thin, the people who don't need to be taken very seriously are fat. Cases in point:

• Wormtail (fat, pathetic man who is disgustingly servile to Voldemort; lived 12 years as a rat)


• Neville Longbottom (positive character, good friends with Harry, but his defining characteristics are clumsiness, forgetfulness and ineptitude)


• Dolores Umbridge (evil, but can hardly even perform basic spells, students easily outclass her in magical skills)


• Cornelius Fudge (former Minister of Magic, fat, utterly incompetent beaurocrat)


• Dudley Dursley(a bully and a loser who is ineffective against Harry's brains and magic)


• Hagrid (the giant is dimmer and less mature than Harry and co. - sort of embarrassing for a 60-year-old man)


• Horace Slughorn (enormously fat, pathetic man with weak moral fibre, generally seen as a loser)


• Crabbe and Goyle (fat, dimwitted pair of thugs in Draco Malfoy's posse)


• even Molly Weasley (so inept at magic she can't get rid of a boggart - something kids learn in their third year of school)

In short, I can't think of a single character in the HP universe who is fat, and yet smart and competent, magically or otherwise.

I'll bet this characterisation was unconscious, and this is slightly different from having a skinny-girls-only worldview. Rowling's characters aren't simplistic either; it's not just fat=incompetent thin=competent in her world, the characters go much deeper than that. But she is following a trend here, and not a healthy one.

Now why couldn't the newspapers have pointed this out instead of making up all the crap they did?

Questions? Observations? Leave your smart, biting queries in the comments, and I'll get 'em on Ask Me Anything Day!

Tags:

• rants
• HP

Figs

I'm getting into it a little late, but it's National Poetry Month (wonder who makes these things up). I like poetry - or at least pretend to. The awful secondary school I went to put a stop to us elite pure-science students wasting time on stuff like literature, and that was that.

But enough of my life's sad story. Once in a while I do come across a poem that I miraculously "get" - it's a great feeling. One of them is Edna St. Vincent Millay's First Fig, a poem you've probably seen quoted everywhere. It turns out she wrote a Second Fig on the same theme:

First Fig
My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends--
It gives a lovely light!

Second Fig
Safe upon the solid rock the ugly houses stand:
Come and see my shining palace built upon the sand!

I get the second one less than the first - but oh, the first! Once every few weeks my life becomes First Fig. Self-destructive, hedonistic, ridiculous, crazy, stupid? Yeah. But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends, there's no pleasure like a guilty pleasure.


Questions? Observations? Leave your smart, biting queries in the comments, and I'll get 'em on Ask Me Anything Day!

It's Ask Me Anything Day!

All right, I cheated. I didn't remind anyone that AMADay was coming up, because I didn't want too many questions.

*Dodges shower of rotten tomatoes*

All right, all right, I really do have a good excuse. WORK, okay? I let it all pile up for Friday. My bad.

No, no, not eggs..! *sputter*

This is a one-time thing, I swear! I'm putting in a standard code with every single post that invites questions! Really! Look at the bottom of this post!

Okay?

I did get some questions on the comments and by email, so here's the answers. I'm going to go hide behind this tree while you read, just in case.

AMADay Vol III

I remember sometime back in your blog you had a long list of books with the books you read in bold, etc. I was just surprised to see in the list of books that had Yuck next to it, God of Small things and The Godfather. Well! I know you are an atheist. Does that also include books with the word 'God' in it? I would like to hear why you didn't like those books?
- Ram

I'm hurt... hurt, i tell you. Is this what y'all think of me?

Wendelin wanders into the bookstore, armed with automatic scanner-and-zapper gun. Runs scanner over shelves. Scanner beeps every time it passes over a book with 'God' in the title. Bleep ... bleep ... bleep ... Zap! Zap! Zap! What's that? A book-buyer with a WWJD button? ZAP! Wendelin pauses at the end of the aisle, eyeing the smoking holes in the shelves with a gleam of satisfaction. Blows a cool breath on the barrel of the scan-and-zap gun, and moves on. A zapper's work is never done.

Okay.

The Godfather was just... a badly written book. There's no excuse, there just isn't. We were hopping around from one character's head to another, often in the space of the same paragraph. What, did I pick up a Harlequin romance?! Shoddy pacing (the middle d...r...a...a...a...g...s), superfluous characters, subplots so disconnected they seemed to be from a whole other book (Tony Fontaine)... I don't know. It had substance, but the story was butchered. Fortunately for us all, Francis Ford Coppola came along and told it like it was supposed to be told. The Godfather is at the very top of my (very short) list of movies that are better than the books they are based on.

And in my defence, here's an excerpt from The God of Small Things (random page):

Some days he walked along the banks of the river that smelled of shit and pesticides and World Bank loans. Most of the fish had died. The ones that had survived suffered from fin-rot and had broken out in boils.

Other days he walked down the road. Past the new, freshly baked, iced, Gulf-money houses built by nurses, masons, wire-benders and bank clerks, who had worked hard and unhappily in faraway places. Past the resentful older houses tinged green with envy, cowering in their private driveways among their private rubber trees. Each a tottering fiefdom with an epic of its own.

Not bad, yes? I agree. But what if the whole page was like this? The whole chapter? The whole frickin' book? EXACTLY like this. Each word written, reconsidered and rewritten thrice, each word carrying five times its weight in meaning, symbolism, metaphor, epithet and onomatopoeia, and each word matched with its neighbour to poetic perfection?

AAAARRRGGGHHH.

I don't have the patience for 300-page 90,000-word poems, okay? Especially not one which, in a desperate bid for respectability, masquerades as a book. :P

Why don't you start your own website than relying on Blogger? You can have more options of exhbiting your content. Not really a question..
- Kr!sh

That costs money. I'm not gonna spend money I ain't earning. Once the writing starts to bring a steady income in... then we'll see. :)


Are you a better writer or a better debater? Favorite lines you've written / favorite sentences in debate. ( it's AMAday :-D )
- Kr!sh

I'm a better debater. I live for the argument. I love it when somebody manages to change my mind with the force of logic. If I could do it for money, I would (and did, for a while... ah, the days). In other words, my writing career was doomed before it started (my chosen profession is jealous; it does not tolerate other loves). I think I'll go kill myself now.

If you want to give an advice to every reader/commenter of your blog what would those be? :-) ( can list the names and advice(s) ).. controversy:D !!
- Kr!sh

Ever heard of "everybody needs to use sunscreen"?

Don't.

At least, not if you're Indian. We don't need it, and the chemicals in the sunscreen will give us cancer. There. That's my generic advice to all. I have a few special messages for a few people, however...

To 4WD: Be a man! Even if you gotta fake it!

To Juice: You should WRITE! I got two words for you: chick lit.

To Saurabh: BLOG, you idiot. It's been ages.

To Pinky: Post pictures of Jalebi when you make it - I wanna see!

To Kr!sh: Come out of your shell, shout the name of your LJ from the rooftops! What do you have to lose, man?


Questions? Observations? Leave your smart, biting queries in the comments, and I'll get 'em on Ask Me Anything Day!

Tags:

• AMADay

Wendelin Wonders on Wednesday...

The questions went out. The answers are in. We have our first no-show, a thoughtful take on PETA, the mystery of Kr!sh's '!' solved, Null Bit's peculiar habits with ants... and this blog's second stalker!

So ladies, gentlemen and 4WD, I give you...

WWW Vol I

Wendelin wondered...
Null Bit is "almost autistic"? I wonder what his symptoms are...?

Null Bit answers:

Nandini wants to know my "autistic" symptoms. Actually, I'd prefer to not be an adult at all rather than be autistic :-P... [I] start tracing the path of ants and destroying their homes, and in the process making holes in the walls...

(Read the rest of Null Bit's post)



Wendelin wondered...
How come Amit has, like, a million blogs?

Amit Answers:

Well I was aiming for a gazillion, but fell short by a few I guess :-P.

(Read the rest of Amit's post)



Wendelin wondered...
How can 'Anonymous' like LotR in spite of its mindnumbing pace and OCD-ish attention to insignificant detail?

Anon Answers:

I just love fantasy. Be it Harry Potter or LOTR, both writers beautifully build up imagery and diverse characters. It is his attention to details of every realm and character of middle earth that make Tolkein unique. What you call 'insignificant', I call 'intricate'. I dont feel his pace is 'mindnumbing'...he writes 2-3 pagee long poems for god sake !!

On the larger picture of life and man's mutilation of purity of earth (p.s I'm an atheist and a misanthrope), the Ent's are an example of how he brings about the juxtaposition with something relevant to our times. Thats why fantasy is sooo brilliant... you can conjure different images every time you read it.

Wendelin wondered...
What does Mockingbird think about PETA's nutcase section?

Mockingbird answers:

[T]here are some members of PETA, and you know who I am talking about, who make it all seem like a frivolous, celebrity activity, something like hey, I went and held hands with some starving kids in Somalia. Like that helps... But the rescue of lab animals, I support. ...

(Read the rest of Mockingbird's post)



Wendelin wondered...
Why the '!' in Kr!sh? And he's asked me a lot of theological questions... what are his thoughts on the issue?

Kr!sh answers:

[on the '!'] Generally re :-P. Why not?

[On God] I don't know :-(. I think I am an agnostic.

I ask a lot of "Why?" questions. Why should there be a life? Philosophical sh*t like that.

And some phenomena which elude Science totally - the first spark, singularity in a black hole which has zero volume and infinite mass. These are "How" questions and hopefully science answers them in future which will just leave me with "Why" questions.

To put it succintly, I think I am an atheist most of the time and a believer in the rest of the time.

Wendelin wondered...
How does Nidhi - the wacko who asked how I caught my husband O.o - get through the day? Is it... (dum dum dum daaaaam) crack?
Nidhi answers:

....

Nada! Nothing! Wendelin keeps wondering!


Wendelin wondered...
This 4WD fellow's profile says:

This is my search for the no-strings-attached girl. Extra points if she has a boyfriend already.

. So... has he ever managed to get a girl? If so, how? And if not, does he have a clue why not?

4WD answers:

Dude,

That is a sad-assed question. Read my blog. Read the last couple of posts.

Oh wait, i'm actually 14, love chemistry and trigonometry, and have never met a girl, and make up online names that are strangely twisted versions of my real name (yeh, you know who i'm talking about).

But if you must know, twice in my life, i asked someone to marry me. Twice also, someone accepted.

If you're gonna continue being mean to me, i'll not go away, i'll just be mean back.

-4

Sigh. I'm just crushed. It was a fair question, given that wacko profile... *perks up* But stalkers are fun. I hereby designate 4WD as Wendelin's official rip-ee. Yay!

I have a theory on this guy. Go read his last couple of posts... And now read his comments on this blog. Doesn't it seem like it's two different people? A person can't go from writing genuinely funny posts to whining like a baby (waaaah, why were you mean to me?) ....

Or can he?

I have two words for y'all: schizophrenic stalker!

Finis.

Tags:

• WWW

Jalebi!

Your halvai's best kept secret: jalebis are frickin' EASY to make. No kidding. Do you have 30 minutes? No? OK, how about 20? That's all it takes to make hot, crunchy jalebis - perfectly sweet and tangy.

Disclaimer: I am not a jalebi professional. The shape of my jalebi is quite extraordinary.

Here's what you will need.

EQUIPMENT:
1. A bowl to mix the dough in
2. A wooden spoon to mix with
3. A kadai/wok to deep-fry
4. A slotted spoon to drain what you fry
5. An easy-squeeze bottle with a small nozzle, like a ketchup bottle or a honey bottle:

INGREDIENTS:
(For the jalebi)
1. 1 cup plain flour
2. 2 tbsp besan (chick-pea flour)
3. 1/2 tsp active dry yeast
4. 3 tbsp lemon juice
5. Oil for deep frying

(For the sugar syrup)
1. 2 cups water
2. 2 cups sugar
3. 2 tsp rose water OR 1 tsp cardamom seeds

METHOD:

1. Mix the flours and yeast in a bowl
2. Add enough water to make a thick, yet pourable paste.
3. Leave this aside for 10 minutes.
4. Meanwhile, you'll want to start heating the oil...
5. ...And making the sugar syrup. Just mix the sugar, water and cardamom seeds/rose water and boil.
6. Mix the lemon juice into your batter and pour batter into squeezy bottle.
7. Squeeze the batter out into the oil in interesting shapes. (Incidentally, this is when you'll be able to tell if the batter is too thick or thin. If it's thick, it won't squeeze out smoothly, and if it's thin there's going to be big blobs everywhere. You can fix your problems by pouring the batter back into your bowl and adding more water or flour as required. Caution: little water goes a long way.)



8. Fry the jalebi till it's golden brown, then drain and drop directly into the sugar syrup.
9. Let the jalebi stay in the sugar syrup for exactly as long as it takes you to pour out the next jalebi into the wok - which is about 10-15 seconds.
10. Remove jalebi from syrup and serve hot or cold.

Bonus tip: your jalebi will be crunchier if the sugar syrup has been cooled to room temp.

Yum yummy yum yum.

Tags:

• misc

It Worked

A Gujju fella called Krishna Bhanji wanted to be a British actor, so he changed his name to Ben Kingsley. The man looks as Gujju as ever, but apparently, even totally "expert" movie critics are fooled:



The excerpt is from "Ten Sure Signs a Movie Character is Doomed, and Other Surprising Movie Lists", a really, really crappy book by Richard Roeper. (Crappy because it's full of lists of movies, actors and quotes from movies rather than any actual content. Not that Roeper writes very well at all.)

Tags:

• entertainment

Feeling Philosophical

Those moments that make you really look at your life, long and hard? They sneak up on you. Biatches.

This above all: to thine own self be true. Say it with me.

Tags:

• misc

The Questions

Taxes are done! The questions are here!

For Mockingbird:
PETA member - now that's just begging to be talked about. What do you think should be done about the people who you say sully your organisation's good name?

For Amit:
How come you have like a million blogs?

For 4WD:
All right, let it rip: ever had a girlfriend? If so, how did you manage it - and if not, why do you think that is? ;)

For Null Bit:
You're "almost autistic"?! What are your symptoms?

For Krexclamationsh:
Seriously. What's with the '!'?

For Nidhi:
What gets you through the day? Is it crack or is it something else?

For 'Anonymous':
Right back atcha - how can you like LotR in spite of its mindnumbing pace and OCD-ish attention to insignificant detail?

Remember: you got until Tuesday night! :)

Tags:

• WWW