Linking and learning

Hello again! This blog had nearly been consigned to the dustbin of my memory when I realised that all the reading I do is useless unless properly processed and stored for future analysis. For me, writing certainly helps me process and remember facts and ideas better. The vast deluge of information surrounding us tends to be overwhelming for me. Finding connections between theories and statements and ideas is key to understanding what's going on in the world, rather than just other people's opinions. How does one make connections in the face of so much junk though? Unless you remember facts, there's no way to make the connections while reading, and piecemeal facts, like a branch without a tree, are first to be junked. My brain is like a leaky sieve, and I think I need to form connections while reading itself, so I can save those poor lonely piecemeal facts. Cling on to my lifeboat! Let's take the brain on a learning game this year. :)

Today's article  - a Guardian long piece about whether scientific theories will disappear in the face of big data. This was based on a 2008 article. Chris Anderson, editor of the Wired hypothesised (an ironic choice of word if ever there was one) at that time that this would happen to science soon, in the face of new data and new computational capability. Has it though? My major question about having AI tools analysing relationships between data is - are AI tools actually tools? Are they given instructions by researchers or do they look at data afresh without the need for guidance? If they require guidance, the hand of the scientist cannot be removed from the analysis, and AI will just become another useful method to study data with the scientist making the inferences. If not, the scientist becomes merely a black box operator, positing answers to real world problems without understanding why. And isn't the basis of much of human endeavour a quest to answer the "why"? What's the point of us if we cannot understand. Am I, if I don't think?

bits and pieces from here and there

one step forward
two steps back
excuse me sir
can we get back on track

there's no need to call him
he's one of those no-shows
coming to turn this talk
into a case of blows

shall we park this?
let's rake this down offline
i'm gonna drop off now
don't cut and waste my time

yeah, you know I hear you
i'm trying, my brains to rack
but from any perspective
you're just an arrogant crack

The REAL Piano

You know what? I found another reason heaven will be awesome. I'm assuming irrational numbers won't need to exist in heaven because we'll stop being finite and limited. IF that is so and mathematics exists in a whole different dimension in heaven, there will be a perfect piano there! Apparently, a piano can never be perfectly tuned. Feynman wrote something about this too! Because of frequencies and irrational numbers (the twelfth root of 2 can creep quite surreptitiously into this discussion) it's impossible to ever have the same ratios between all the notes. (Which makes you wonder why the piano was invented that way in the first place and why it's so popular. Fodder for a different post though, I guess.) Anyway, the upshot is that since piano tuners use an irrational number to tune a piano, the octaves are kept perfectly tuned but this tuning method flattens or sharpens the other intervals. It's fascinating! And it reminds me of  the image of the real Narnia in "The Last Battle". :)

Time, time, time, what has become of me?

Life is supposed to become simpler as you get older, right? 

Why is it that the more you grow, the less you know? 

The more that you know, the less you know you know about what you know!

Is it better not to try to know anything?

What now?

It's happened. Counting Day has come and gone, leaving the saffron brigade jubilant. The TV showed scenes of dancing and cheering in constituencies all over the country while even in Times Square, Abki Baar revolutionaries gathered to celebrate the landslide, historic win that they largely funded, and were offered brotherly support, as well as, for some reason, samosas in celebration. The revelry in the Stock market and on trading floors was also clear, with the Sensex passing 25,000 points. The Congress was wiped the floor with. AAP fared no better. Regional parties did reasonably well in states like West Bengal and Tamil Nadu. But the big ones- the B and U of the BIAMRU States- were swept by the Hindu Right. It's tragic that every single time, these states have the most decisive impact on the electoral outcome. The most illiterate people who are the least likely to have the knowledge to be able to make informed decisions; why do these decide who our rulers are?

So, what now? Love it or hate it, what's next for India? That's the big question.

Will the BJP act tough on nations like Pakistan- will machismo and militarism define our foreign policy from now on? 

Will 'development' take place at all? Is it only the Adanis and Ambanis who will have any reason to cheer in the next few years? 

Will education and health show the much needed inmprovements in order to increase employment, employability of the population, consistent economic growth, reduction in poverty and societal stability?

Will minorities feel secure and not be targeted by a newly buoyant RSS, who will now be confident of minimal retribution for any actions from the overloads who have historically shown a tendency to instigate communal hatred by their speeches and actions and absolutely no inclination to seriously prosecute communal rioters?

I don't know any of the answers, nor am I overtly optimistic about any. 

All I can do is pray. 

God save India ...from her own destructive children.

Just Cuckoo

I just watched 'One flew over the cuckoo's nest' because it was one of the top movies on IMDB's list.

Straight out, I have absolutely no idea why it was rated so highly.

To me, the entire movie didn't just have anti-female undertones....it was as plain as the cap on Nurse Ratched's head that the writer was completely and utterly sexist. The book was apparently written in the 1960s, partly in reaction to the second wave of feminism.

There was, for instance, glorification of the McMurphy character. He was a fun-loving character who sometimes took an interest in other people: he tried to bring Chief out of his shell for one thing ( the extreme was forcing Billy to sleep with his girlfriend -or hooker friend, whatever she was- Candy as some sort of sick reward), but there was absolutely nothing to impress one about him. An ex-con who was sent to prison for assault('Rocky Marciano's got more fights and he's a millionaire') and statutory rape('she was 15 going on 35') and gives his reasons for being sent to prison as 'because i fight and fuck too much' does not possess characteristics that should impress any sensible man or woman today. How can a character who lied and pretended to be mad just to escape the work farms be seen as an honourable male, in any sense?

This whole movie just reeked of the 'men will/should be men' flavour. And how can they be(for the uninitiated)? Fighting, boozing, gambling and having sex indiscriminately apparently. Hear that, guys?

I'm not saying I liked the Nurse Ratched character either. She showed plenty of malice as well. It's just that her portrayal is obviously meant to show that women shouldn't be in charge. How dare they even attempt to be, right? She should have been trying to make herself look sexy, giggling and hanging on to men like the Candy character- and the other one, I forget her name.

That midnight scene was just astoundingly dumb. How can asking your girlfriend to sleep with another guy('you know he's cute'),  telling her 'I love you' and then slapping her butt go together in any sane guy's actions? Does she have no mind of her own or is she your property to be loaned out when required? Ohh that was enraging. I have a feeling McMurphy was actually mad. Why else did he go to sleep instead of calling Billy and Candy and scattering? Why did he have to stay in the ward at all? It didn't make sense how everyone just woke up the next day! I have a feeling that the writer just wanted a sad ending to show how terrible the ending for 'real men' is when there are women in power.

Those were two long hours of misogynism. There's a bitter aftertaste in my mouth, especially after I looked for reviews online and found this scum of a review. I couldn't believe such a site existed till I saw it.
Pshh.

Love that never fails

I was listening to the song 'Your love never fails' by Jesus Culture just now. And I was wondering about the lyrics. 'The sorrow lasts through the night but joy comes with the morning'. 'You make all things work together for my good'. And about 'You stay the same through the ages'. And I thought about how I've been struggling with the first two things: about how things of this world can make me forget God's love.

As a self-centred human, I often tend to define my 'good' as what I want from life. And I realise yet again what I so often forget, that anything I face doesn't mean that my eternal God's love has changed. Pain and sorrow have to be there so that life's joys can be realised and relished all the more. What's more, my life has been so sheltered that I don't realise what pain means. What I count as pain and what a tribal girl from a village in Bihar or Orissa counts as pain is definitely poles apart. Getting a good placement is nothing compared to starvation and the daily grind of earning enough in a day for food.
Perspective.That's all one needs from life, really.
And then the morning will come.