Onward

I am moving here under a different name. Six years is a long time, especially if it starts in college.

The Infinitely Prolonged

Tomorrow shall find me filling this up with a disposition and patience not unlike that of Genghis Khan excusing himself into Europe after Wowbagger's (whom you'll need to know to make sense of the title) rather unexpected visit. For now, the following shall have to do.

As Edsger Dijkstra, Don Knuth and, doubtless, a number of other awfully brainy chaps have observed, Computer Science is not much about computers as we know them and is about as much of a science as numismatics. This is a prime example of what is in the general populace known as a misnomer. Another prime example, though not as humongous in scale, is something I chose to call "Song of the Week" - it has always been more than one song, and if it seems like a week since the previous one, it should be the case that a certain European neutrino did indeed give his photon pals quite a run.

So that I may retire to the safety of my bed before the swarm of mosquitoes I seem to be seated in has the opportunity to finish its bloody business (pun intended) with the forearm, I embrace brevity. Here are two for now.


One can never tire of Irish folk songs. I heard this one first about a month ago and have repeated the act a large number of times hence.

Jug of Punch, as performed by The Clancy Brothers (and Tommy Makem, I think).

Speaking of folk songs, here's one from Liverpool.

Maggie Mae, as performed by some rock band from the aforementioned locality.

I believe there are stories behind how this song got into Let It Be that you can read somewhere.

Just a day? Definitely not.

If majesty were to be defined with an example, look no further ahead of this one from the legendary Balamuralikrishna. As I have mentioned earlier, he is one of my favourite vocalists, this song being no lesser than any other as a reason. Needless to say, his concert was the event I most looked forward to last Saarang. (What transpired during the concert itself is a different, rather unfortunate story.)

Oru Naal Podhuma, as sung by M.Balamuralikrishna for the movie Thiruvilayadal.

Also should be mentioned the mangalam of his own composition with which he usually concludes concerts. (Trust me, some day in the future I will be able to tell which ragam it is by listening to it.)

Watch out, the world's behind you

After coming across a mention of The Velvet Underground somewhere recently, I decided to give this legendary 60's band a try. Cited as one of the most influential groups in the history of rock music, they faced surprisingly little commercial success. Quoting Wikipedia quoting someone, "The first Velvet Underground album only sold 10,000 copies, but everyone who bought it formed a band". Though I just started on them two or three days ago, I've been haunted by their songs ever since. Here are a couple.

Sunday Morning, by The Velvet Underground.

Beginning to See the Light, by The Velvet Underground.

I'm sure they have many more such awaiting me.

PS: About the sentence with the quote above - start a quotation in a sentence, end it in the sentence. Put the period after the quotation mark. I believe this makes more sense than the commonly adopted alternative.

As Darwin once said

(If I am ever unable to meet any deadline of any sort over here, blame it on my Operating Systems Lab.)

I discovered The Kinks earlier this week. I only hope there await me many more such discoveries that are as pleasurable.

Two songs this week too. Both by The Kinks, of course.



Apeman, by The Kinks.

And my favourite of theirs,
Lola, by The Kinks.

Also check out Autumn Almanac and You Really Got Me, for which they're most famous.

Don't Worry, Be Happy.

I needed some way to keep the blog alive till more time is at hand to throw at it. So, shamelessly ripping off a concept from Gauss knows how many places on the interweb, I start the Song of The Week (I have a recognisably bad sense of which words it is appropriate to start with upper-case) series with what I have recently decided to adopt as my personal anthem:


I owe Deva one for introducing me to this song, but then, he owes me BB(10) for The Beatles anyway. (Or does he?)

Don't Worry Be Happy, by Bobby McFerrin.

And in case you need help with doing so:

Rebel's Hop, by Bob Marley and The Wailers.

Frankly, my dear, ...

(I had plans for something else, as I had indicated in a comment previously, but this here was just too big a revelation to leave unmentioned till later.)

It is not a few times in the past that I have found myself speechless in response to questions on my stand on theism. Do I believe in a God? Or in gods? Or in invisible pink unicorns? Am I a black shirt (Periyar, not Mussolini)? Or am I an agnostic? If so, an agnostic theist or an agnostic atheist?

Many a time have I contemplated upon the above myself, never consistently settling on a set of views - one day there just had to be something that set off the Big Bang, and the next the very same argument seemed naive - it would only be a matter of time before physicists would discover what really happened, right? (But some aspects of any such being that could possibly exist were definitely ruled out - omniscience seemed a bit too unnatural, really not very necessary, and if were possessed, only indicated injustice and intolerance on the part of the god; omnipotence, of course, has long been defeated by diagonalisation. (I have a lot to thank Cantor for.))

I am aware, mind you, that there are numerous arguments against these beliefs, and counters to those and so on; you shall see why I do not consider them here.

For reasons I cannot recall, the following passages somehow came to mind sometime before dinner today and with them, again for reasons unknown, the sudden realisation that this was precisely the stand I would like to take, and also a sense of relief not too different from what one would expect upon having solved a difficult mathematical problem after an entire evening's effort. Funny how one can land up with a thought and have no idea whatsoever how one got there.

His ignorance was as remarkable as his knowledge. Of contemporary literature, philosophy and politics he appeared to know next to nothing. Upon my quoting Thomas Carlyle, he inquired in the naivest way who he might be and what he had done. My surprise reached a climax, however, when I found incidentally that he was ignorant of the Copernican Theory and of the composition of the Solar System. That any civilized human being in this nineteenth century should not be aware that the earth travelled round the sun appeared to be to me such an extraordinary fact that I could hardly realize it.
"You appear to be astonished," he said, smiling at my expression of surprise. "Now that I do know it I shall do my best to forget it."
"To forget it!"
"You see," he explained, "I consider that a man's brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skilful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones."
"But the Solar System!" I protested.
"What the deuce is it to me?" he interrupted impatiently; "you say that we go round the sun. If we went round the moon it would not make a pennyworth of difference to me or to my work."

-A Study in Scarlet, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

 So there.

PS: Note the expression "What the deuce...". Worth adopting?