A Bend in the Lane

Crocheted this silly bumble bee bookmark on a laaazy Sunday aftie. You can have one, if you are nice to me :-)

Ever experienced logging to email and getting a seizure upon noticing that you have 70 new emails? And all of them replies to the original email, or reply to the reply to the original email, or reply to the reply to the forward of the email. As in "Re: Re: Re: Fw: Re: Re: XYZ"*. And upon opening the 45th Re: Fw: Re: Fw: Re: Re: XYZ* email, you notice that the contents are as far removed from the original topic as can be? Admit it, you are guilty too. [* where subject XYZ can be "Hangout at My Smelly Room on Friday the 13th" or "Who Stole my Muffin in the Fridge in Office Pantry Level 34?" or "Farewell, I am Finally Leaving" or "Movie Plans for 13 December 2023" or "End War in Iraq by Signing This Petition Which Nobody Reads" or or ..well you get the drift] Well, I found the below extract, hilarious and so true to us, the Generation  Re: Fw: Re: Fw: Re: XYZ'.  Something similar happened, albeit with less coll...

There is this cool urban legend that the logo of Apple Computers (multi colored, striped apple with a piece bitten off) was a tribute to 'father of Artificial Intelligence' , 'father of Cryptography' , 'father of Computer Science', Alan Turing. Much persecuted during the WWII because of his homosexuality, Turing committed suicide/accidentally killed himself/was assassinated (whichever theory you believe in) by eating a cyanide laced apple. His cleaning lady found him the next day with a half bitten apple beside him. However, its an urban myth. The Apple Computers logo is a tribute. But it's a tribute to Newton's apple, not Turing's apple. And the compelling evidence is from Kelley Advertising - An earlier Apple Computer logo featured Sir Isaac Newton under an apple tree. "Rob Janoff of Regis McKenna Advertising designed the logo with the apple representing "the acquisition of knowledge." This account g...

Felt like posting excerpts of the immortal wisdom of Dharmaraja'a answers to Yaksha Prashna: What rescues man in danger? A.Courage is mans salvation in danger What is faster than the wind? A. Mind Which is the biggest vessel? A. Earth that contains every thing in it. What is happiness? A. It is the result of good conduct What is that abandoning by which he is loved by all? A. Pride What is that loss that yields joy and not sorrow? A. Anger What is that by giving up which man becomes rich? A. Desire What is the greatest of all wonders in the world? A. Every day man sees creatures die. Yet those who live seek to live for ever.

Late senator Daniel Moynihan said that people are entitled to their own opinions, but not their own facts. How absolutely true, and how often we forget this while getting all tangled up in our opinions.

Inexpressibly, I found this photograph incredibly touching

London -  I scored 6/10 :-( How did you fare?

... I have some remnants of talent. A cellphone case I made over commute and lunch hour - Admit it, its rather shady, innit? Oh, well, I picked up the crochet needle after a 7 year sabbatical. So, I guess I can be excused.

. .. a landmark case that mandated a 'Miranda warning' before arresting a criminal suspect. Without this Miranda warning an incriminating statement bu a suspect will not constitute as admissible evidence. A typical 'miranda warning' sounds like - " You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to have an attorney present during questioning. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you. " PS - Yes, I lunched in and hence, went berserk on Google.

...is when you stare into the golden glow from the green lamp above your head counting sheep and wondering at the silence of the fourth hour of the new day. By the fifth hour you arise to post a lame post on your already lame blog.

A 4 hour Monday meeting has been canceled! And to think that the very thought of this meeting made me take 35 minutes to get out of bed this morning. Miracles do happen on Monday! PS: On a side, the title has been inspired by a 1940s tearjerker I saw yesterday, "Miracles in the Rain". Jane Wyman as usual made me reach out for my Kleenex.

Nil desparandum! Nil desparandum! There is light at the tunnel. Tread the path Consilio et animis. Nil desparandum.

North by Northwest is my favourite Hitchcock. Close runner up would be The 39 Steps. Though, separated by decades, both movies have the famous Hitchcock touches - The McGuffin. Man on the Run Mistaken Identity Blonde woman embroiled in espionage When I first heard of the McGuffin touch, I thought it was all jolly clever of Hitchcock. The whole movie/plot revolves around this "McGuffin" (which could be an idea/plot/secret/person). But its inconsequential to the movie, what this McGuffin is. What is important is the drama that results around the McGuffin. For example, in The 39 Steps, the whole film revolves around this quest to uncover what The 39 Steps is by the hero, but what the 39 Steps is ultimately unimportant to the plot. What happens in the hero's quest is essential to the movie. Hitchcock also can be terribly original. Take certain chilling scenes of North by Northwest - he revelutionised the thriller genre. Think about this, when we talk about horror/thriller s...

<Skip this post if you do not wish to get a heavy dose of spirituality or the whole works.> <I told you to skip it. You still want to read? Fine, suffer.> Yesterday, I attended the first in a series of spiritual talks that are being given by a visiting professor, Prof Anil Kumar. I shan't go into all the song and dance of the purpose of these talks, except that they are highly enjoyable not only because of the insane humor the Professor injects into spirituality, but because he tends to address the usual doubts that ail ordinary believers of God. He talks about how God is the truest form of unconditional love and that all human relationships are bound by one or another form of give and take. Human relationships, be it mother-child, wife-husband, guru-sishya, friend-friend rarely are unconditional. (Interestingly, I recently posted about this very point.) That the only love that is unconditional, boundless and limitless is that of God's. Here is a rambling summar...

There are inspiring stories behind all those orgs like Asha for Education, CRY, Habitat for Humanity...But the story behind NICE is very simple. It is the man who is inspiring.  Sri Poornachandra Rao so inspired another man that, a decade after meeting him, the inspired man featured a character based on Sri Poornachandra Rao in his touching road movie Gamyam . I looked up NICE's annual report to find that the org isnt too big for our non-monetary donations (pens, books, chairs) to seem feeble or our monetary donations to disappear in administrative charges. SIN$130 covers a child's 1Y education. $130 for a year of knowledge. That's what I spend on 13 movie tickets. Take a look . Dont be lazy. You may or you may not wish to donate. But read his story.

A towering verse penned by Sri Harivanshrai Bachchan - Tu na thakega kabhi, tu na thamega kabhi, tu na mudega kabhi, Kar shapath, kar shapath, kar shapath, Agneepath, Agneepath, Agneepath. Edited to add meaning as requested - My literal translation: You shall not tire ever, you shall not give up ever, you shall not turn back ever, take the oath, take the oath, take the oath, Path of Fire, Path of Fire, Path of Fire My shallow broad translation: Swear that you will persevere resolutely, with the test of fire, without ever tiring, without ever giving up, without ever turning back.

I was talking to Jayesh about how faith in God should be independent of the joys and misery God puts us through, that Faith should not be conditional. I scorned people who did otherwise. But after the conversation, I got off my judgmental horse and realised that I was talking pure idealism that even I (gasp!) have not matched up to. Most human relationships are conditional. We love because we are loved. We help because we are comfortable.  We feed because we are well fed.  I am not making sense am I?  Oh dear, let me try and explain. Did you ever feed someone - a beggar, your child, mother, whoever - when you were going hungry? Do you love your family/partner/dog without expecting something in return? Did you ever donate your (not your dad's, mom's, ancestral) money to a cause you believed in when money was hard to come by? Perhaps not all of us have been in such situations, so lets just simply ask, have you been unconditional? That one glorious shining moment w...

Like the other 10 million blogs, I have decided to do a post on Senator Obama's speech on Race. Anybody who lives on Earth and has access to mass media could not have missed the Race speech he gave a couple of months ago. Like many of us, I was too busy to read the whole transcript. I just read the excerpts on MSNBC and NYT and saw some clips on Youtube. I thought it was a fantastic speech. That was before I read the whole thing. Yesterday, I decided to read the whole speech. Mid way through, I got so worked up, and eyes began welling up that I knew i had to actually see him utter these magnificent words. So, I went on Youtube and heard him. The whole 37 min. Gentlemen, anybody who heard this speech and still doubts that he can be the president the world needs to have, should quickly move to Mars.The response was overwhelming. My Oxford roommate, who is a poet, actually wrote a poem about Barack Obama after the speech. Here is one response i found online - peaceful easy feeling Sa...

I was looking at all the projects that National Geographic Society is providing grants for when The Genographic Project caught my eye. The Genographic Project, touted as a landmark study of the human journey, is the making of an atlas of the human journey, the tracing of our ancestors steps, where you and I really come from, and how did we get there from that group of African ancestors over 60000 years ago? It sounds phenomenal! A 5 year project involving scientists and IBM researches (for cutting edge genetic & computational technologies) entwining genetics, anthropology and technology. There are some phenomenal visuals about human migratory history in the site. The exciting thing is, you can actually participate in this study. With a painless cheek swab you can sample your own DNA and submit it to the lab. Then the project people run a test to your DNA, it reveals your ancestry and the journeys that they made over 60000-10000 years ago! The project director, Dr Spencer Wells,...

My sister is a gardener. She likes plants. Plants seem to like her too. They bloom under her eye. Take for example the record sized eggplant she grew last year. It actually resembled a bulbous freakish purple monstrosity. I wish I could just show you what a terror it was, but unfortunately, I deleted the pictures she sent me of this monstrosity as they gave me seizures. This spring she managed to germinate many seeds and transfered them into 80 pots. She will soon get her husband to transfer the potted plants to the vegetable patch in the backyard and the flowerbed in the front lawn. She grows her own veggies - carrots, tomatoes, eggplant, okra, or whatever catches her fancy. She also grows flowering shrubs - tulips, poppies (no, not for pot), geraniums, violets, azaleas, blah blah blah. You get the drift? Quaint, innit? Below is a picture of a few of her tulips she planted around a lamppost in their front lawn. I dare say, I contributed to this passion of hers in the beginning. In th...