New Sense

Why do computer geeks get Halloween confused with Christmas?
Because Oct 31 == Dec 25

Heisenberg is stopped by a traffic cop who asks: “Do you know how fast you were going?”
Heisenberg replies: “No, but I know exactly where I am”

Yesterday, I stumbled onto a treasure trove of Geek jokes. Most of the jokes were bad puns and some of them I never understood. Like this one:

To get to the other side.

Why did the tachyon cross the road?

I blinked twice, double checked the “joke” and then googled for “tachyon”

According to Wikipedia:

A tachyon is a hypothetical subatomic particle that moves faster than light.

Also,

Because a tachyon moves faster than the speed of light, we cannot see it approaching. After a tachyon has passed nearby, we would be able to see two images of it, appearing and departing in opposite directions.

Now get that joke?

I guess, you learn something new everyday…

Ps: For all times sake:
“Schodinger’s cat: Wanted Dead or Alive”

Posted in AstroPhysics. Humor. Physics. Science

Tags:Faster-than-light.Geek.Humor.jokes.Physics.Recreation.Subatomic particle.Tachyon

One of my experiments with macro photography and simple objects around you. The above is a photograph of water vapor condensing on a cd case covering my cup of tea. The image below gives a better view of the curvature of the effect.

Ps: Extra points if you can link(in two steps) the title of this entry with the images.

Posted in Photo

Tags:macro.Macro photography.photo.photography.Techniques and Styles.Water vapor

I recently had the pleasure of watching a Indian adaptation of the classic Moliere play titled “The Imaginary Invalid”. Staged at the KH Kala Soudha in South Bangalore and performed by energetic cast of a budding theater group, the play combined a hilarious plot and brilliant characterization to make it a memorable evening.

The Imaginary Invalid is the story of a hypochondriac father who wants to get his daughter married to a doctor, so that his medical bills will be taken care of. Adding to the mix is a second wife who would rather have her step-daughter converted to a nun so that she can grab all of the man’s property.

One of the biggest winners of the play has to be its Indianisation. For far too long we have had Indians playing western plays trying hard to fake western accents and ending up with abysmal performances. The Imaginary Invalid makes it a point to bring across the diversity of India by making the characters from different Indian backgrounds, which worked wonders to the comedy and the relevance of the play.

The cast’s energy and enthusiasm is what immediately catches our attention, Praveen who plays the protagonist combined with the actor playing the maid servant were excellent with their comic timing. The character of the young suitor who was coached to impress the protagonist was one of the most memorable of characters in the ensemble. The stage design also stood its own as one of the important characters of the play. It provided the perfect canvas for the actors to work on.

The three act play had its good and bad moments. Personally I throughly enjoyed the second act but was a bit more skeptical as the third act seemed to drag a little longer than expected. The laugh lines were well handled and it seemed like the audience was enjoying the play right thru.

All in all the Imaginary Invalid was a well executed adaptation of the French play(Le Malade imaginaire). It provided for a excellent evening of entertainment.

Ps: The Imaginary Invalid is being performed again later this week at the Alliance Francaise.

Posted in Bangalore. Blogging. Theater

Tags:Alliance française.Arts.comedy.performance.review.The Imaginary Invalid.theatre

A couple of days ago a friend of mine introduced me to a friend of his. The moment I saw her I had a feeling that we had met before… It was like ‘I have seen this face before’ but she immediately replied saying she had never met me before. A little embarrassed and very confused I continued the conversation which branched away elsewhere.

After a few minutes of conversation it turned out we had studied in the same college, but in different classes. That didnt exactly mean that we had met, there were about a thousand students in that college. With over 150 in my class itself I was pretty sure I hadnt met everyone of them during my short two years there. Then the conversation went on and we realized that we lived in the same area… Thats when she mentioned another friend of mine with whom i had been to college with. Putting one and one together it turned out we had for about a year taken the same bus to college everyday, nine years ago!

I was personally amazed by how I had realized that I had seen her before. I am not really good with faces, I tend to remember names better. The odd thing was that I couldn’t place her in a single incident/event that I remembered…

The reason I am mentioning this is that I recently was reading about memories and how the brain works with them. According to the book/study/show(cant remember which) every moment of our active lives we are bombarding the brain with information. For the brain to work normally it needs to sort out this information and choose what it believes will be required in the future. The brain in this process of weeding out ‘forgets’ majority of the data it has been provided. Also when a certain memory has not been recalled for a long time the brain slowly forgets the memory.

With that I spent the evening thinking about how awesome it is what the brain does and how well it does it.

Posted in Friends. Thoughts

Tags:Brain.Friends.Memory.Thoughts

One day Two Buddhist Monks who were on a long journey approached a raging river. On the river bank stood a beautiful young lady. She approached them asking for help to cross the river as she feared drowning. The first monk walked ignored her and crossed the river. The second monk picked up the woman and carried her across the river. He placed her down, they parted ways with woman and on they went with their journey.

As the journey went on, the second monk could see some concern on the other monk’s mind, he asked what was wrong. The monk replied, “how could you carry her like that? You know we can’t touch women, it’s against our way of life”. The second monk answered, “I left the woman at the rivers edge a long way back, why are you still carrying her?”

—–

This has to be one of my favorite zen stories. I have narrated this story so many times that I have lost count and each time I narrate it, I appreciate it a little more…

What I have realised is that its very easy in life to get carried away with the flow of information. I have always been vary of the thoughts I was carrying with me and the disadvantages of their burden.

Very often we carry with us just a singular opinion of an incident and with that come assumptions and prejudice. Things change over time, the perpetrators forget the incident and yet we continue holding onto the assumptions and prejudice. I think it was Buddha who once said “Being angry at someone is like holding onto a burning piece of coal to throw it at them, we are the only ones getting burnt”

One of the hardest lessons I have had to learn in life is that no matter how good you are, no matter how well planned you execute a task it will never make everyone happy. And that sometimes the only way to get the peace of mind you seek is to simply let go.

Posted in Blogging. Thoughts

Tags:anger.life.stories.Thoughts.zen