tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-149217502024-03-14T05:16:15.740+05:30ज्ञान SessionArjun Karandehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04518237805317217916noreply@blogger.comBlogger22125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14921750.post-1153306344846374872006-07-19T16:21:00.000+05:302006-07-19T16:22:24.860+05:30<span style="font-size:85%;">Today's Gyaan:<br /><br />It's not very easy to spell '</span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bureaucracy"><span style="font-size:85%;">Bureaucracy</span></a><span style="font-size:85%;">'...</span>Arjun Karandehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04518237805317217916noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14921750.post-1153036692708899632006-07-16T12:47:00.000+05:302006-07-16T13:33:38.046+05:30<span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="color:#ff9900;">Yesterday we tried something new, courtesy a rumour I heard about a unique cocktail they serve at a restaurant here in Kanpur. Some ingredients gathered from the Hall canteen, alongwith some freely acquired booze; the result was a cocktail that was surprisingly delightful! I'm sure the recipe and the description can be highly improved, but here's the exciting first draft, delivered by a man who's still, well, alive and happy.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:100%;"><strong>How to make a Patiala Lassi: </strong></span></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:85%;">(an abbreviation of its complete name: the Kanpuriya Patiala Scottish Lassi)</span></span> <a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6800/1275/1600/lassi.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" height="133" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6800/1275/320/lassi.jpg" width="101" border="0" /></a><br /></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><strong></strong></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><strong></strong></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><strong></strong></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><strong></strong></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><strong></strong></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><strong></strong></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><strong></strong></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><strong>Ingredients:</strong><br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><span style="font-size:85%;">60 ml Whiskey.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">6 tablespoons Curd (Yoghurt).</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">4 teaspoons Sugar (or to taste).</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">30-50 ml Water.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><strong>Method:</strong></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Pour the whiskey and curd in a mixer. Mix on low speed till the curd forms a smooth paste with the whiskey. Add sugar, and water to thin the drink down to about half the consistency. A high amount of sugar is necessary to counter the bitterness of curd and whiskey. Mix well and serve with 2 ice cubes. Enjoy the hangover the next day.</span>Arjun Karandehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04518237805317217916noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14921750.post-1152211446658968012006-07-07T00:14:00.000+05:302006-07-07T00:15:32.296+05:30<span style="font-size:85%;color:#ff9900;">The geeky joke for the day:<br /><br />"My point, your honour, is a degenerate line."<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:85%;color:#ff9900;"></span>Arjun Karandehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04518237805317217916noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14921750.post-1149898560781143432006-06-10T05:24:00.000+05:302006-06-10T06:03:59.960+05:30<span style="font-size:85%;color:#ff9900;">This post is a supplement to an </span><a href="http://gyaansession.blogspot.com/2006/04/as-part-of-my-work-on-natural-language.html"><span style="font-size:85%;color:#ff9900;">earlier post</span></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="color:#ff9900;"> on this blog on Unicode and multilingual support in operating systems. It highlights one way to take advantage of Unicode support in most modern OSes. </span><br /><br />Most popular filesystems today are quite flexible when it comes to the rules they place on filenames (remember </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS-DOS"><span style="font-size:85%;">MS-DOS</span></a><span style="font-size:85%;"> and it's 8.3 file format?). Almost all filesystems allow for upto 255 characters, and while <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_Allocation_Table">FAT32</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTFS">NTFS</a> allow any valid </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicode"><span style="font-size:85%;">Unicode</span></a><span style="font-size:85%;"> character to make up its filenames, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ext2">ext2</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ext3">ext3</a> can allow any byte except NULL.<br /><br />Why am I going on about it? Well, quite obviously, this means that my files can be named in any language I choose! Quite obvious, indeed... but loads and bucketloads of fun! I've already transliterated many of my मराठी mp3s to their देवनागिरी equivalents. Instead of a very non-Indian 'gaara vaara ha bharaaraa.mp3, I now have a much more satisfying 'गार वारा हा भरारा.mp3'. Pretty neat huh?<br /><br />In fact, I'm so thrilled about the whole thing that I even have a snapshot ready to show you (the same way most fathers have snaps of their kids in their wallets). This is a snapshot of a few files displayed in Windows Explorer :<br /></span><p><span style="font-size:85%;"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6800/1275/400/unicodefs.jpg" border="0" /></span></p><br /><p><span style="font-size:85%;">The cherry on the cake is that most GUI consoles on Linux already support Unicode, so you can actually work with Unicode filenames through the omnipotent console!</span></p><p><span style="font-size:85%;">There are definite plus points in taking advantage of Unicode support in this way, but for the benefit of a few of my readers, I'd like to mention that it doesn't come without its set of disadvantages. Don't get excited and attempt to rename all your files in one go if you don't have a keyboard to facilitate easy typing in your language. Not only will renaming a few thousand files initially take eons, but functions like file search will now require you to type keywords in your language! Besides, Unicode compatibility hasn't spread everywhere, and alas, you'll often come across software that garbles the filenames. But apart from these setbacks, this has got to be the coolest thing you can do today!</span></p>Arjun Karandehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04518237805317217916noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14921750.post-1149574099420541632006-06-06T11:28:00.000+05:302006-06-08T23:36:28.373+05:30<span style="font-size:85%;color:#ff9900;">This is possibly the worst technical joke I have come up with in a long long time. The reason I'm even putting it in here is because a friend of mine actually solved the contorted geeky logic behind the joke almost instantaneously. It kind of reflects the sort of geekdom that rules around here. Here goes:</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Q. How many bits does 3:45 in हिंदी require in ANSI C?</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">A. 6 bits.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;color:#ff9900;">Go figure...</span>Arjun Karandehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04518237805317217916noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14921750.post-1148710565257190652006-05-27T11:14:00.000+05:302006-05-27T11:51:00.790+05:30<span style="font-size:85%;color:#ff9900;">A few years back, someone extremely special to me had a very nasty experience with a man who repeatedly tried to grope her while she was sleeping in the upper berth of a train. I listened to her with shock and anger. A few months back, I spent some time reading about experiences of Indian women and girls in posts like </span><a href="http://hemanginigupta.blogspot.com/2005/06/train-to-chennai.html"><span style="font-size:85%;color:#ff9900;">this</span></a><span style="font-size:85%;color:#ff9900;">, getting very digusted with the attitude of Indian men. Many close friends have posted articles (for example, click </span><a href="http://curiouscharacter.blogspot.com/2005/07/she-cries-softly-to-herself-in-corner.html"><span style="font-size:85%;color:#ff9900;">here</span></a><span style="font-size:85%;color:#ff9900;"> and </span><a href="http://kumarkeshav.blogspot.com/2005/05/so-finally-rapist-got-life.html"><span style="font-size:85%;color:#ff9900;">here</span></a><span style="font-size:85%;color:#ff9900;">) condemning this sort of behaviour. I remember having discussed the issue to fair length with them.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;color:#ff9900;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;color:#ff9900;">And then it happened, right before my eyes. It was so fast that before I could do anything, the bastard sped away. I tried to note his licence plate, but it was too late. I wanted to scream at him, but the road was more or less empty but for the victim and me, and he was far away, so no good could come from it. I want to kill the bastard, I really do. I am ashamed and confused, a million thoughts swarming in my head. I feel impotent, being unable to do anything about the whole thing, either through law or with my own hands, while he might still be enjoying the thrills of his perverted acts, not once thinking of the scars he leaves behind. I won't go into a gyaan session this time. No way, not this time. He's gotten personal with me now.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;color:#ff9900;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;color:#ff9900;">Rest assured I will kill him if I meet him again.</span>Arjun Karandehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04518237805317217916noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14921750.post-1146197825528883842006-04-28T09:34:00.000+05:302006-04-28T12:57:01.173+05:30<span style="font-size:85%;color:#ff9900;">As part of my work on Natural Language Processing, I was required to learn how to work comfortably with Indic languages. This meant being able to computationally process Indic scripts, either in standard Unicode or in proprietary encoding, and parse Indian sentences syntactically and semantically. I found the work terribly refreshing, and I've found that the language features that most OSes provide have been underutilized for way too long. This post is part of what I've discovered. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6800/1275/1600/kanji.jpg"></a><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6800/1275/1600/hindi.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" height="97" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6800/1275/200/hindi.jpg" width="133" border="0" /></a>If you want to be able to seamlessly work with your own languages like हिंदी, বাংলা, ગુજરાતી, ਪੰਜਾਬੀ, ಕನ್ನಡ, తెలుగు or தமிழ் on your computer the way you naturally do in your life, or are more fluent in your own language and have always wondered why you were stuck with working exlusively with English, you need to read this.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">In 1991, the <a href="http://www.unicode.org">Unicode</a> standard attempted to standardize and bring some regularity to the chaos of innumerable independent language scripts that were popping up all over the world. These scripts offered some compatibility with the roman script, but rarely worked with one another. Unicode supports almost all scripts in use today, from Arabic (العربية) to Zhuyin (中文). Every script has its own place in Unicode space, so that means that you can seamlessly integrate several scripts into one document, like I've just done.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Getting support for Indic and Arabic scripts in Windows XP is rather straightforward, and I'll explain it in brief here. In fact, unfortunately the rest of this post will deal with Windows XP exclusively. Linux and *nix users are requested to click <a href="http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/unicode.html">here</a> instead - getting Indic scripts to work in Linux is perhaps a bit more involved. For the rest, t</span><span style="font-size:85%;">he "Regional and Language Options" icon under the Windows XP Control Panel is where you would want to go. Once it opens up, click on the "Languages" tab, and under the "Supplemental language support" group, tick the checkbox that says "Install files for complex scripts and right-to-left languages (including Thai)". Click "OK", wait for the installation to complete, and you're done with the preliminary support! </span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Well, this probably deserves some explanation. In Unicode, a complete phoneme like हिं is made up of a sequence of its compositional units, like ह+ि+ं (not really suprising at all, eh!). However, in roman script a sequence remains a sequence orthographically (c+a+t=cat), whereas in many languages like our own, a sequence could be mapped to a completely different character (think the previous example or, say, त्+र=त्र). So, Unicode fonts need to accommodate for this, and characters like त्र are stored in the font as well (even if they are still stored internally as a sequence of the Unicode representations of their compositional units).</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Secondly, to start typing, you need to install the languages you would like to work with in Windows XP. To do this, go back to now familiar "Regional and Language Options" and under the "Languages" tab, click on the "Details..." button in the "Text services and input languages" group. Under "Installed services", click on "Add..". Add any language you wish, alongwith associated services like the corresponding keyboard. In case your language does not have a keyboard supported, choose "INSCRIPT". For हिंदी, Windows XP provides a "Hindi Traditional" keyboard. Now, under the "Preferences" group of the "Text services and input languages" window, click on "Language Bar...". Click on "Show the Language bar on the Desktop", and click on "Apply". You should now see a new bar floating around, and you can click on the icon that says "EN" to choose between languages installed. You are now ready to start typing in your own language!</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">In Windows XP, you simply need to choose a language in the Language bar to start typing. However, learning which characters are mapped to which keys on the keyboard isn't easy. There are in fact many ways to type in non-English languages. They are:</span><br /><br /><ol><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Use the keyboard to type. Get a देवनागिरी keyboard or a keyboard for your language, or simply buy a keyboard skin. Learn the mapping of keys to characters youself. In general, for हिंदी, the consonants are towards the right, and the matras are towards the left.</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Install software or use online editors to type. This is much slower than actually using the keyboard since you have to click on each character. A fairly simple editor for हिंदी can be found <a href="http://www.geocities.com/matthewblackwell/hindiEditor.html">here</a>.</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Use transliteration. UPenn has a very handy webpage that lets you type romanized Hindi and get equivalent transliterated Unicode. So, you can type "bhagawaana", and the webpage gives you भगवान! Find it <a href="http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/plc/tamilweb/trans/itransunicode.html">here</a>.</span></li></ol><p><span style="font-size:85%;">I hope this really basic post will get you to do interesting things with Unicode. Being the samaritan that I am, I volunteer to give you pointers here as well. Some really fun things you can start off with in your own languages are:</span></p><ol><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Start searching the web with keywords in your own scripts. This will introduce you to a part of the web you haven't seen before. A Google search for 'गरम मसाला' can be found <a href="http://www.google.co.in/search?hl=en&q=%E0%A4%97%E0%A4%B0%E0%A4%AE+%E0%A4%AE%E0%A4%B8%E0%A4%BE%E0%A4%B2%E0%A4%BE&btnG=Google+Search&meta=">here</a>.</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Explore web pages and blogs that have long since adopted the Unicode standard. An example blog can be found <a href="http://deewananeeraj.blogspot.com">here</a> (I have no idea who the author is, it's just something I stumbled upon). </span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Start contributing to the community. For starters, start blogging in your favourite language, or start adding pages, for example, to the <a href="http://bn.wikipedia.org">বাংলা</a>, <a href="http://gu.wikipedia.org">ગુજરાતી</a>, <a href="http://kn.wikipedia.org">ಕನ್ನಡ</a> or <a href="http://te.wikipedia.org">తెలుగు</a> Wikipedias! It's about time we started making our presence felt on the World Wide Web, and asserted our identity!</span></li></ol><p><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></p>Arjun Karandehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04518237805317217916noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14921750.post-1139956833118189482006-02-15T03:47:00.000+05:302006-02-15T04:10:33.133+05:30<span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Laurels were only meant to decorate your head, but you expect to ride on them all your life. Lovemaking to you is an achievement. The blocky angular plastic world around you has left its mark in your head - its jagged edges continue to hurt you from within. You smile just so people will not bother you with their concern, your life simply ticks by the sound of bugs crackling on the bug killer. While your hand curls up yet again to give you empty pleasure, and while the world momentarily fades out, giving you one moment of clarity, one moment to move up to the ceiling of the room and see yourself as you are and be free of all the hazy lights and the screens and the unbearable noise, you consider giving it all up. That's the only way. Clear and delightfully simple.</span><br /> <br /> <span style="color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">A moment later you are washing your hands, and all the years of filth come back inside you, and you fear the clarity once again.</span><br /></span>Arjun Karandehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04518237805317217916noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14921750.post-1138799546623918722006-02-01T16:19:00.000+05:302006-02-02T01:50:21.056+05:30<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6800/1275/1600/dreams.0.jpg"><span style="font-size:85%;"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 133px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 107px" height="113" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6800/1275/320/dreams.0.jpg" width="154" border="0" /></span></a><span style="font-size:85%;"> <em><strong>"Colorless green ideas sleep furiously"</strong></em><br /><br />This is a very well-known line uttered by none other than </span><a href="http://www.chomsky.info"><span style="font-size:85%;">Noam Chomsky</span></a><span style="font-size:85%;"> in 1957 as an example of a sentence that is grammatically correct but nonsensical in meaning. It was uttered primarily to illustrate the inadequacy of grammar based systems that donot attempt to take semantics and pragmatics of the utterance into account.<br /><br />The nonsense of this line is rather obvious. However, one can argue that it is always possible to think of a situation in which this line will make sense - in fact most of us see vivid images in our heads when we read this sentence. One could argue, for example, that most of the words are figurative - that <em>colourless</em> means <em>nondescript</em> and <em>green</em> means <em>immature</em>, yeilding the more comprehensive reading:<br /><br /><em>"Nondescript immature ideas have violent nightmares"</em><br /><br />In fact, Stanford held a </span><a href="http://www.linguistlist.org/issues/2/2-457.html#2"><span style="font-size:85%;">literary competition in 1985</span></a><span style="font-size:85%;"> where the participants had to write prose or poetry of a limited length where this sentence would seem meaningful. The prizewinning entry by D. A. H. Byatt is reproduced here:<br /><br /><em>Thus Adam's Eden-plot in far-off time:</em><br /><em>Colour-rampant fowers, trees a myriad green;</em><br /><em>Helped by God-bless'd wind and temp'rate clime.</em><br /><em>The path to primate knowledge unforseen,</em><br /><em>He sleeps in peace at eve with Eve.</em><br /><em>One apple later, he looks curiously</em><br /><em>At the gardens of dichromates, in whom</em><br /><em>colourless green ideas sleep furiously</em><br /><em>then rage for birth each morning, until doom</em><br /><em>Brings rainbows they at last perceive. </em><br /><br />Just shows the infinite depth of our imagination, doesn't it? (Or is it uncountably finite?)<br /><br />Finally, speaking of nonsensical utterances, here's a classical quote conjured up impromptu by </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Foote"><span style="font-size:85%;">Samuel Foote</span></a><span style="font-size:85%;"> when he wanted to test </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Macklin"><span style="font-size:85%;">Charles Macklin's</span></a><span style="font-size:85%;"> claim that he could memorize any text in a single reading.<br /><br /><em>"So she went into the garden to cut a cabbage-leaf to make an apple-pie; and at the same time a great she-bear, coming up the street, pops its head into the shop. "What! No soap?" So he died, and she very imprudently married the barber; and there were present the Picninnies, and the Joblillies, and the Garyalies, and the grand Panjandrum himself, with the little round button at top, and they all fell to playing the game of catch-as-catch-can till the gunpowder ran out at the heels of their boots."</em> </span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">You can find more nonsense </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonsense#Literary_nonsense"><span style="font-size:85%;">here</span></a><span style="font-size:85%;">. Meanwhile, can you write a short poem or prose where Chomsky's expression will find meaning? Let's impose the same limits as the original contest - 100 words of prose or 14 lines of poetry. Post your bits of creativity as comments to this post!</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span>Arjun Karandehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04518237805317217916noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14921750.post-1134508424216561472005-12-14T02:19:00.000+05:302006-01-02T15:05:19.556+05:30<span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="color:#ff9900;">Utterly pointless trivia - now that's real Gyaan. It would be in bad taste however, and rather unfashionable not to ensure that the served tidbits revolve around loosely around a theme. Hmm... so consider this post to be unfashionable and in bad taste!</span><br /><br /><em><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6800/1275/1600/chessboxing.0.gif"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 120px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 112px" height="112" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6800/1275/200/chessboxing.gif" width="129" border="0" /></a>'<a href="http://web.mit.edu/dryfoo/www/Info/longname.html">Brfxxccxxmnpcccclllmmnprxvclmnckssqlbb11116</a>'</em>. In 1991, a Swedish couple registered this atrocity as their son's name when they were fined by a district court for not naming their son for 5 years. They claimed it to be "a pregnant, expressionistic development that we see as an artistic creation", and was to be pronounced <em>'Albin'</em>. The court rejected the registeration, after which the couple tried to name their child '<em>A'</em> (hmm... a preincarnation of </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upendra"><span style="font-size:85%;">Upendra</span></a><span style="font-size:85%;">?). The court didn't accept that either - but only because it was illegal in Sweden to have names that short!<br /><br /></span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadigan"><span style="font-size:85%;">Cadigans</span></a><span style="font-size:85%;"> are thingies, and thingies is a cadigan! Cadigans are between nouns and pronouns - they work grammatically like nouns, but their reference is generally previously mentioned, like pronouns. Common examples are <em>thingy</em>, <em>thingamajig</em>, <em>gizmo</em>, and <em>whatshisname</em>. Like when you say <em>I just put the thingy on, just like whatshisname told me to! </em>And you might have guessed as much, but the </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metasyntactic_variable"><span style="font-size:85%;">metasyntactic variables</span></a><span style="font-size:85%;"> <em>foo</em> and <em>bar</em> would be cadigans too.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">The practice of keeping rats as pets probably started with </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Black_(rat_catcher)"><span style="font-size:85%;">Jack Black</span></a><span style="font-size:85%;">, the official rat catcher of Queen Victoria in the 1860s. Whevener Jack Black caught an unusually coloured specimen, he would keep it to breed new colour varities. He would then sell the new varities to "well-bred young ladies". The famous author </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beatrix_Potter"><span style="font-size:85%;">Beatrix Potter</span></a><span style="font-size:85%;"> was one of his customers!</span><br /><p><span style="font-size:85%;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_boxing">Chess Boxing</a> is a sport that alternates rounds of chess and boxing! Envisioned by cartoonist <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enki_Bilal">Enki Bilal</a>, and brought to reality by Dutch artist lepe Rubingh, the concept is based on the ideal of a sound mind and a sound body. A match consists of up to eleven alternating rounds of boxing and chess sessions, starting with a four-minute chess round followed by two minutes of boxing and so on. Between rounds there is a 1 minute pause, during which competitors change their gear. Players can win by knockout or checkmate!</span></p><p><span style="font-size:85%;">The <a href="http://www.thealamo.org/main.html">Alamo</a>, a compound in San Antonio, Texas houses a church and some surrounding buildings. It was used as a fortress in many battles, most notably in the Battle of the Alamo during the Texas revolution. An urban legend goes that <a href="http://www.ozzynet.com">Ozzy Osbourne</a> once urinated on the side of the building in 1982 while dressed in his wife's clothes. Ever since then, the numbers 666 started gradually appearing on the front of the church. They are supposedly getting darker as time goes by. Find a picture if the church at Alamo <a href="http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/images/hoaxnotes/alamo1.jpg">here</a>, and if you can manage to notice something, do tell me.</span></p>Arjun Karandehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04518237805317217916noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14921750.post-1131606444169410512005-11-10T11:42:00.000+05:302005-11-10T15:19:15.686+05:30<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Python"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 132px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 107px" height="129" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6800/1275/320/350px-MontyPythonCast.jpg" width="157" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Python">Monty Python's Flying Circus</a>, a British television series that aired on BBC from 1969 to 1974, is widely considered as one of the finest and most hilarious series to come out of the Queen's land, or indeed anywhere in the world. The Pythons and their antics have resulted in a cult following that swears by their work and probably quotes them very often in their day to day lives, much to the annoyance of their acquaintances. Apart from that, the group's influence on comedy in general has been huge, and has often been compared to the influence that <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beatles">The Beatles</a> had on music! Their unique style which did not rely on punchlines and a fixed structure shattered the stereotypes of British humour completely. And if that was not enough, the Pythons have also influenced popular culture as well, as we shall soon see (if we decide to read further, that is). This post is unofficially titled 'The Things Monty Python Should Get Credit for... but often aren't, the poor things'.</span><br /><p><span style="font-size:85%;">Spam. We now recognize it more as a term for unsolicited email rather than it's original usage, which is an abbreviation of <a href="http://www.spam.com">Spiced Ham</a>. How then, did the term get applied to email? If you have even just passed kindergarten, you must have figured by now that the Pythons had something to do with it. Yes, one of the Python's most famous sketches, <a href="http://www.detritus.org/spam/skit.html">The Spam Sketch</a> (oh what an apt title), is placed in a restaurant scene where the actors spew out the word spam mercilessly about a hundred times in just a few minutes. When unsolicited email first appeared in bulk, the Spam sketch was often referred to by users on bulletin boards and forums to describe the relentless nature of the mails. Lo and behold, the term was coined and in place!</span></p><p><span style="font-size:85%;">People who are familiar with the term spam probably are also familiar with a famous email that has been forwarded a lot especially among the younger generation concerning the word <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuck">Fuck</a>. This hilarious little article describes the versitality of the word and its usage in everday english (find the article <a href="http://www.twoguys.org/~gregh/fuck.html">here</a>, or a complete animation <a href="http://www.wimp.com/swearing">here</a>). Once again, this work is often credited to a sketch of Monty Python, although the claim is not verified. The voice in the animations and audio files is that of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Wagner_(announcer)">Jack Wagner</a>, a park announcer for Disney World, but the original story is perhaps written by Monty Python.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:85%;">This one is super cool (for geeks, that is). The Python programming language... no I'm not kidding ! The name derives from Monty Python. It's even on the official <a href="http://www.python.org/doc/faq/general.html#why-is-it-called-python">FAQ</a>! Apparently the creator of the language Guido van </span><span style="font-size:85%;">Rossum was reading Flying Circus scripts at the time and so decided on this name.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:85%;"><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066765">And now for something completely different</a>:</span></p><p><span style="font-size:85%;">A snake in Australia was discovered in the early 1980s, of which the Latin name is Montypythonsidesriversleighensis!</span></p>Arjun Karandehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04518237805317217916noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14921750.post-1130762030891882622005-10-31T17:58:00.000+05:302005-10-31T21:37:02.390+05:30<span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="color:#ff9900;">After grappling about this with myself for a while, and also since I have been insisted by friends more than once to make a post about something that happened to me, I finally submitted to myself that the following post could be considered serious gyaan! My sincere apologies to those who don't think so.</span><br /></span><br /><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6800/1275/1600/disco.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 113px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 103px" height="105" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6800/1275/320/disco.jpg" width="121" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;">Whether you are all alone in a </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discotheque"><span style="font-size:85%;">discotheque</span></a><span style="font-size:85%;"> or there's a whole gang of friends gyrating and grooving all around you, the risk of being picked up is just the same. In the age of modern thought one might consider himself or herself quite the picker, and the art of picking very adventurous and ego-boosting... I must admit that it is this particular end of the game that must be quite exhilirating. The dread is not at being the picker, nay! It is the constant fear of being picked that has started to haunt me. To prevent one from thinking that I am (to put it informally) full of either myself or IT, I should clearly outline a classification of pickees and pickers that I came up with. Discussed with the male in mind, it is left as an excercise for the reader to examine whether an analogue for women exists:</span><br /><br /><ol><li><span style="font-size:85%;">The first and topmost class would be the that of 'da man'. The guy who's got the right looks, the right moves, and measures just about right on most social metrics. This guy is either a) never hit on because no girl thinks she can match up to him b) plays the picker before he is picked so he gets to choose instead of being chosen c) gets hit on by so many girls that its no fun for him anyway!</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">The second and most woeful class is the just-above-average guy. Decent sense of style, manages to either stay or look fairly clean, can atleast move his hips without looking stupid or excessively cheap. Has a maximum of 2 brands on him at a time. This is the guy we all would be satisfied being. Beware though, this is the least satisfying of the classes! As a picker, he either tries and fails at picking up girls hopelessly above his league or rarely manages to pick up girls he regrets picking up mintues later. As a pickee, his life is plagued. No girl in his or a higher league would ever approach him, and the one rare time he does get picked, it's by a girl he wouldn't like being caught being in the same province with!</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">The lowest and happiest class - the nerds, the weirdos, the geeks, the junkies, the goths. Either they don't care, have lost hopes, or are in a delusional warped world all of their own where they are hit on by grotesquely deformed but oddly terribly alluring green goblins... with toejam.</span></li></ol><p><span style="font-size:85%;">Assuming that most of my readership (indeed, all 3) belongs to class 2 (a person in any other class is seldom worried about matters like these), it is necessary for me to elaborate on WHY class 2 is the worst of the lot. I will then conclude with a few tips I have learnt the hard way to avoid being picked up in a disc.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:85%;">We are all not born equal. Class 2 was something God came up with just to make Class 1 feel good about itself. A good explanation of why Class 3 is around is yet to be though of. One would argue world progress and breaking of scientific barriers and all that... but come on, it's not a good enough excuse. Class 3 is atleast happy. Class 2 is condemned to mediocrity. Class 2 will watch Class 1 take all the Class 1 and Class 2 girls, leave the mentally imbalanced Class 3 behind. The picker-pickee choice is toughest in Class 2. Do we become active pickers finding much rejection and little succes? Or do we choose the passive role, fearing rejection so much that we choose instead to wait for an elusive princess charming to approach us all by herself? Yes, Class 2 is the lowest of the low and I have to admit - I'm bang in the middle of it. And here's the truth - most of Class 2 decides to be a pickee - passing stares and smiles to cute girls all day with little luck...</span></p><p><span style="font-size:85%;">So here are my tips on being a Class 2 pickee. Remember that your primary fear is being picked on by the ugly chick. It often overrides your primary function, i.e. being picked:</span></p><ol><li><span style="font-size:85%;">The basic idea here is to avoid all eye contact with all girls at all times. The reason is simple. Class 1 girls will either ignore you if they are nice or will show you a finger if they aren't. Class 2 girls are almost always booked - their boyfriends will show you a finger if they are nice. Class 3 girls generally are squint, and wouldn't be able to return your stare even if they wanted to!</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">When an ugly chick comes alone into your group during a dance, she is most certainly after YOU! Your friends are always spared. It is YOU she's after... just because she's ugly! Don't have doubts about this - it pays to take a conservative stance. Avoid all contact, fake a shoulder dislocation or simply kiss the guy next to you on the lips. It's a desperate situation.</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Never ever leave the group for any reason whatsoever. Safety in numbers, that's the thing. The friends you lived in solidarity with will trickle away at the slightest chance - leering and sniggering from a safe distance... or in a bomb shelter.</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">When asked for a ball dance, DO NOT use the tempo of the music as an excuse - it will not work. The chick will ball dance to 'My Name is Lakkhan' for all she cares. Take this very seriously. I ain't just talkin'.</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">When her fingers start trembling when she's holding your hand, it's time to raise the alarm. The least chivalrous way would be to scream fire and run for your life. A better way would be to clunk her over the head with something sufficiently hard.</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Finally, do not exchange email ids or phone numbers. Else, you're in a world of pain.</span></li></ol><p><span style="font-size:85%;">In conclusion, I'd like to admit this was all for a good laugh. I really admire the unseen protagonist of this post - for her courage, for her attitude, and simply because she was a nice person and considered me worthy enough to be picked. And yes, she gave me a very wonderful evening indeed!</span></p>Arjun Karandehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04518237805317217916noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14921750.post-1129212646571485482005-10-13T19:33:00.000+05:302005-10-14T16:49:23.220+05:30<span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="COLOR: rgb(255,153,0)">Computers, once the privelege of an elite few, have become a sight in almost every house - all in a span of a few years. This rapid explosion has lead to the emergence of a subculture with its own beliefs, jargon and protocols. This is a small glimpse of it. And you thought we were all just nerds... </span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="COLOR: rgb(255,153,0)"><br /></span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="COLOR: rgb(255,153,0)"><br /></span><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6800/1275/1600/crystal_ball2.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 159px; HEIGHT: 110px" height="88" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6800/1275/320/crystal_ball2.jpg" width="154" border="0" /></a>"Do you endeavor with a difficult dilemma, or ponder a posed problem you cannot perspicaciously pursue? Angling anxiously for advice? The Internet Oracle can help! Like all famous oracles, the Internet Oracle is omniscient, and will provide some answer to your question. In return, the Oracle may require that you perform a small service ..." </span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">The Internet Oracle has been answering questions since the early 90's. A <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/usenet">Usenet</a> phenomenan, it has seen some very funny question-answer exhanges (also called Oracularities). The idea is simple. A user poses a question, which is sent to a random user to answer within 24 hours. If unanswered, it is forwarded to another user. The net result... something like this:</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">The Usenet Oracle has pondered your question deeply.<br />Your question was:<br />> Why is a cow?<br />And in response, thus spake the Oracle:<br />} Mu.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Another:</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">The Usenet Oracle has pondered your question deeply.<br />Your question was:<br />> Oh most superbly poetic Oracle Who could teach Erato a thing or two,</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">>> For the life of me I can't seem to come up with a limerick that uses</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">> the words "parthenogenesis", "Hoover" and "mudpuppy". Is there any</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">> chance that You could be of help?</span><br /><a name="1360-01-A"><span style="font-size:85%;">And in response, thus spake the Oracle:</span></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><br />} That was quite a trick, but I've got one...</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">}} There once was a mudpuppy from Hoover,</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">} (in Alabama, not in Vancouver).</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">} He found an old Rhesus</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">} Who said "Parthenogenesis</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">} Requires no copulating maneuver."</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">}} You owe the Oracle a haiku with the word} "floccinaucinihilipilification."</span><br /><br /><p><span style="font-size:85%;">The questions range from deeply philosophical to plain stupid, and they are all answered by people. Anonymity is of course maintained, with all credit and blame going to the Oracle. The Oracle is widely recognized as one of the first virtual personalities to emerge on the internet - and a collaborative one at that! What really drew me to this was the word 'spake'... but you might enjoy it for something else. Get more <a href="http://cs.indiana.edu/~oracle">here</a>. </span></p><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6800/1275/1600/Aybabtu.jpg"><span style="font-size:85%;"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; WIDTH: 130px; CURSOR: pointer; HEIGHT: 87px" height="81" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6800/1275/320/Aybabtu.jpg" width="124" border="0" /></span></a><span style="font-size:85%;"> Sometime in the early 90's, the Japanese game 'Zero Wing' made its way to the west after some success in Japan. A cutscene from this game had the line: 'All your base are belong to us' (get the entire transcript <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_your_base_are_belong_to_us#Transcript">here</a>). This error lead to an internet phenomenan, with websites filling up with pictures and videos edited to insert that very caption. <a href="http://www.planettribes.com/allyourbase/">Videos and flash animations</a>, <a href="http://evolution-control.com/mp3/allyourbase/">lyrics of songs</a>, and loads of parodies can be found on the web. Linux users and hackers have adapted this slogan for loads of t-shirt designs and the sort. As always, look around on the web for more information. I'll refrain from telling you which phrase to search for.</span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6800/1275/1600/pic_cow_paddy_swift_400.jpg"><span style="font-size:85%;"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; WIDTH: 110px; CURSOR: pointer; HEIGHT: 101px" height="125" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6800/1275/320/pic_cow_paddy_swift_400.jpg" width="151" border="0" /></span></a><span style="font-size:85%;">Found this while browing the </span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/www.gentoo.org/doc/en/faq.xml#differences"><span style="font-size:85%;">portage tree</span></a><span style="font-size:85%;"> of </span><a href="http://www.gentoo.org/"><span style="font-size:85%;">Gentoo</span></a><span style="font-size:85%;">. A program called <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/cowsay">cowsay</a></span><span style="font-size:85%;">. True to it's name, it makes an ASCII cow say whatever you want it to.<br /><br /><whatever>For instance, you type (on the Linux command prompt):<br /><br />$cowsay err... moo?<br /><br />And you'll get this very apt output:</span><br /><pre><br /> ____________<br />< err.. moo? ><br /> ------------<br /> \ ^__^<br /> \ (oo)\_______<br /> (__)\ )\/ ||----w |<br /> || ||<br /></pre><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><p><span style="font-size:85%;">For a brief moment I wondered what people </span><span style="font-size:85%;">in the good people at Gentoo drank while on the job to include this as one of its available </span><span style="font-size:85%;">packages, but Google told me otherwise. Apparently this program has been around for quite a while, informing people about their overfull disk quotas, their new mail and the sort... in the days of the text console. It's now found a place in hacker circles as joke. The author has been creative enough to include several features which can make the cow appear dead, tired, asleep, and even in a state of paranoia. The most interesting thing </span><span style="font-size:85%;">is that it's even in the <a href="http://lxr.linux.no/source/arch/parisc/kernel/traps.c?v=2.6.11#L196">Linux Kernel</a>!<br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size:85%;">Hmm... perhaps we really ARE just nerds!<br /></span></p></span>Arjun Karandehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04518237805317217916noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14921750.post-1126163962387933392005-09-08T12:19:00.000+05:302006-03-17T12:47:56.010+05:30<span style="COLOR: rgb(255,153,0);font-size:85%;" >I must try to cover something other than language for a change. Until that happens though, here is something I found pretty interesting, and it should take some of your time.</span><br /><span style="COLOR: rgb(255,153,0);font-size:85%;" ><br /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6800/1275/1600/garden_path.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; WIDTH: 148px; CURSOR: pointer; HEIGHT: 107px" height="179" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6800/1275/320/garden_path.jpg" width="168" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"> <span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">The horse raced past the barn fell.</span><br /><br />What does this sentence mean? It probably made no sense to you on the first read, and yet it is a completely well-formed sentence of English. After some grappling, you might figure out that the correct reading should be:<br /><br />The horse [ (that was) raced past the barn (by someone/something else) ] fell.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">The above sentence is one of the better-quoted <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_path_sentence">garden path sentences</a> - sentences that lead the user to an incorrect reading. The term is derived from the saying "to be led down the garden path" meaning "to be misled". These sentences are often used by psycholinguists to show that humans process sentences word by word, and have to backtrack to a previous point in the sentence in case a successful reading(parse) is not possible. Here are some sentences lifted from various sources. Try to figure out their correct reading - they are all perfectly valid English sentences!<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><ul><li><span style="font-size:85%;">The man who hunts ducks out on weekends.</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">The cotton clothing is usually made of grows in Mississippi.</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Fat people eat accumulates.</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">The complex houses married and single students and their families.</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">The prime number few.</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">The old man the boat.</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">The tycoon sold the offshore oil tracts for a lot of money wanted to kill JR.</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">I convinced her children are noisy.</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">The player kicked the ball kicked the ball.</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Mary gave the child the dog bit a bandaid.</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Until the police arrest the drug dealers control the street.</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">The dog I really love bones.</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">That Jill is never here hurts.</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Have the students who failed the exam take the supplementary.</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Every woman that admires a man that paints likes Monet.</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">The raft floated down the river sank.</span></li></ul>Arjun Karandehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04518237805317217916noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14921750.post-1124655285227242192005-09-02T01:35:00.000+05:302005-09-05T13:41:20.833+05:30<span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">This post is a result of some enthusiasm I received from the readers of my last post in the form of a few questions. I'll tackle the first question now: how does a child really start its acquisition process? I don't think I can do enough justice though, partially because of my limitations and partially because there is too much information to condense into a small article. An idea of theoretical computer science may be helpful. However, links are provided when required for comprehension. I'll try and answer the other questions in coming posts.</span></span><br /><span style="color: rgb(255, 153, 0);font-size:85%;" ></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6800/1275/1600/9lookwhostalking250.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; float: left; width: 110px; height: 178px;" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6800/1275/320/9lookwhostalking250.jpg" border="0" height="255" width="154" /></a>The acquisition of language in a child has got to be one of the most fascinating processes to witness for any parent. Most parents are awed by the sudden burst in the proficiency of their child's language. Going from barely acknowledging the understanding of a simple word, the child learns to converse fluently within a span of just a few years - a feat even a supercomputer cannot achieve at the time of the writing of this post. The most fascinating parts are the early stages of this process where the child just begins to posit a structure to the environment around it. The process of generalization can only become easier during the later phases, because the child can always <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bootstrap">bootstrap</a>.</span><br /><br /><br /><p><span style="font-size:85%;">Debates on the process of acquisition start from the very birth of the child. The most fundamental debate is on whether there exists a special faculty or conceptual organ developed for language. The school of thought lead by <a href="http://www.chomsky.info/">Noam Chomsky</a> believes in such a dedicated faculty, leading to the concept of a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_grammar">Universal Grammar</a>. The argument supporting this idea is that children manage to restrict their grammar in the absence of negative examples and explicit correction. It has been <a href="http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/%7Eamag/langev/paper/gold67limit.html">proved</a> that even <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_language">regular languages</a> are unlearnable under such conditions, and natural languages are known to be atleast <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Context-free">context-free</a>. The opposition, most strongly voiced by <a href="http://email.eva.mpg.de/%7Etomas">Michael Tomasello</a>, considers language to be a complex system that is handed down from generation to generation, with absolutely no genetic adaptation. They of course have their own arguments, and computational linguists like <a href="http://www.ling.ed.ac.uk/%7Esimon">Simon Kirby</a> have designed very interesting <a href="http://scholar.google.com/url?sa=U&q=http://www3.isrl.uiuc.edu/%7Ejunwang4/langev/alt/kirby99syntaxOut/Kirby--1999--SyntaxOutOfLearningTheCulturalEvolutionOfStructuredCommunicationInAPopulationOfInductionAlgorithms--ECAL99--pp694-703.ps">simulations</a> to support it.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:85%;">Let's get back to our protagonist of this article, shall we? - the child , still a baby as of now.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:85%;">The first thing that every parent waits for is for the baby's first word. The process of acquisition obviously starts with single words. How does a child learn its first words? You must realize that determining this is not as simple as it seems. Associating a word with a concept requires many sensory and cognitive processes. Firstly, the child must be able to segment the verbal input phonologically in order to distinguish a word. The child is also just then forming the conceptual map in his head, and must successfully associate these recognizable sounds with the concepts in its head.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:85%;">Rather cute (and cute-sounding) experiments like <a href="http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=797857">High-Amplitude Sucking</a> have shown that babies can hear the full range of sounds as adults and can distinguish between sounds just as finely. All the baby now needs to do is recognize patterns in the sounds and realize that they are to be mapped to certain concepts. Studies show that infants like humans in general have the inborn ability to recognize repeated patterns. It has been suggested that <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motherese">motherese</a>, the way adults speak to babies with a lot of melody and intonation, helps the baby pick up patterns better. G</span><span style="font-size:85%;">iven this toolset, the infant starts mapping these patterns to concepts. It is obvious that it first learns words that have meanings that it can easily map - physical objects around him (duckie, table), people around him (mom, dad), events (drink, eat) etc. It is also known that a baby understands many words even before it starts producing them.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:85%;">The child eventually begins to use these single words to express more complex concepts. For e.g. it might say 'cup' to express 'I want the cup' as well as 'I can see the cup'. This expression of more complex thoughts also implies that the baby is positing a structure to the world around it. The single-word phase then matures into a two-word and then a multiword phase. Utterances like 'daddy good' and 'water no' mature to 'where wrench go? '. </span></p><p><span style="font-size:85%;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Pinker">Steven Pinker</a> suggests that infants generalize utterances into an early grammar using verb meanings. These verb meanings are learnt from observation. <a href="http://www.psych.upenn.edu/%7Egleitman">Lila</a> and <a href="http://psych.upenn.edu/%7Ehenry">Henry</a> Gleitman think that the exact opposite is at play - the child learns the meanings of verbs using the early syntax that it learns from pure pattern recognition. Perhaps both processes go on - both Pinker and the Gleitmans have later acknowledged that this is indeed possible. One interesting fact is that although children make mistakes in morphology (e.g. 'can i keep the screwdriver like the mechanic keep the screwdriver?'), they almost never make mistakes in word order.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:85%;">Once a basic grammar is formed in the child's head, it can move on to conquer exceptions like irregular verbs, idioms and the sort. Utterances like 'I goed to the market' are heard often enough from children. However, all becomes fine and dandy soon, and the child starts speaking just like an adult. The only process of acquisition that goes on beyond the critical period (ending at puberty) is that of lexical acquisition, which goes on as long as the individual is interested!</span></p>Arjun Karandehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04518237805317217916noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14921750.post-1124376824672394682005-08-18T19:45:00.000+05:302005-08-19T14:40:35.616+05:30<span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="color:#ff9900;">This is something I just had to post! It's very interesting, it is a breakthrough in the area of Child Language Acquisition (CLA), and is terribly cute. I'm sure you'll enjoy it. No prior knowledge of <span style="color:#ff9900;">CLA</span> is needed to bring a smile on your face.</span></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="color:#ff9900;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;"><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6800/1275/1600/babble21.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 102px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 135px" height="136" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6800/1275/320/babble21.jpg" width="86" border="0" /></a><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6800/1275/1600/babble.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 104px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 135px" height="155" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6800/1275/320/babble.jpg" width="128" border="0" /></a>W<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6800/1275/1600/babble2.jpg"></a>e are all familiar with baby babbles - those adorable little sounds that infants make, seemingly wanting to have long conversations with their parents. Babbling <a href="http://home.cogeco.ca/~monicafitz/stages.htm">starts very early</a> in a baby's life, generally from four to six months. It is now widely seen as a baby's mechanism to familiarize itself with the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoneme">phoneme set</a> of the languages spoken around it. The baby also practices the process of sound production this way, by imitating the sounds it hears and learning the way its mouth works.</span> Some theories even suggest that babies first learn the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosody_(linguistics)">prosodic</a> features of language and then use these intonations, pauses and tempo to form a skeleton of syntax and meaning in their heads.<br /><br />Linguistically, babbles are distinguished from other stages of infant sound production. A sequence of sounds qualifies as a babble if: </span><br /><br /><br /><ol><li><span style="font-size:85%;">The sounds are composed of a proper subset of all human-utterable phonemes, corresponding to the target language - As babies familiarize themselves with the language they hear, they begin to restrict their productions to only sounds within the language they will eventually learn. The baby seems to get more interested in exploring the target language rather than the wide range of sounds it initially experiments with.</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">The sounds are composed of phonological constructs found in the target language - Most languages have distinct Consonant-Vowel (CV) clusters, like 'baba' and 'gaga', and the child reproduces such patterns.</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">The sounds are not produced with any communicative intent - It's purely practice and experimentation for the little one.</span></li></ol><p><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></p><p><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></p><p><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></p><span style="font-size:85%;">The acquisition of language in normal children is very well studied. A plethora of theories contradict and compete with each other for acceptance. However, studies of the acquisition of language in special children i.e. those with visual/hearing/mental/genetic impairments, although celebrated, are perhaps not as rich as they should be. For example, we don't know if children exposed to sign language in their early years go through the same stages of acquisition as does a normal child. Do sign-exposed children babble, for instance? We're now finding out that perhaps they do!<br /><br /></span><a href="http://www.dartmouth.edu/~lpetitto/"><span style="font-size:85%;">Dr. Laura Ann-Petitto</span></a><span style="font-size:85%;">, Director of the </span><a href="http://www.dartmouth.edu/~lpetitto/lab/index.html"><span style="font-size:85%;">Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory for Language & Child Development</span></a><span style="font-size:85%;"> at Darthmouth College has studied hearing-impaired and normal babies exposed to sign-language during infancy, and has shown that these babies babble just like normal kids - only using their hands instead of their mouths! They babble signs instead of sounds, and all the aforementioned features of babbling are present even in their case. The hand movements restrict themselves to the personal space for signing: a rectanglar space in front of a person roughly centred at the chest. The same space is exclusively used by adult sign-language users. Further, the patterns of </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chereme"><span style="font-size:85%;">cheremes</span></a><span style="font-size:85%;"> (primitive units of signs equivalent to phonemes for verbal languages) follow that of the sign language the child is exposed to. Finally, the productions are repetetive and periodic just like verbal babbling, and seem to lack communicative intent. As can be expected, sign-exposed babies gain better control of their hands at an earlier age, and learn to produce more articulate gestures than normal babies do, while the latter gain better control over their vocal tract.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">What does this fascinating discovery imply to the world of Child Language Acquisition (CLA)? Firstly, it promotes the existence of a genetically 'open' program for language, that emphasizes that the mechanisms of language are very general, and the modality eventually adopted for learning can be decided online, be it sign-language or verbal language. It is not pre-programmed. Further, it also supports the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_grammar">Universal Grammar</a> notion of CLA, which postulates that all humans are innately gifted with a universal general grammar which is instantiated to the particular target language that the human is exposed to during acquisition. The theory arose out of the failure to explain the phenomenally easy and near-perfect pickup of a language by a child inspite of not being presented with negative examples and explicit correction by parents or the environment.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Of course, the lovely pictures presented above are of babies babbling with their hands. One can't help becoming a baby himself while looking at the beautiful infants, staring at them with pure amazement!</span>Arjun Karandehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04518237805317217916noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14921750.post-1124125308942697552005-08-15T15:36:00.000+05:302005-08-16T11:27:27.853+05:30<span style="font-size:85%;">Trivia rules! </span><span style="font-size:85%;">You raise your eyebrows when you first hear it. Sometimes you are even generous enough to the imparter to utter an 'oh' or a 'wow'. And once you're equipped with the titbit of knowledge, you walk around with your chin up and air of superiority around you. You inflict this knowledge on clueless individuals, and look down on them as rustic boors when they don't give you an 'oh' or a 'wow'. </span><span style="font-size:85%;">Anyway, I guess I'm just feeding into a cycle... but here goes. Here's some:</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><strong>Trivia</strong> (very) loosely related to<strong> sound and m</strong></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><strong>usic!</strong></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6800/1275/1600/hendrix_2.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 108px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 116px" height="131" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6800/1275/200/hendrix_2.jpg" width="127" border="0" /></a>From <a href="http://www.songfacts.com/detail.lasso?id=2553">Jimmy Hendrix - Purple Haze</a></span><a href="http://www.songfacts.com/detail.lasso?id=2553"> </a><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><em>Purple haze All in my brain</em></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><em>Lately things just don't seem the same</em></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><em>Acting funny but I don't know why</em></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><em>'Scuse me while I kiss the sky</em></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">If you're thinking, 'Oh, I always thought it was 'Scuse me while I kiss this guy...', you've fallen prey to a very famous </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondegreen"><span style="font-size:85%;">mondegreen</span></a><span style="font-size:85%;">. Mondegreens are misheard phrases or lyrics, which are sometimes widely accepted and often change the meaning of the text completely. Some famous examples are '<em>The girl with colitis goes by</em>' instead of '<em>The girl with kaleidoscope eyes</em>' in The Beatles - Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds, and '<em>Jeremy spoken brass beds today</em>' instead of '<em>Jeremy spoke in class today</em>' from Pearl Jam - Jeremy. Of course, mondegreens don't have to be famous to be classified so. We create them all the time, whenever we hear a new song.</span> <span style="font-size:85%;">The word 'mondegreen' is in itself a mondegreen, being the misheard version of "They have slain the Earl o' Murray and <strong>laid him on the green</strong>" from the 17th century ballad 'Earl o' Murray'! Anyway, there are <a href="http://www.amiright.com/misheard">many websites</a> dedicated to tracking common mondegreens of lyrics.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6800/1275/1600/MariahCarey4-05_300x298.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 103px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 107px" height="115" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6800/1275/200/MariahCarey4-05_300x298.jpg" width="114" border="0" /></a>How many times times have you had to decrease the volume when <a href="http://www.mariahcarey.com">Mariah Carey</a> started her high-pitched caterwauling in the middle of a song? And we've all heard stories about <a href="http://www.operastuff.com/people.html">Opera singers</a> easily <a href="http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_333.html">shattering glass</a> with their high-pitched voices. Although the latter depends more on precise control of the voice to match the resonating frequency of glass, you must admit that only a few chosen ones can manage to achieve a controlled high pitch. The notes in the range above the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Note">note E6</a> is called the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whistle_register">Whistle Register</a>, and only a few singers can manage to control this range. Naturally, more women make this list than men. </span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Mariah Carey is gifted with a five-<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octave">octave</a> range, and the highest note she has hit is G#7, which is five and a half steps above the highest note playable on a standard keyboard! <a href="http://www.minnieriperton.com">Minnie Riperton</a>, an accomplished singer, was rumoured to have hit C8. Interestingly, and perhaps coincidently, most singers who can produce notes in the whistle register seem to be the youngest in their family!</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6800/1275/1600/eric.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6800/1275/320/eric.jpg" border="0" /></a>In the episode '<a href="http://www.tv.com/south-park/worldwide-recorder-concert/episode/2464/summary.html">Worldwide Recorder Concert</a>' of the comedy series <a href="http://www.comedycentral.com/shows/south_park/index.jhtml">South Park</a>, the character<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Cartman"> Eric Cartman </a>tries to find the 'brown Noise', the pitch that makes a person lose control of his bowels and crap in his pants. He does find it of course, but in reality <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_noise">brown noise</a> is simply a sample of sound whose graphical representation mimics <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brownian_motion">brownian motion</a>, and is one of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colors_of_noise">colours of noise</a>, as are <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_noise">white noise</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink_noise">pink noise</a>. What he was really looking for is the '<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_note">brown note</a>', which is quite legendary. The TV show <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mythbusters">Mythbusters</a> tried to reproduce the brown note and failed. Their methodology has been debated. However, it is interesting to note that sound-emitting devices are being researched as non-lethal weapons, called <a href="http://www.princeton.edu/~globsec/publications/pdf/9_3altmann.pdf">Acoustic Weapons</a>. It is more interesting to note that extremely low-pitch sounds have been successfully shown to cause uncontrollable defecation and urination by US army research experiments, and devices that emit directed pulses of such sounds are being developed as weapons! Infrasound also causes uncontrollable sensations, vertigo and other symptoms. These may be effectively used to decapacitate enemy troops in battle. So although the terminology used is not right, Eric Cartman could very well get a device in the near future that would let him make his friends crap in their pants!</span>Arjun Karandehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04518237805317217916noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14921750.post-1123574663719330862005-08-09T12:26:00.000+05:302005-08-09T15:46:18.150+05:30<span style="font-size:85%;color:#ff9900;">This is the first in a series of articles I will be posting on humour as I discover more and more about it. The articles will aim towards exploring and perhaps defining formal (computational) models of humour, and will be sprinkled with jokes just to keep things interesting.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><em><span style="font-size:85%;">Q. How many men does it take to change a light bulb?</span><br /></em></span><em><span style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">A. One. He just holds it up there and waits for the world to revolve around him.<br /></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Q. How many women does it take to change a light bulb?</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">A. None. They just sit there in the dark and complain!</span></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /></em><span style="font-size:85%;"><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6800/1275/1600/slip.jpg"><em><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 119px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 142px" height="160" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6800/1275/320/slip.jpg" width="118" border="0" /></em></a>Humour is one aspect of human cognitive abilities that has strangely eluded hardcore philosophical, linguistic and computational research over the years. And yet, it is ever-present in our day-to-day lives, in our social interactions, in courting. For most of us, it is difficult to let a day go by without having a good laugh or two. Many of us use humour to vent out negative emotions and feelings. But what really makes something funny?</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">The above jokes give us an insight. Firstly, many jokes have a strong stereotypical aspect to them. <a href="http://www.geocities.com/chandan09/jokes1.htm">Sardarji jokes</a>, <a href="http://www.cs.utah.edu/~scook/html/blonde.htm">blonde jokes</a>, <a href="http://www.basicjokes.com/dtitles.php?cid=508">French jokes</a>, <a href="http://www.aarons-jokes.com/women_jokes/">jokes about women</a> and <a href="http://ifaq.wap.org/sex/bashingmenjokes.html">jokes about men</a> are just few examples. The stereotypes that women prefer bickering to acting, and that men are self-centred and egoistic are exploited by the jokes above to generate humour. </span><span style="font-size:85%;">But of course, not all jokes need to have a stereotypical aspect. Even if some jokes incorporate it, the humour is only partially generated by it. So what else makes something funny?</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><em><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;">It was the end of the school year, and a kindergarten teacher was receiving gifts from her pupils. The florist's son handed her a gift. She shook it, held it overhead, and said, "I bet I know what it is. Flowers." "That's right!" the boy said, "But, how did you know?" "Oh, just a wild guess," she said.</span><br /></em><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;"><br /><em>The next pupil was the sweet shop owner's daughter. The teacher held her gift overhead, shook it, and said, "I bet I can guess what it is. A box of sweets." "That's right, but how did you know?" asked the girl. "Oh, just a wild guess," said the teacher.<br /><br />The next gift was from the son of the liquor storeowner. The teacher held the package overhead, but it was leaking. She touched a drop off the leakage with her finger and put it to her tongue. "Is it wine?" she asked. "No," the boy replied, with some excitement. The teacher repeated the process, tasting a larger drop of the leakage. "Is it champagne?" she asked. "No," the boy replied, with more excitement. The teacher took one more big taste before declaring, "I give up, what is it?"<br /></em></span><br /><em><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;">With great glee, the boy replied, "It's a puppy!"</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /></em><span style="font-size:85%;">It seems most jokes also depend on some form of inconformity or incongruity to generate humour. <a href="http://omni.cc.purdue.edu/~vraskin/Raskin.html">Victor Raskin</a>, a professor of English and Linguistics at <a href="http://www.purdue.edu/">Purdue University</a>, formalized this into what he initially called the Script Theory. A script (or theme, or set of beliefs) unfolds as the joke is narrated, and at a crucial point (a punchline perhaps), a conflicting script is introduced that generates humour. In the above joke, the script dictates that each child gets gifts for the teacher from his or her father's store. The last line, obviously the punch-line, introduces the conflicting script of the gift being completely unrelated to the child's father's profession. It also invokes a feeling of disgust that somehow generates humour.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">This brings us to another category of humour. Things that are disgusting or related to sex and violence seem to invoke a rather primitive reaction from us, and are effectively used in jokes. Although more popular at a younger age, such jokes do make millions of adults laugh out hard as well. Visual jokes often belong to this category, such as the one put with this post.</span><br /><p><span style="font-size:85%;">But then, many jokes are fairly complex and logical, and the generation of humour often comes simply from the process of reasoning and inferring the joke. These jokes are very similar to logical puzzles, which invoke similar pleasure in the mind of the reader.</span></p><p><em><span style="font-size:85%;">Did you hear about the French suicide bomber? Y</span><span style="font-size:85%;">es, he's on 23rd mission!</span></em><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">It seems that through this little discussion, we have realized that humour is not the result of one simple mechanism, but a group of mechanisms that generate related reactions. Perhaps then, a rigid taxonomy of humour is required, as is a survey of existing philosophical and computational models of humour...</span> </p>Arjun Karandehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04518237805317217916noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14921750.post-1123235037112976712005-08-05T13:33:00.000+05:302005-08-07T13:31:08.136+05:30<span style="color:#ff9900;"><span style="font-size:85%;">Disclaimer: The following post </span><span style="font-size:85%;">is not suitable for minors. Adults are advised to read it at their own discretion. The author of this blog takes no responsibilty for the content presented here, and the views expressed are not necessarily shared by the author or Blogger.com<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6800/1275/1600/vaseline1.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 98px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 97px" height="97" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6800/1275/320/vaseline1.jpg" width="129" border="0" /></a>.</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Jerking off, wanking, spanking the monkey, choking the purple dinosaur, stroking the magic wand of fulfillment... almost anyone with a reasonable grasp over english can come up with a slang for:</span><br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><strong>Masturbation</strong></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">In a particular sketch of the British comedy show '<a href="http://www.us.imdb.com/title/tt0063929/">Monty Python's Flying Circus</a>', a contestant on a game show was to declare that his hobbies included "strangling animals, golf and masturbation". The BBC promptly mandated that the word 'masturbation' be silenced out. During one of the negotiations, one of the Pythons, </span><a href="http://www.us.imdb.com/name/nm0001385/"><span style="font-size:85%;">Eric Idle</span></a><span style="font-size:85%;">, reportedly asked the head of the BBC, "Everyone masturbates. Don't you masturbate, sir?". He was not given a response.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">That was an ideal episode to highlight the taboo associated with talking about masturbation, and <a href="http://members.optusnet.com.au/~austbua/masturbation.htm#concerns">the feeling of concern and guilt associated with the act</a>. And old saying goes, '95% of people masturbate - the other 5% lie about it'.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">All over the world, boys and girls, men and women, and even other mammals masturbate from 3-4 times a week to about 3-4 times a day. Most consider it a private affair, while others prefer <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circle_jerk">a mutual act</a>. People either use their hands, accessories, sexual partners or friends to get the act done. Millions of young boys and girls discover the pleasures of their genitilia every year, locking themselves in their rooms or taking too long in the bathroom. Even the most liberal parents sometimes worry, while the child almost always frames an uncomfortable and guilt-ridden view of masturbation in his/her head. All a part of growing up!</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masturbation#Religion">Many religions</a> consider masturbation a sinful act. Christianity declares any sexual act outside the bonds of marriage as sinful. A very powerful statement made by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Thomas_Aquinas">St. Thomas Aquinas</a> said that masturbation is worse than rape, since rape is a sin against reason alone, whereas masturbation is against the ways of nature as well as reason. It is but obvious then, that christians feel a sense of guilt while commiting the act. However, the private nature of the act manifests itself as guilt and shame even without religion involved.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">The myths associated with masturbation are as interesting as the act itself! Personally, I've heard that you go blind if you masturbate too much, or that you lose your sexual urge. There are many more, some very strange indeed, such as you grow hair on your hands, you become dumber etc. Research indicates of course, that masturbation, even when performed often, is physiologically harmless. It's like a <a href="http://www.masturbationpage.com/asmfaq1.html#5q">mild excercise</a>, and it's only bane is a temporary drop in energy and hormone levels.</span><br /><p><span style="font-size:85%;">Masturbation hasn't inspired art as much as sex has, I'll admit. However, </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_songs_about_masturbation"><span style="font-size:85%;">songs</span></a><span style="font-size:85%;"> have been sung on it or referencing it, and it of course attracts a lot of </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masturbation#Humour_and_masturbation"><span style="font-size:85%;">humour</span></a><span style="font-size:85%;">.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:85%;">We need to be more open about this act than we are. Everyone does it. EVERYONE! The others are lying :)</span></p>Arjun Karandehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04518237805317217916noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14921750.post-1122914440568669072005-08-01T20:28:00.000+05:302005-08-02T11:37:53.850+05:30<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6800/1275/1600/beatles%20-%20let%20it%20be.jpg"><span style="font-size:85%;"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 155px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 144px" height="177" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6800/1275/320/beatles%20-%20let%20it%20be.jpg" width="218" border="0" /></span></a><span style="font-size:85%;"> <strong>The Beatles...</strong> one of the greatest bands that ever graced the Earth with their music. They started off with popular rock and roll, with the immense hit '<a href="http://www.cduniverse.com/search/xx/music/pid/1108472/a/Please+Please+Me.htm">Please Please Me</a>' in 1963. Beatlemania was on - girls screamed and fainted at their performances, guys considered them Gods! Many more albums followed their first, but neither their style nor their popularity ever stagnated. By 1968 they experimented with alternative music, notably in the '<a href="http://www.cduniverse.com/productinfo.asp?pid=1108488&style=music&cart=262190260">White Album</a>' and '<a href="http://www.cduniverse.com/productinfo.asp?pid=1108492&style=music&cart=262190260">Abbey Road</a>'. After releasing '<a href="http://www.cduniverse.com/productinfo.asp?pid=1108494&style=music&cart=262190260">Let It Be</a>' in 1970, and a few compilation albums, the Beatles went their own ways... reaching varying levels of success. Four great musicians, each with their own style and influences:</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><strong>John Lennon, Ringo Starr, George Harrison and William Campbell. </strong></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">The four Beatles, who have immortalized themselves as arguably the most successful band ever... err what? Did you say Paul McCartney? The fourth Beatle was Paul McCartney? Ah, well... Paul is dead! He was replaced by a clone years back.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">In 1969, an RJ in Detroit named Russell Gibb announced that Paul McCartney was dead. He presented <a href="http://members.tripod.com/~taz4158/mac.html">evidence</a> strewn throughout the Beatles' songs, movies and album artwork. Needless to say, the news spread throughout </span><span style="font-size:85%;">America. Thousands of Beatles enthusiasts around the world started their own little investigations, and the 'evidence' mounted. Many versions of what happened exist:</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Apparently, Paul McCartney was found dead at <a href="http://digilander.libero.it/p_truth/the_truth/outreau_france_on_magical_mystery_tour.jpg">Outreau, North France</a> after suffering a car accident. This brought despair to the remaining Beatles, who thought that this wasn't good for the world and for their careers. Amidst deep mourning for the loss of a great friend, they decided to do all it took to keep The Beatles alive, which meant keeping Paul's death a secret and getting someone to cover for him. During this time, a Paul McCartney look-alike contest was held, and probably the winner William Campbell's prize was to take Paul's place in all photos, album covers, public meets etc. Another theory says it was <a href="http://digilander.libero.it/p_truth/the_truth/billy_shepherd_blue_green_eyes.jpg">Geoffery Shepherd</a>, a singer with The Pepperpots Band. Of course the transformation of the look-alikes into Paul was slow and required a lot of effort, including surgeries. However, Beatles fans noted marked differences between the real Paul and who they believed was a clone. The most notable being a scar on the fake Paul's upper lip.</span><br /><p><span style="font-size:85%;">The Beatles themselves deliberately left clues in their album covers and lyrics to gradually reveal that Paul was dead. The first one was the <a href="http://www.eskimo.com/~bpentium/b4sale/front_11.jpg">'Butcher Album</a>', which showed The Beatles holding decapitated baby dolls and raw meat, with George holding a head right next to Paul's head. The album cover of '<a href="http://www.britishinvasion.ca/Index_files/Beatles/Cap-T-2553%20Trunk%20Cover%20%20Yesterday%20and%20Today%201966%20[can].jpg">Yesterday and Today</a>' shows Paul sitting in a trunk, signifying his burial. '<a href="http://digilander.libero.it/jamespaul/sgt_pepper_cover/sgt_pepper_cover.jpg">Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band</a>' had a phenomenal album cover, and brought with it a phenomenal share of controversy as well. A lot of clues, some rather nonsensical, were extracted from this album. For instance, a doll is seated in the far right with a white car in her hand, the same model Paul died in. The album cover of '<a href="http://discosantigos.com/WallpapersMUSIC/AbbeyRoad.JPG">Abbey Road</a>', my favourite, seemed like a funeral procession for Paul. Paul was the only one in black , was barefoot, and was out of step with the other Beatles. Lennon was the Preacher, Ringo was a Pall Bearer and Harrison was the grave-digger. Most notably, Paul was left-handed, but in this photo Paul has the cigarette in his right hand! Also a hearse is visible in the background!</span></p><p><span style="font-size:85%;">Many lyrical clues were also inserted by The Beatles. One very strong clue was that when you play the gibberish at the end of the song 'I'm So Tired' <a href="http://jeffmilner.com/backmasking.htm">backwards</a>, it sounds like "..Paul's dead man, miss him miss him.."! '<a href="http://www.songfacts.com/detail.lasso?id=149">Glass Onion</a>', the title of one of their songs is a moniker for a see-through coffin. Also, Lennon sings in the song, "The Walrus is Paul." In many European countries, a walrus represents death. Many interpretations of other lyrics exist, all indicating Paul's death.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:85%;">Is Paul really dead? Or is it a hoax? Even if it is one, did the Beatles play an active role in setting up the hoax, or was is just the work of overimaginative fans? Most people today believe the latter. An elaborate hoax that wasn't caused by one person or idea, but rather collectively by enthusiastic fans. However, there still are ardent believers in the theory even today. Hell, they even made a <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0232293/">movie</a> about the whole thing. Looks like Beatlemania went far far beyond just screaming and fainting. As long as The Beatles live, so will rumours that Paul is dead.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:85%;">Just Google '<a href="http://www.google.co.in/search?hl=en&q=paul+is+dead&meta=">Paul is dead</a>' to know more...</span></p>Arjun Karandehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04518237805317217916noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14921750.post-1122662777192730052005-07-30T00:15:00.000+05:302005-07-30T00:16:17.196+05:30<strong><span style="font-size:85%;">She certainly gave science a wish or two...</span></strong><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">November 4th, 1970. A middle-aged woman and her mother came into a welfare office in Temple City, California, carrying a small girl who looked to the officer to be just 6 or 7. She was in reality 13, and had lived a life of severe abuse. </span><a href="http://www.feralchildren.com/en/showchild.php?ch=genie"><span style="font-size:85%;">Genie</span></a><span style="font-size:85%;"> (real name protected by law), a very unfortunate victim of abuse, was kept locked in a room alone for over 10 years. While awake, she was tied to a potty chair, and slept in a crib with her hands restricted. Her father, who was mentally unstable himself, regarded Genie as a retarded child, and considered his ritual abuse as a way of protecting her.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Genie's peculiar bunny-like walk shocked her rescuers, in which she held her arms like paws in front of her, and walked haltingly. She wasn't toilet-trained, could focus to only a few feet in front of her, could not eat solid foods and spat constantly, and the only words she said were 'stopit' and 'nomore'.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Genie is a </span><a href="http://www.feralchildren.com/"><span style="font-size:85%;">feral child</span></a><span style="font-size:85%;">, one of several cases of children who have lived many of their formative years without the nurturing environment of a human society. Her case shocked and saddened millions of people, and she found a lot of well-wishers. However, Genie also provided a lot of evidence and food for thought for linguists. She provided a unique, albeit extremely unfortunate case study to investigate the </span><a href="http://www.heidelberg.edu/~vheck/hypothesis.html"><span style="font-size:85%;">Critical Period Hypothesis</span></a><span style="font-size:85%;">, which states that the period from about two years till puberty is critical to the learning of language in a child, and if that period is missed, the child doesn't learn language as proficiently as a normal child would. An easy-to-see support of this hypothesis is that most of us, who have been brought up in a place where the language spoken is not our own, pick up the foreign language with native-like proficiency, whereas our parents still grapple with words and constructions, in spite of being exposed for the same time.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Psychologists, linguists and neurobiologists tracked Genie's progress. During her rehabilition, she was very eager to </span><a href="http://www.bbsonline.org/documents/a/00/00/04/32/bbs00000432-00"><span style="font-size:85%;">learn new words</span></a><span style="font-size:85%;">, pointing at them until someone told her what the object was called. She rapidly progressed; her acqusition seemed to be just a delayed version (about 12 years) of that of a normal child, only faster! She went through the </span><a href="http://home.cogeco.ca/~monicafitz/stages.htm"><span style="font-size:85%;">natural initial phases of language acquisition</span></a><span style="font-size:85%;">, until she was stuck at the multiword phrase. Genie just couldn't go beyond saying phrases like "Applesauce buy store" and "No have toy". At the same time, her caretakers were amazed at how quickly she picked up maths and how well she could express abstract thoughts through drawing. It is said that the scientists working with Genie fell in love with her innocence, and often would spend entire days with her.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">In Genie's case, however, the Critical Period Hypothesis could not be verified conclusively. Evidence of brain damage was found, although no one was sure whether her brain was damaged from birth or because of the brutal treatment she recieved in her earlier years. It wasn't sure anymore whether her block in acquisition was due to her passing the critical age, or due to the brain damage. In any case, the experiment was scrapped, and today Genie lives in a foster home in southern California. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">The case study of Genie was fascinating, but also very controversial. Her mother, and a whole lot of people, ended up thinking that the experimentation on Genie was detrimental to her being rehabilitated and science should have left the poor girl alone, but scientists maintain that they loved Genie like she was their own child. What struck me the most was simply that there was an actual word for children like Genie - 'feral children'... which means it happens often enough to require a name! Depressing...</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">The movie </span><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0273822"><span style="font-size:85%;">Mockingbird Don't Sing</span></a><span style="font-size:85%;"> is based on Genie. Although not an excellent movie, it is worth a watch.</span>Arjun Karandehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04518237805317217916noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14921750.post-1122662420681093322005-07-30T00:09:00.000+05:302005-07-30T00:16:56.913+05:30<span style="font-size:85%;"><strong>The mind is turned on!</strong><br /><strong></strong><br />I look down at a familiar white dog that comes out on the lawn and settles down amongst us as if it's one of us, and although I smile at how cute the act looked, I can't help but loathe its utter lack of intelligence. I'm definitely a superior being, I think. And I look so much more handsome, and have far less hair on the chest... and then the mutt looks up to me, and its eyes reflect purity, kindness and intelligence - it's one of God's creatures; </span><a href="http://human-nature.com/rmyoung/papers/paper59h.html"><span style="font-size:85%;">it seems to have a soul</span></a><span style="font-size:85%;">. I wonder, what really makes us so different?<br /><br />Bah! But of course, man is far superior. We're thinkers, we're builders, we're warriors, we're philosophers, we're murderers. We appreciate beauty, we create beauty, we destroy it. I've never seen a bird stop and stare at the sunset, just like I've never seen a dumb monkey electing a dumber one for </span><a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/"><span style="font-size:85%;">President</span></a><span style="font-size:85%;">. As a society, we're cultured and complex, and we are rational beings. And of course, we possess the most powerful tool ever created: language! We are above nature. We aren't bound by it, we're beyond it.<br /><br />My mind dwells on language and culture. </span><a href="http://acp.eugraph.com/monkey/index.html"><span style="font-size:85%;">Certain species of monkeys</span></a><span style="font-size:85%;"> have a set of sounds specifying signals, such as that of food or danger. Parrots and parakeets imitate voices, a </span><a href="http://acp.eugraph.com/birds/index.html"><span style="font-size:85%;">songbird</span></a><span style="font-size:85%;"> can actually piece together bits of songs heard from other birds to make its own composition. Apes (the most famous being </span><a href="http://www.koko.org/"><span style="font-size:85%;">Koko</span></a><span style="font-size:85%;">) have been taught how to use hand signals to communicate with man. Language, right? Wrong! Even Apes only seem to reach the </span><a href="http://home.cogeco.ca/~monicafitz/stages.htm"><span style="font-size:85%;">Multiword Phrase Level</span></a><span style="font-size:85%;">, speaking sentences like 'Koko hug', a feat accomplished rather easily by humans before the age of 3, without years of research, training and pampering. The full recursive infiniteness of human language (add 'Google says that' before any declarative sentence to make a new one, for example), a lexical repertoire of over 30,000 words, and the vast array of abstract thoughts detached from time and space that can be expressed... now that's raw power. That's unparalleled, that's human.<br /><br />On a high, and rather proud of myself, I move to culture and beauty. We appreciate the beauty of the world around us and we create </span><a href="http://www.lavaworld.com/"><span style="font-size:85%;">things purely for aesthetic pleasure</span></a><span style="font-size:85%;">. No other being does this, or indeed needs to! Doesn't that put us above nature? Why would nature give us tools we don't need for our survival? Appreciation of art and beauty, kindness, altruism, magnanimity... these are biologically without function or even illogical. Perhaps they aren't... many researchers, notably </span><a href="http://www.unm.edu/~psych/faculty/gmiller.html"><span style="font-size:85%;">G.F Miller</span></a><span style="font-size:85%;">, </span><a href="http://human-nature.com/nibbs/02/mm.html"><span style="font-size:85%;">say very interestingly</span></a><span style="font-size:85%;"> that almost every trait we consider uniquely human has risen out of the process of </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_selection"><span style="font-size:85%;">sexual selection</span></a><span style="font-size:85%;">. With traits like pure physical strength no longer a parameter for fitness, humans have to rely on other measures of fitness. The appreciation and creation of beauty and art reflect a developed and superior mind, altruism and kindness are an obvious indicator of success, and it is but obvious that courtship in humans employs wit and humour, a definite measure of intelligence. One even dares to say that the entire world of art, of beauty and of charity is here just to help us find mates! Many elements of human sexuality also seem to be deeper than they are. </span><a href="http://yestheyrefake.net/ideal_beauty.htm"><span style="font-size:85%;">Facial beauty</span></a><span style="font-size:85%;"> is a direct consequence of symmetry, a measure of genetic health. The large breasts and buttocks of the human female exhibit fitness and energy resources to take care of the soon-to-come young, and hence are naturally attractive to men. Perhaps the expressive power of language, as it is now, is also a result of sexual selection!<br /><br />Perhaps the character John Keating (</span><a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000245"><span style="font-size:85%;">Robin Williams</span></a><span style="font-size:85%;">) was right when he said in '</span><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097165"><span style="font-size:85%;">Dead Poets Society</span></a><span style="font-size:85%;">' that language was made not to communicate, but to woo women! We seem to think we are above nature, that what we define as human is not needed for survival and hence not dictated by it. We use this to detach ourselves and to elevate ourselves. But we seem to be very much under the control of nature... we're just too intelligent to realize it!<br /><br />And as science fails to give me some solace, I look back at the dog. It gives me a blank stare, but its soul gives me a smile. I won this battle, it says. The war is far from over, I reply. And I finish the remaning lime juice and move on.</span>Arjun Karandehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04518237805317217916noreply@blogger.com0