Author Archive: Ankit
Minimalism: An irrational clock
Posted by Ankit On May 27th, 2010
P equals NP
Posted by Ankit On May 24th, 2010
...I need to start hanging out with normal people.
Clash of the Titans
Posted by Ankit On May 13th, 2010
...
A.A. moves his Knight to d5
Tress Vandeley: (Brilliant, brilliant. That's a shrewd one right there. In one fell swoop he has managed to save the fork that was going to be threatening his Queen and Rook 7 moves down the line and build up a momentum which gives him strategic play in the center of the board. I suppose he is thinking of moving his e and f pawns to threaten the integrity of my King's castle while his Bishop controls the black diagonal. And now with his Knight ensconced at such an advanced position I think the game is going down south for me in less than 23 moves. Mr. Alexandrovich's reputation precedes him. But I should never have underestimated a Russian to begin with. Counterattack is my only option. Maybe I can rattle his composure.)
T.V. moves his Rook to c2
Anatoly Alexandrovich: (Why the hell did he do that? I'll move this long towering one.)
A.A. moves his Queen to a4
Tress Vandeley: (My god, such genius. Such genius! 12. Qxd7, Kg8, 13. Kne7, h6... ... ... I estimate a checkmate in 17 moves. Unless I do something now, my demise is just around the corner. To think that someone could have come up with such a deep move at such a nervous juncture of the game. It doesn't take a genius to see that Mr. Alexandrovich has descended from the land of the Karpovs, Spasskys, Kramniks, and Kasparovs. My god, what shall I do here. The only hope I can see here is my aggressive flank on the Queen side and I should try to step up the pressure.)
T.V. moves his Bishop to e3
Anatoly Alexandrovich: (The short stumpy one then the long slender one then the short stumpy one then the long slender one. I get it now. Here gallops my horse.)
A.A. moves his Knight to f6
Tress Vandeley: (Damn Damn Damn Damn Damn Damn Damn Damn Damn Damn Damn Damn. What insight! What absolutely brilliant insight! Is it time that I resign to a guy who is well and truly on the top of his and our game? He already has a significant strategic advantage. Although I am ahead on material but hindsight shows that Mr. Alexandrovich offered his gambits and I lapped them up without enough thought. But what could I have done in the face of such brilliance? That pawn sacrifice on the third move - who could have thought that it was offered to gain positional advantage 25 moves down the line? There is no other way. It's time I give up and accept defeat against a man who is pushing the envelop in our field.)
T.V. resigns by flicking his King.
Anatoly Alexandrovich: Dude, you tripped your slacker.
I'm sorry Mr. Kone
Posted by Ankit On May 11th, 2010
So I got the following mail today (copied here as is),
---------------
Dear friend,
My name is (MR Emmanuel Kone) i am the manager of auditing and accounting department Bank of African, I need your urgent assistance in transferring the sum of ($10.5m us dollars immediately to your acocunt.
upon your reply I will send you full details on how the business will be executed,send me your contact information.
1.Age.........................
(2)Residential adress......................
(3) occupation....................
| ........
(4)private telephone................. I Am Waiting to hear from you soonest so please contact me through my private email (mr.emmanuel_kone66@yahoo.co.id Thanks Emmanuel kone. |
--------
Now I'm not a stickler for formalities and I no longer get worked up over missed apostrophes and dropped letters but this! This, my friend, is completely unacceptable. It's unacceptable because while Mr. Emmanuel Kone seems to be making a business proposition to me, it seems that he is taking my business far too lightly. Maybe it's the effect of the yuppie generation with their demand for instant gratification, their short attention spans, and casual weekdays. Maybe it is a precipitate of a culture hopelessly addicted to the quick fixes of easy technology but to think that such an ill prepared mail with such glaring grammatical errors will secure my favors for Mr. Kone is nothing less than preposterous. And it's not just the grammatical errors which I find supremely disturbing. Here are my other objections regarding the mail,
1. I'm not your friend.
2. I'm generally suspicious of people who have round brackets in their name. They remind me of Charlie Brown. Not that Charlie Brown had curly brackets in his name or was suspicious. In fact being suspicious of people who have round brackets in their names and getting reminded of Charlie Brown are mutually exclusive events. But I thought I'll mention this while I'm at it.
3. I doubt if there is a Bank of Africa. I have graver doubts about Bank of African.
4) That your list is inconsistently numbered bothers me.
But more than being just a train wreck of a mail as far as consistency and grammar are concerned, it has deeper philosophical implications. The world as we find ourselves in today is getting increasingly less appreciative of individuals. As our population inches towards the 7 billion mark, every single one of us matters just a little lesser than what he used to. In times of such grave objectification, can we not expect a slight indulgence even from those whose only source income is our own gullibility? I find it insulting that someone whose only job is to write purple proses, lace our clarity in sugar coated dreams, and appeal to our humanity and greed with rosy visions of dead people with irrational wills is not willing to spend the requisite effort at cooking up a decent story. Mutual respect, while long dead at the hands of the virtuous, has now lost its final haven in the debauched.
I have fond recollections of Burkina Faso where rich men died in plane crashes. How wonderful! Death has the notorious habit of being mainly superficial except when it happens to those who are completely unrelated to us - in which case it often generates sympathy. But in Burkina Faso, death was beautiful and benign. Rich men were getting killed in plane crashes and their money was being left to me. Millions of dollars were sitting at the doors of the Burkina Faso bank, palpitating, waiting impatiently to be transferred to my account if only I replied. I never did of course, mainly because I was not a dumbass but it was nice being pampered like that. That such selfless and inexplicable good could exist in the world was always a hypothetical notion but there was something good about its fake honesty. Mr. Kone, you disappoint me. That you expect me to be a retard and give you my bank account number is insulting enough. The fact that you expect it all without putting in any effort from your side is just plain wrong.
-------
p.s. There is actually a Bank of Africa!
Art-less
Posted by Ankit On May 3rd, 2010
It bothers me to think that for all the mystique and hazy beauty that is often endowed to 'Indian art' by nostalgic emigrants and westerners too eager to latch on to the infinite ocean of eastern wisdom, it is actually quite a barren field where new ideas almost never come along and old ones are repeated ad-infinitum. As an example, although Indian classical music is richer and deeper than I would ever have the time and expertise to explore, the truth is that barring a few raagas here and a few innovations there, it has remained almost unchanged through the centuries. Part of the reason for this, I feel, is exactly the same reason why it has the mystique that it has. Because its learning is so regimented and because it has no written notation, it is extremely hard for a layman to appreciate it. This removes Indian classical music to an entirely different plane, one where the common man cannot even hope to reach. This lends a great mystique to it but, unfortunately, it also prevents it from reinventing itself. You can have a beautiful little walled garden for yourself, but sadly, without the forces of creation which come from openness and irreverence, it will remain just that and nothing more. This is probably a reason why such a huge divide exist between high and low music in India with classical music sitting in its ivory tower, unscratched and smug, and popular music, mediocre at best, catering to the taste of the billion who are completely unable to bridge the gap between the two. Music in the Western society, on the other hand, has undergone tremendous changes. From the time when perfections were sought after and Bach produced his masterpiece studies in the mathematical harmonies of music to the acceptance of dissonances and complete ambiguity in what can be considered music - with a plethora of experiments and changes in between - it's a story of the continual asking of questions and never having too much respect for tradition. As a result, the sheer number of forms that theoretically exist lends almost a smooth and unbroken transition from high music to popular music. It is easier to get inspired when you realize that the rules of the game are not sacrosanct - something that is lacking in India classical music.
It might have to do with culture and hopefully that will change with economic prosperity and people would become more rebellious, more questioning, and more intolerant of authority and propriety. I feel that within appropriate laws and freedoms, it's a good thing. It encourages dialogue and makes one rethink some of our most fundamental assumptions. Art gets benefited from such a blasphemous attitude by becoming more cutting edge, more vibrant, and more in tune with the times. Although I'm not very sure of what I mean by being in tune with the times! Marcel Duchamp created the Fountain (a urinal) in 1917 and termed it art. John Cage created 4 minutes and 33 seconds of silence as a musical piece in 1952. Jackson Pollock's brand of abstract expressionism lived in the 60s. Schwitters wrote the sound poem Ursonate in the 20s. I don't know what form cutting edge art, which by definition rebels against the existing systems, takes in the contemporary society when everything that there was to rebel against was already exhausted by the end of the first half of the 20th century! A friend once told me that postmodern art is that which takes itself too seriously. I don't completely agree but that's a line of thought I'll save for later. For now I'll live with the solace that with the disapointment that is inherent in the current non-experimental nature of Indian art, comes the consolation that there is a lot left to explore.
Science as a belief
Posted by Ankit On April 26th, 2010
It's interesting how much one doesn't know of oneself until he is asked specifically and has to think about it. So the other day Khatri bhaiyya asked me why I get so flustered whenever the topic of homeopathy comes up. As it turns out, I really do get irritated but if he had not mentioned it I would never have admitted it to myself. Then I had another discussion with Jackie upon something similar and the upshot of it all is that some little things became a bit less vague.
I suppose that of all things that irritate me, the one that does it to the greatest extent is the statement, 'well, science is just another belief.' Frequently it is uttered by someone who has just had a long and winded argument and has decided to settle it all by pointing to the shaky grounds upon which we have built all are architectures. The thing that drives me nuts is that the statement is actually spot on. At its very heart science is actually just a belief with its own axioms and suffers from both an anthropological bias and severe sensory limitations. But it's a very special kind of belief. And it's this special nature of the belief which I find hard to convey to someone who has just made this statement. It's hard to make them understand that the important thing about science is not so much that it has 'made things work' but the fact that it's a humble, self-correcting, and ideally non-dogmatic, non-hierarchical system. A system which always stands incomplete and is never too shy to admit its own incompetence. A system where a rank outsider like Einstein can come along from nowhere and change our entire world view. It's hard to convey how important the act of 'allowing complete irreverence' to exist inside a 'belief system' is to its own well being. This one fact alone should actually be enough to warrant a qualified mention of 'science as a belief' because as I understand, everything else that humans believe in; from religion to economic doctrines to political ideas to homeopathy in fact- everything sort of assumes immunity from the wisdom of the common folk. They are all static and their leaders are unquestionable. So yes, Science at its very heart is just a belief but we should give credit where it's due. We should give credit to a system which, despite the initial appearance, is more equal and more hardworking than others. Or we might not and I should stop giving a damn.
There is another reason why I have more respect for Science than individual opinions and personal hunches. In fact, on a rational day, I have about as much respect for any belief, any morality as any other, including mine - which is not much. The reason is that they are all going to stop mattering or change once the individual ceases to exist, or the environment or circumstances change, or humanity finishes. These presumptuous thoughts don't really matter in the larger scheme of things. Laws of nature, on the other hand, transcend humanity - or so I feel. If there is another civilization somewhere else and if they are intelligent and curious about their surroundings and if they ask questions, I believe that they would find the exact same laws of nature as we have or will - but that's just pure belief and I agree...
So it goes.
Posted by Ankit On April 17th, 2010
Just finished reading Vonnegut's famous Slaughterhouse Five. New York Times, in their original review of the book, said something to the effect that you'd either love it or push it aside as a science fiction book. I suppose great works have that capability of sharply dividing public opinion but I just found the book... listless - which is probably a great compliment for it in a warped sort of way.
The book, like other Vonnegut's novels, is about nothing really. I mean, it sort of has an anti war message in its mundane and trivializing portrayal of the bombing of Dresden. It may be called a science fiction novel in its description of the planet of Tralfamadour but the greatest compliment I can give to the book is that it's about nothing and the only thing it manages to do in its 250 pages is babble about zillion small and disconnected happenings and concepts. I am by no means being critical -Â because I really believe that Vonnegut, for the kind of writer that he was, appreciated above all other acclaim, the acclaim of being the champion of nothing. It seems to me that he was the sort of chap who looked at the triviality of the world and the seriousness with which people took themselves with an amused look - and the world with all its self-presumed purpose was nothing but a heady dose of entertainment for him. Very much like George Carlin actually. He preaches no morals, sort of believes in predestination, really doesn't have much sympathy for any cause, and doesn't want anything to do with group mentality. He is disinterested with the travails of the irrational humanity but understands that he needs to milk it in order to lead a decent life. And he knows that he is smart enough to jeer at the dumb humans and us humans would love him for it. Slaughterhouse Five is exactly the sort of novel which you expect to come from such a person.
I love the ideas in the book and share Vonnegut's amusement at human irrationality (not to say that I'm not irrational), but a satirical antiwar book, for me, has to be measured against the gold standard of Catch-22, and it just doesn't hold up there. There is a cruelty in Catch-22, an absolute inhuman disgust at human herd-mentality, a complete disregard for so many of our cherished ideals - it's a symphony in cacophony, and S5 is nowhere near. Vonnegut probably never tried to write another Catch-22 and there is no obvious reason to compare the two but I cannot help it. But here is the thing - if I had to ignore the content of the book and evaluate Vonnegut as the avant garde, zany writer that he was supposed to be, I'd prefer Woody Allen over him. Allen is not considered a great writer maybe because he never really wrote seriously, but from what I have read from him, there is nobody that I've read (with the exception of Kafka) who even comes close to how crazy his imagination was and is. The trouble with Vonnegut is that in whichever department I choose to evaluate his brilliance, it is always easy to find someone else who is much better. So it goes (and that's how Vonnegut ends most of his paragraphs).
Pale Blue Dot
Posted by Ankit On April 10th, 2010
Chicken...
Posted by Ankit On April 6th, 2010
...or Buffalo wings, as they are called in the country for which the rest of the world is an appendix, refers to the uncooked lump of meat skewered over the top of two drumsticks. Sure it has two eyes, a nose, and two ears but these are details not worth the time of anyone except the technical ones - and let's face it, their opinions don't count. So anyhoo, I was describing Chicken. Well, not much to describe there, is it? They go about their lives doing something quite inconsequential until one day - BAM - on a barbeque, roasting away under the warm embrace of Lawry's garlic salt. Some of them give eggs, a lot of which end up in Denny's and the rest of them produce more chickens which send up Lawry's share by a fraction of a percentage. So if there is like a chicken equivalent of Immanuel Kant who has brooded upon the purpose of his life, I suspect that Lawry's pvt. ltd. features prominently in his musings. If eggs have life (you never know, some people even think plants have life!), they probably think about Denny's a lot. But I think we should really rein in our crazy speculations, which already crossed the line of rationality when we started thinking of chickens and eggs as anything more than food. What a crazy idea! Anyhoo, to make things a bit clearer, because let's face it - it's a complicated topic, I have made the following flowcharts which explain everything about chickens and eggs:
1 Chicken -> 2 drumsticks + 1 barbecued breast piece
1 egg -> not much, but 2 eggs -> 1 omlette
Speaking of chickens and eggs, I have often wondered which came first. I think we'll have to see if Lawry's setup their shop before Denny's because let's face it, what would Lawry's have made if the world only consisted of eggs? Vice-versa, how would Denny's have made omlettes from chickens? A quick search shows that Lawry's was established in 1938 and Denny's in 1953 which means there were no chickens before 1938 and no eggs before 1953. There you have it - once and for all, a huge conundrumstick solved!
Progress
Posted by Ankit On March 8th, 2010
There is an ancient Egyptian poem, written in the 19th century BC, which translates to:
Had I unknown phrases
Sayings that are strange
Novel, untried words
Free of repetition
Not transmitted sayings
Spoken by ancestors.
I wring out my body for what it holds,
Sifting through all my words;
For what has just been said is just repetition,
What has been said has been said...
-The complaints of Khakheperre-seneb
There are two distinctly interesting aspects to the above poem. The first is the fact that it represents complex ideas similar to what a modern person might have. My notion of ancient languages like the Egyptian hieroglyph was that of a bare-boned, simple linguistic architecture - one which is very utilitarian in nature and hence is very limiting in expressiveness. But the real fact, as attested by philologists, is that the ancient languages and the ones which are used by small tribal communities are much more complex and structured than any language which might be considered modern by our standards. This obviously doesn't mean that they automatically translate into more emotionally poignant passages and verdant verses; that quality depends upon the perception and talents of the writer, and this brings me to the other fascinating point of the poem above. The poet, 4000 years ago, is talking about the triteness of common ideas and he seems to have a condescending attitude towards hackneyed expression. He is lamenting the unimaginative use of language and wishes for novel ideas and words. And here we are, 4000 thousand years hence, all using the same beaten down expressions over and over again without blinking an eyelid. It's not hard to imagine that among us all there might be a poet who dies a little everytime an oft repeated cliche is repeated once more.
What really has changed in the last 4000 years? It is a scientific fact that the size and hence the potential analytical capacity of the human brain has remained a constant for roughly the last 100,000 years. It's vanity to assume that our emotional experiences are qualitatively much different now than they were 5000 thousand years ago. Some of our grandest and most imaginative literature dates back several thousand years (take the example of any religious text or mythology), and yet, and yet, is it just conceit to think that we live in a progressed society? Surely, scientific progress is one reliving metric that indicates that we have progressed. The light bulb in my room gives more than just light - it's a reassuring symbol of the modern age. But beyond the certain boundaries of scientific hegemony, I find it really hard to say if we have progressed. If postmodern human expression in nonscientific domains is taken out of context and presented under an anonymous authorship, it is easy to confuse it with the babbling of a savage and underdeveloped mind. So maybe what progress really means is the intent and vision of a work and not the work itself. Surely, Monalisa is not as grand as the vision of Leonardo da Vinci when he painted it - and John Cage's 4'33" is all about the statement he wanted to make. We measure progress relative to an existing datum. It therefore necessarily has to be aware of history. It has to be about a statement, a stand, a counterpoint to all our existing knowledge. And it has to be destabilizing in nature. So when the Egyptian poet lamented the existing ennui, his stand had the germs of progress - much like the attempts of humans to shake off the dust of historical baggage in any age. There is no qualitative difference between these attempts but progress is indicated by their historical awareness. We might not be emotionally more sensitive than our ancestors but we have progressed in the sense of being aware of history. When we lament on the hackneyed use of language (for example) and wish for something novel, we are actually wishing for something that has not been done in the last 50, 100, 1000, 5000 years. When we (and by 'we' I actually mean 'they' because I don't protest for anything) protest for gay rights, we do it because the protests for the rights of 'left handed people' (I'm not kidding) have already been done...