Baked

Grad student (GS) comes back after a two hour long meeting with prof and is being quizzed by fellow grad student (FGS).

FGS: How was the meeting dude?

GS: hmmmm
GS: They baked me...
GS: They totally baked me..
GS: I am a baked potato now...
GS: If you have a fork, stick it in me!!!

FGS: ROTFLMAO!!!!!



Grad student (GS) has a meeting with two profs (P1 and P2). Prof had asked for a technical report about the results that are secured already. P1 reads this and has some comments.

P1: Alright.. let me see what you have here.

GS: :)

P1: hmm.. you have all the work here.. but.. it does not have motivation
P1: It does not have a story line
P1: It does not have related work..
P1: There is a typo here... and grammatical err.. may be not.. some kind of error.. you should use present participle here instead of past perfect..
P1: You should learn to write to an audience..
P1: You dont seem to have the desire to publish...
P1: You write as if only you are going to read.. fix this...
P1: and this..
P1: and that..
P1: and all these...
P1: The writing needs lots more work..
P1: I do not like this symbol.. you seem to be using symbols at your own will...
P1: Your write up is like that of a possibly beautiful girl with absolutely no makeup..

P2: Yes.. there are a few flaws that need to be fixed but we didnt ask him to write the paper but only the bare technical results..

P1: Ohhh... ok.. anyways.. fix all those..

GS: ram ram ram ram ram ram ram ram ram ram ram!!!! (of course silently)

Schadenfreude vs Mudita

For long, that is since I started preparing for GRE, I knew this word schadenfreude. This is a german word that is used quite often directly in English. It has no equivalent word in English. It means, 'enjoyment derived from someone elses' misfortune'. For a long time I simply wondered why isnt there (or atleast why dont I know) a single word meaning the exact opposite (in some language and not necessarily in English or German). But, I always stopped at wondering but never looked for it. Recently, I found the courage to look for it. And, almost unsurprisingly, it was a word apparently used regularly in buddhist circles - mudita (Wikipedia claims the word is present both in Pali and Sanskrit). It means, 'rejoicing in others' good fortune'. I was rejoicing at my fortune of finding this word. Does anyone experience mudita? :)

Biology

If only I was taught biology like this!! sigh!! sigh!!
Absolute must watch! Dont miss these 4 videos.

Evolution of the eyes


Evolution of the wings


Evolution of camouflage


The Salamanders tale

Rivaldo sai desse Lago

Was editing some wikipedia articles and somehow landed up editing the article of Prabhu Deva. In its talk page, I found this unbelievable piece of info.

A dance by Prabhu Deva for the song 'Kallori vaanil' from the tamil movie 'Pennin Manathai Thottu' has become a crazy hit amidst the brazilian youtubing community. Check out the following video. More than 800000 views and more than 1000 comments :D. I am stunned!!!!



Another Indian video that is similarly famous is the song 'golimar' from the telugu movie 'Donga'. The actor here is Chiranjeevi. This video has been uploaded many many times by people of different nationalities. Across multiple uploads, this too has more than 500000 views!!!!!



Hail Prabhu Deva!!! Hail Chiranjeevi!!!

Statistics

There is a famous saying that goes, "There are three types of liars. Liars, Damn liars and statisticians". Quite a lot of unwarranted sarcasm, I would say, for people who painstakingly go through huge volumes of data and present it to us. All that would change if data were presented like this. Statistics guru, Hans Rosling, presents a lot of data on the developing world in the most pleasing format possible.

Unacceptable ignorance

Is this even defined beyond personal idiosyncrasies?

If not, does this mean that all forms of ignorance is fine as long as there is a willingness and openness to learn from the part of the ignorant person?

Three of us had a debate on this that lasted for about two hours. I opined that every person has a context and there are some fundamental facts about that context. Ignorance of those would be unacceptable. Unacceptable here obviously does not mean that the person has to burnt at the stakes for their ignorance but simply to indicate that the person under question is being quite dumb. The other two in the debate opined that we cannot come to any common ground on what is unacceptable given a person and his/her context. It is always a personal line.


e.g:
1.) If a well educated canadian says that a vegetarian diet has holes in it (implying that it does not provide all the required nutrients), is it unacceptable ignorance?
2.) If an educated person born and brought up in Delhi all his life does not know that there are 4 major south indian languages, is it unacceptable ignorance?

These are just examples. The main question is that, given a context, is it possible to arrive at some sort of common ground on what is unacceptable ignorance?



அறிவின்மை இன்மையுள் இன்மை பிறிதின்மை
இன்மையா வையா துலகு

Humans vs Animals

An example of how we observe the same thing differently.

Example1

Scene1:
A lady kisses her young baby on her cheek and necks and sings 'aarari ra ro'.
Observation:
The young mom is showering affection on her kid.

Scene2:
A chimpanzee mom kisses her young baby chimpanzee on her cheek and necks and sings a chimpanzee song.
Observation:
Chimpanzees kids are intimately cared for by their parents.

(Words from a national geographic video)

The message is clear! Humans love!!! Chimpanzees care for!! If it were some other 'lesser' species like a cat, I would expect the language to get progressively farther from love. Pathetic!!!


Example2

Scene1:
An elephant is doing something with another dead elephant.
Observation:
The elephant is mourning its dead (presumed to be) mate. Poor creature.

Scene2:
A lady is crying over her the body of her dead husband.
Observation:
Poor lady. She is crying at the loss of her husband.


For an elephant, its a mate. But, it is husband/wife for humans.


Our language is a window into our perception of reality. The perception that the above described use of language is unmistakable. It is brimming with human superiority. Needless to say, both our perception and language (with respect to fellow species) needs a dramatic overhaul.