Today I have barely advanced 40 pages... the prospect of reaching the end fills me with dread.
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Harry Potter update update
Today I have barely advanced 40 pages... the prospect of reaching the end fills me with dread.
Potter update
... unless of course the money convinces her to write a series of prequels! :)
On page 338... quite a few deaths so far.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Yes, the rumours were true. The Harry Potter has indeed been... err... 'acquired' by certain persons who have decided to share their good luck with the rest of mankind... and early adopter that I am, plunged in head first (Stop sniggering, Tam).
I admit it, I've spent all day reading the better part of the book, and I'm hooked. Will let you know how the book turns out, and to the best of my abilities, will keep this space spoiler free.
Saturday, May 19, 2007
Return of the King and the Inflammed Tonsils
This way, I saw Return of the King a few days ago. Due to my limited attention span and propensity for headaches, the film stretched over three days... at the end of which I was all teary eyed.
Even after all these years, it gets to me. Frodo and Sam... Merry and Pippin... Gandalf, Aragorn... regardless of what people may make of the films, to me at least the stories came across, and that's what counts. A lot of people are aghast at the changes in the films, but well... I'm too teary eyed to care!! Boo hoo!! Araaaaagorn!!
A few things I noticed (or rather, re-noticed) from the films:
1. Why oh why are the Elves blond? Apart from Galadriel, there is no mention of any blond elves in Middle Earth. Elrond and his children are dark haired due to their part Edain heritage. What of the other elves? After all, most Elves in Middle Earth are probably of Telerin/Sindarin heritage. So shouldn't they have silver hair (like Cirdan)?
2. I have always felt a bit iffy about Aragorn's legal claim to the throne of Gondor. There's a lot to be said about it, one way or another.... though I still feel his claim was quite shakey.
3. The charge of the Haradrim... reminded me of the Persians from 300.... though not as much slo-mo.
4. There seems to be no internal logic about the use of Cirth/Tengwar. Cirth should normally be preferred for stonework/metalwork, and Tengwar for pensmanship, but again... no logic seems to be in place. While the stone door of Moria has Tegwar, Anduril and the helmet of the Mouth of Sauron have Cirth. Hell, even the Ring has Tengwar.
Saturday, April 21, 2007
I rule!! Woo hoo!
I have an IQ of 138. Boo hoo!
...........................................................................

You're a Visionary Philosopher!
The Classic IQ Test
Brought to you by Tickle
Saturday, March 31, 2007
The Downloader's Prayer
aXXo be thy name.
Thy torrents come.
Seeding will be done,
Here as it was on supernova.
Give us this day our latest rips.
And forgive us our leeching,
As we forgive those that leech from us.
And lead us not on to private trackers;
But deliver us from the MPAA:
For thine is the ripping, the seeding, and the glory,
For ever and ever.
aXXo.
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
A No Brainer!
Turns out I have a dominant Right hemisphere. Err... Great!
I paste below my test result.
....................................................................................................
you are Right-brained, which means that the right hemisphere of your brain is dominant over your left.

Typically, right-brained individuals like you are creative, imaginative, and particularly attuned to their surroundings, whether catching the nuances of music, discerning artistic elements, or noticing spatial relationships between different forms. We know this because researchers notice increased activity in the right hemisphere of the brain in individuals hooked up to monitors when they play music or ask them to complete a task involving spatial relationships.
In addition to isolating the ways in which your brain processes information, your right brain also controls the left side of your body. If you are strongly right-brained, you will find that your natural tendency is to be left-handed — though with some skills, you may find that you are right-handed if a right-handed person taught you how to complete a certain task.
Right-brained people tend to be seen as messier than others. It's not that you're necessarily disorganized, it's just that you are likely to have different systems of organization (by theme, by subject, by color) than straight alphabetization or rigidly ordered folders.
You probably have a willingness to entertain experimental treatments and Eastern philosophies more so than others. This is in part because those philosophies mesh with the right brain's strength — taking things in as a whole instead of focusing on the daily minutia.
Though thinking logically might be something you have to do sometimes, you are also good at stream of consciousness thinking and making tangential jumps in logic or reasoning. You are more intuitive than many. And when it comes to pleasure reading, you might have a stronger preference for creative or fiction writing than nonfiction.
For the most part, you think more in terms of symbolism and abstraction instead of things that are more practical and straightforward. You are also likely to look at the whole of a situation instead of seeing it as a series of component parts. You probably tend to be more subjective than objective, allowing for context to color how you interpret a given situation. For you, there are likely very few definites in life, other than the fact that there is almost always more than one way to accomplish and think about things.
That's how your brain processes information. And while your dominant brain hemisphere certainly contributes to the way you process information, there is also a style of learning, unrelated to your dominant hemisphere, that determines the ways in which you are best able to pick up information. When you're learning something new, your dominant brain hemisphere will want to take over. But there are times when the information being presented is not well suited to your dominant hemisphere's abilities.
That's why, in addition to your hemispheric dominance, you also have a style of learning that is dominant for you. Whether you know it or not, you are naturally predisposed to learning things visually, aurally, or through a combination of the two.
Your test results show that you are a visual learner.
Other right-brained people who are also visual learners are Albert Einstein, the painter Vincent Van Gogh, and Microsoft founder Bill Gates.
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
A walk to remember
I walked down the roads of my colony, and there were memories everywhere.
The crack in the road where I fell off my bike and busted my knee... everybody told me what a brave boy I was for not crying... by the time my dad got there, I had a proud grin and sneakers full of blood.
The stairs were I spent half the night as a 7 year old, standing between two puppies and a wolf.
The night I saw Flight of the Navigator, and looked up at the stars in awe.
The road where I would walk my German Shepherd on a foggy winter morning, in my shorts.
The house where my sister's best friend used to live... and her sister who tried to kiss me.
The park were I walked in the rain after having my heart broken.
Friday, November 17, 2006
Playing favourites...
you the same thing, and so on. Social flip-flopping, I like to think.
Someone said they liked movies, and I asked the fairly obvious question...
"Your favourite movies?"
"Blah blah blah..... yours?"
Here was the sticky bit. I couldn't name any. I think I've seen more
movies than most people within a 40 km radius, yet I couldn't come up
with five movies I liked the most. Why was it so difficult?
Movies have always been in my life. They hinted at a bigger world
beyond my grasp. Different people, different places... acting skills
or cinematographic prowess didn't seem to matter. As long as there was
a tale to tell, I was hooked. Every film, good or bad, was a glimpse
into the mind of another person, and I was hungry for that.
Every once in a while there would be a film that resonated with me, in
a way that had nothing to do with how good it was. They meant
something to me at that point of time in my life, which if I saw now I
would probably classify as drivel. So do I consider them my favourite
films? Or do I consider films I thought to be especially good? Most
films I found to be especially good, and works of art, meant nothing
to me personally, and were forgotten a week later. So that can't be a
favourite, right? What justifies the designation of "favourite film"?
Is it possible to play favourites?
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
Redrawing the Middle East
Nobody in their right mind could believe that redrawing International Boundaries in modern times could be anything but bloody. It does, however, reinterate just how fluid national (and individual) identities can be. The creation of National myths seeks to reinforce the collective identity, and gives citizens something to believe. For example, during the Iran-Iraq war, the Iraqi government hired actors to grant 'visions' of the Twelfth Imam to troops, boosting morale. Soldiers on both sides were Shia.
Wahhabi Islam emanating from Saudi Arabia is changing traditional muslim identities the world over. Hajjis returning to their homelands bring with them ideas and concepts from the Holy Lands, acting as 'memetic fountains'. Traditional Islam in Indonesia and Malaysia is gradually being eroded by Meccan Islam. In Pakistan and India, Sufism is being denounced as too soft and theologically shaky, and the swift adoption of Wahabism. In Kashmir, where the purdah was restricted to upper class urban muslims AND hindus, the hijab has made swift inroads.
Petro dollars will do that to you.
Addendum: Steve Pinkler of Harvard on the evolutionary psychology of religion. Gene Expression also has something to say on the matter.
Monday, October 02, 2006
The Silence of the Lambs Genes
The discovery of the RNAi machinery has been revolutionary in the field of genetics, and was expected to win a Nobel soon. For an overview of the RNAi mechanism, read this post on one of my favourite blogs, Gene Expression.
For an animated tour of the RNAi mechanism, see here.
A documentary on the world of RNA silencing can be seen here.
P.S: Jyoti, if you're reading this.... TREAT TREAT!!
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
Activators or Stabilizers?
This paper seems to indicate that cells (at least eukaryotic cells) have varied systems to regulate transcription. Even within prokaryotic cells, the initial 'jiggly' association of RNA polymerase and the promoter seems to be stabilized by Transcription factors. Once RNAP is associated with DNA, it was very stable. Could stabilizers be 'uncoupling' the initial weak RNAP-DNA binding? Could this be related to the phenomenon of abortive transcription seen in vitro?
Tuesday, September 12, 2006
Osman Sagar and its predatory denizens
Miscalculated. There's far too much traffic on that road on weekends to jog, so I walked most of the way. I sorta expected that, but I was NOT prepared for the wierdness. People stare. It's a common enough habit in South India, so I'm used to that. But guys driving by, going " Wooo Hoooo!" was new to me. I even got a "Kya baat hai!".
Huh.
Osman Sagar's pretty in the evenings. From the Tank Bund, the sun sets over the surprisingly blue water, as you can see here ... it's the blue one on the left. (The colour in the satellite photo is probably an artifact of the angle at which it was taken, though.)

This picture was taken on another occasion.
There are signs warning about crocodiles in the water, and I'm rather psyched about seeing one. Fingers crossed.
The views are amazing. In the evening you can see the lights of Hightech city in the distance, and even ISB, home of the Elastic Retreat.
I hope the jog/run materialises into a regular thing.
Monday, September 04, 2006
Monday, August 14, 2006
Friday, August 04, 2006
The Henry Higgins of Genetics
Scientists as a group tend to allow complex technical jargon to seep into conversational English. While this happens in every occupational group, scientific English has its peculiarities. Scientific English is vociferously international, and regional variations and quirks are unacceptable. The nature of peer review among scientists enforces a common syllabary, which sometimes deviates significantly from standard English. Given the stringent of the field, synonyms are rarely tolerated. The language is argument based, with no room for ambiguity. Analogies and comparisons are the bread and butter of science, and this makes its way into common speech as well. My friends are well aware of (and irritated by) my strong tendency to draw analogies. In addition, modern science uses standard English terms to define new phenomena, unlike the older practice of graeco-latin etymology. Words such as termination, interference, silencing, screening, and selection have very specific meanings, which can differ significantly from the standard understanding. There are almost field-specific 'dialects'. For example, Prokaryotic and Eukaryotic geneticists speak variant, though mutually intelligible dialects. Of course, it's not very pronounced, but it's discernible.
Earlier this week, I was assisting my guide review a manuscript for an international peer-reviewed journal. I was struck by the relatively poor "genetics" dialect of the authors. While the logic of the article was fine, their argument was on shaky ground. The authors lacked a sound understanding of the language of genetics, which fails to impress reviewers. As I later discovered, the authors were medical doctors. The idea behind any communication in the scientific world is to effectively convey your observations, and defend your findings. The logic should build upon previous findings, and therefore must employ the same jargon.
Wednesday, August 02, 2006
Googlisms: The perks of prison
aditya is confused as he is attracted to shamli but has not thought of marriage & at the same time doesn not know prerna yet she seems to have everything that [plot of Ekta Kapoor serial?!]
aditya is the coolest and the sweetest guy [oh, ok... whatever!]
aditya is the first tanker of the indian navy to be built in the country [Sasta aur tikaoo]
aditya is sort of indifferent to her wails [take that, Be-yatch! And that! And that!]
aditya is a nice man who has been forced to take the path of crime by a wrong doing of the system [expect an angry letter to the Editor of the Economic Times]
aditya is caught by prabha because he's the prime suspect in the murder of an industrialist [crime doesn't pay... as much as it should]
aditya is a criminal who faced the charges for murder and is serving his life term in central jail of vizag [Are we waiting for something.... for Life?!]
aditya is anal [Yeah, prison will do that. Enjoy!]
aditya is glad that the onus is on him to carry the family heirloom [Careful with those family heirlooms in the prison shower]
Googlisms: Ridiculous demons
tamal is corn [I think they were going for corny]
tamal is wrapped in papatla husks [A straitjacket would be more effective]
tamal is the main murder suspect in srila prabhupada's poisoning [Say two
tamal is untrustworthy [yeah, poisoning someone will do that for your reputation]
tamal is 3 feet long [more like 3 feet tall]
tamal is wrapped in the corn husk and baked [I think I had a dream where I did that]
tamal is ridiculous [As I've said myself many times]
tamal is stuffed with stewed chicken or pork [only at dinner time]
tamal is excellent [HAHAHAHAHA!]
tamal is a tamal is a tamal [how existential!]
tamal is exalted [...at least by me!]
tamal is always a surprise waiting to be opened [true]
tamal is sick from accepting karma [Ye shall reap what ye sow, chump]
tamal is running scared [... of karma?!]
tamal is in a very quiet crisis [I know]
tamal is a demon [... sometimes]
tamal is wonderful [... sometimes]
tamal is to die for… [can't argue with that. I agree]
Googlisms: Cool handsome God
Here's a run down of googlisms of me and some friends.
Me:
rohan is cool [Duh!]
rohan is a handsome 7 [Again... can't argue with that!]
rohan is the leader of the mystic knights and the first to gain his armour [cool!]
rohan is not at all what he seems [how true]
rohan is the home of the eorlingas [well, I do love me some lingas]
rohan is an institution [true]
rohan is god [ditto]
rohan is unofficially ranked in top 10 in the world in international moth class [hey, who're you calling a moth?!]
rohan is the son of peter theobald and levana fletcher [bald?!]
rohan is only two and a half years old but his brain is matured to a hundred years old guy he is sharp and everybody is proud of this little babe [yeah, we tend to do that]
rohan is also seen in a lot of local television commercials [Dr. Batra's, mostly]
rohan is considered to be one of the best athletes [how am I kidding?!]
rohan is san francisco's first and premier soju bar [So-who?!]
rohan is one of them [I KNEW it!]
rohan is dashing and smart [how redundant]
rohan is an unusual one [true true]
rohan is aditya's attempt to trick him [Hey!]
rohan is his own man [true]
rohan is draganta [who's in drag?!]
rohan is not the only victim of feng shui [my first chinese words!]
rohan is now studying film technique and art design at the university level [...almost]