ASCII Me

Thanks to Amit Agarwal I got the link of a kool tool to play for a while :)
ASCGen is a Windows app to convert images into ASCII text. The good part is it is a lot hassle free and gives you few options to tinker around.

To install it on your Windows machine you will need a .Net fix for older machines, as they claim comes with it default.

Have a look at my ASCII self.

गुगली गणित की

a: Research has shown that drinking beer can be good for health by improving digestion, hydrations and couple of other 'tions'. [Accompanied with link to a really low quality, run of the mill article by a popular web portal]

b: Yeah right! It suggests test was done on 25 students they didn't even bother to go beyond their department I guess. Aam ke aam aur guthliyon ke daam! Aye boyz lets haav sum beaah and run for the gawd damn sayks, gotta shauw sum vital staatistix. I would say the perfect work life balance

b: A cutting (no bleeding, slashing and decapitating) research has shown that birthdays are good for longevity! The more you have the longer you live

a: Yeah wacko, another research shows 2 comes after one in series of natural numbers.

This lead me to a diversion towards a geek book I had read titled 'Godel, Escher, Bach' by Douglas Hofstader. In it there is a part where he explains what those mathematicians lost in formal theory do when they are not performing compulsory chores of life.

Some guy named Peano (not it is not a misspelled Piano) did some break through work in this field. These blokes do some really ass kicking work using a snazzy sounding words like axiom, premise, intrinsic property. To deconstruct the crap this guy laid the foundation by propounding few axioms like:

0 is a natural number.
For every natural number n, S(n) is a natural number.
S is successor function so S(0) = 1 and 2 = S(S(0))

Now this might sound like a hyped Hindi Cinema flick gone dud like 'Roop ki Rani Choron ka Raja', 'Asoka' or recent 'Aja Nachle'. Talking of fundu mathematics and then saying 2 follows 1. Even my housemaid with limited knowledge of mathematics knows 2 comes after 1. And what is this business about S? Filling up your pages of thesis by larger font, line height and paragraph setting is different but ssseriously duude flooding it up with S is a lot to grasp. Sounds more like a precursor to Kta Kapoor or kRkakkekskhk kRkokskhkaknk.

Well it seems Peano's work was used by Godel to derail Hilbert's Program. The guy like a Bond movie's megalomaniacs wanted the mathematical world to be conquered [Not Safe for Work because you might go mad till you hit the full stop or bang your boss's head]. Like Sauron in Lotar (LoTR) wanted one ring to rule 'em all. Hilbert's grand scheme was to give some mathematical system which can prove all other mathematical systems (like boolean arithmetic, vector algebra etc etc all those things you hated in school/college). So our Bond like Mr. Godel gave Hilbert's medicine back to him by proving his shit can't prove his own shit (:-0, don't ask me further about this else i shall puke a lot of S's and greek symbols on you). Mathematicians cohabit their own little crazy world throwing conjectures, hypothesis, axioms and what not.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSShhhhhh.... koi hai!

Physics and the Right hand

Now this is the stuff that would make even Einstein wonder in his grave. His anecdotal genius in his classroom days and Ramanujan's 0 boys with 0 bananas doubt would pale in front of this line of thinking. A genius by the name Mr. M (people from JK, Kanpur esp my colleagues from league of Science with Economics in 11-12 std would know whom I am talking of) had answered simple looking Physics definition question 'What is flux, give its formula?' by something akin to:

ρ = Q /ε

where all the above symbols except the common = and / meant some soopar arcane stuff in Physics. The above formula was not something found in textbooks. So based on a simplistic text search in an NCERT book the teacher, a simpleton, straitjacketed lady, gave a naught to our protagonist. The nearest search result she could get was a formula by some chump named Gauss. (apparently it had another of those strange symbols Φ in it instead of ρ, it all sounds unintelligent greek to me anyways, How does it matter phi or roe? )

With humility and politeness, traits of a true genius, M walked towards the dreaded teacher's table. On a polite inquiry about the zero tagged to his profound answer, madam told him about about the correct symbol to be used and the 'convention' to associate certain symbols with certain parameters in physics.

Right at that moment our iconoclastic Mr. M gave a beautiful reply in his characteristic mumble:

Madam right hand side to theek hai na

(Madam, at least the right hand side is correct)

The poor lady had an expression of a deer caught in headlight, not knowing how to react she slapped our hero in front of the whole class. (I dont remember she used the 'right' hand or the left one for pseudo poetic justice). I could get a glimpse of great Galileo arguing against the mighty dogmatic church. His ignorant colleagues could not appreciate the mettle of his supreme logic. Rest of his colleagues where an ignorant bunch. All he got was some giggles from the girls and guffaws from brats. Man we have no place for people who dare to challenge the convention.

Alas! I think this is why we have such a dismal performance and blatant plagiarism (and this) due to utter desperation and lack of original ideas.

babri masjid kaand

आज इस बात को १५ साल हो गए हैं. क्यूंकि ये मुद्दा लोगों के जेहन मैं फीका पड़ चूका है इसलिए हमारे नेता ( जो दरअसल प्रेता हैं ) कुछ नही कह रहे हैं सिवाय लोकतंत्र का चक्का जाम करने के। ये टोकरी मैं पड़े उन केक्डों कि तरह हैं जो न तो खुद बाहर निकालेंगे न ही किसी और को निकलने देंगे ।

उस समय जब ये बवाल हुआ था मैं काफी छोटा था । हालांकि गुजरात के दंगों के बारे मैं कहा जाता है कि टी वी पर समाचार द्वारा व्यर्थ मैं प्रचार हुआ पर मुझे अछे से याद है इस काण्ड मैं मस्जिद के ढहाने की विडियो कैसेट हर घर में देखे गए थे । इन तस्वीरों मैं से एक तस्वीर मेरे जेहन मैं घर कर गयी, वो ठी दिखने मैं कमज़ोर एक बुजुर्ग आदमी कि जो भीड़ से कहीं आगे आकर पुलिस कि लाठी चार्ज के सामने सीना ताने दौड़ने लगा और पास मैं पड़ा एक बड़ा सा ईट उठा के फेंका । उसके चेहरे मैं एक गज़ब का आक्रोश और पीड़ा नज़र आ रही थी । धर्म के नाम पर आदमी क्या नही कर सकता ये मैंने उस आदमी कि आँखों मैं देखा था ।

हमारी कानून व्यवस्था और पुलिस कि जांच प्रणाली के बारे मैं क्या कहा जा सकता है जब १२ साले बाद आरोपी को न्यायालय मैं लाया जाता है और १५ साल बाद एक साक्षी मिलता है ! जब कुछ ऐसा पड़ता या सुनता हूँ तो फ्रान्ज़ काफ्का कि लिखी ये कहानी 'before the law' याद आती है। आशा करता हूँ इस जन्म में इस मुक़दमे का नतीजा देख सकूं ।

Aaja Nachle or Dirty dancing

Every one knows the story. Some quarters of society had objections over some words in lyrics related to cobbler and goldsmith. BMW (Bahan MayaWati) slapped a ban later to be revoked and some people accusing Mayawati for double standards (Aren't two better than one?)

An interesting part is how the Media analyzes an event and goes meta:
- Film gets banned
- Freedom of Speech
- Finer nuances of traditional professions and caste system in India

then in a separate thread:

- Madhuri's comeback (With oft repeated line: She never went away)
- Madhuri not fit for a comeback
- Theories for comebacks with data samples of Rekha, Kajol, Juhi etc.
- Controversy used to boost box office sale of the movie
- Controversy couldn't boost box office sale of the movie
- Theories of controversies increasing sales

With arguments, facts and theories buzzing around our head like a swarm of deadly bees, we missed a small point. Every day since past week I have listened to the song on Radio and not even a single byte from its lyrics are clipped. If representatives of people are so careful of popular sentiments then they should know a little bit of maths. Number of people listening to the words via Radio has to be much higher than cinema audience then why ban only on screening!

PS: A classic case of the meta nature of media is when media cribs about media!

Devnagri

देवनागरी लिपि पड़े हुए हमे अरसा हो गया । अब जबकि ब्लॉगर ने अपने एडिटर मैं यह सुविधा उपलब्ध कि है कि आप रोमन अक्षरों मैं हिन्दी शब्द लिखें और वह देवनागरी लिपि मैं प्रतिवार्तित हो जायेंगे तो बड़ा अच्छा लगा .किन्तु खेद सिर्फ इस बात का है कि हमारा प्रिय ब्राउज़र फायरफौक्स यह लिपि ठीक से प्रस्तुत नही कर पता। अतः हमे माइक्रोसोफ्ट के इंटरनेट एक्सप्लोरर का उपयोग करना पड़ता है :(

बाक़ी सब तो ठीक है किन्तु हिन्दी की दो मात्राएँ : बड़ी ई छोटी इ जब किसी व्यंजन के साथ मिलती हैं तो गड़बड़ हो जाती है। थोड़ा गूगल करने पर पता चला कि यह बाधा इसलिए आती है क्योंकि ये मात्रा जिस व्यंजन से जुड़ती हैं उसके बाहिने ऑर रखना पड़ता है अर्थात यदि आपको मंदिर लिखना हो तो रोमन लिपि मैं आप : m a n d i r लिखते हैं किन्तु हिन्दी मैं इ कि मात्रा द के पहले आती है। इस का ध्यान माइक्रोसोफ्ट ने तो रख लिया किन्तु हमारा प्रिय ब्राउज़र मात खा गया :(। यदि कोई भला मानुष (या मानुषी) इसका उपाय जानता है तो हमे ज़रूर बताए

हिन्दी लिपि के वैसे तो अनेक फॉण्ट आते हैं पर यदि ये UTF format मैं लिखी जाये तो फॉण्ट फ़ाइल इंस्टाल करने की कोई ज़रूरत नही है।

(If the text is not comprehensible at all: in your browser window click View --> Character Encoding --> UTF 8)