As i mentioned in this post I made earlier, one of the purposes of my blogging habit has been served. I have read up on my earlier entries, and know how exactly I have changed, and possibly why too. One of these days, I may be able to quantify these things.

Things I’ve done and found out this year, in no particular order:

• My English grammar and vocabulary skills have reached a dangerous low
• Patience pays
• You can be depressed without you knowing it
• Its a good thing to talk to friends
• Its a good thing to be frank, even if it pisses off the other person
• Graduate School is a great place to learn about your abilities, and deficiencies. both academic and non-academic
• I know myself better than ever
• I stood for my beliefs, when others around me said otherwise. Even when it was hurting me.
• I would do it again
• Never judge a book by the cover (Works both ways)
• I’m addicted to learning, and hence Linux
• I’m a liberal, and leaning more towards Minarchism
• I’ve learnt that no political system is perfect, as it does not account for variability of the human mind.

There’s probably a lot more, but this is all I can think of right now.

With that bit of background information, I would point you out to the following articles in MSNBC and the Washington Post on Intelligent Design being accepted to be taught in Science classes as an alternative theory on how life evolved. You can find several more here . *Sigh*

I have no complaints against Intelligent Design as such. Sure, an intelligent being could have created the universe and have guided how we live. It’s a theory and it fits the data. It could even be true. But, it’s not science. It’s not science, because it cannot be proved/disproved, and this is the one of the basic principles of what science is. If it cannot be proved or disproved, it’s not science. There, I said it again. So, please don’t term ‘Intelligent Design’ as science, however right you (proponents of id) feel it is.

If the same standards were applied to the Flying Spaghetti Monster , and if enough people thought that it was applicable, it should be allowed to be taught in class. The very fact that you cannot distinguish between the FSM theory and the Intelligent Design theory, Intelligent Design should not be taught in school as part of a science class .

Update:

I spent about two hours going through the transcripts of Kitzmiller vs Dover Area School District (Pennsylvania) hosted at Talk Origins where a similiar thing was proposed. Thankfully, the court ruled in favour of ID not being taught in school. It is quite an interesting court trial, (finally, i have some respect for lawyers) where Professor Behe, a professor at Lehigh University is a main proponent of ID. BTW, the board members in favor of ID were kicked out by the sensible pennsylvania people.

I quote from the transcript:

Q Big Bang was between the lines here.

A Actually, I mention the Big Bang as often as I can. I’m surprised I didn’t have it in here.

Q Maybe we could take this as a precedent.

And if you could go to the second page. And the second to the last paragraph, you write, “Intelligent design may mean that the ultimate explanation for life is beyond scientific explanation. That assessment is premature. But even if it is true, I would not be troubled. I don’t want the best scientific explanation for the origins of life; I want the correct explanation.”

There, you said it yourself. Now don’t call it science and don’t teach it.

Here is a link to the part of the transcript I talked about before. This is basically the difference between science and conjecture. Scientific theories describe mechanisms, ways and means by which it happens. All Professor Behe’s theory says is whatever happens, it’s because of intelligent design. And so, it’s does not afford the possibility of being wrong, and hence is not a scientific theory.

I would recommend the readers of my blog to read the transcripts. It’s long, but it’s a good read!

Another Update :

Here is the summary of the Dover Trials, for those short on time.

Also, been reading more of Godel, Escher and Bach. Will have a section devoted to this on my blog. That book too, needs a lot of re-reading. I think I need to get my math books out!

In other news, my life is still following the “new day, same old bullshit” mode! Nothing new to see here, move along people!

Motivation: An empty fridge and hunger pangs at 5.00 AM

HowTo:

1. One pack of 2-minute oriental noodles. (Other brands also O.K.)
2. Half an onion
3. 3 slices of cheese

Steps:

1. Cut the onion into small slices, the smaller the better.
2. Start boiling the water, and make sure you have some more water than recommended by the noodle manufacturer.
3. Put the chopped onions in the boiling water. Also put the broken noodles in the boiling water.
4. Put the garnishing provided in the noodles packet in. Mix well to ensure homogeneity.
5. Add the cheese slices. Mix well till the cheese melts, and stir it, well to ensure homogeneity.
6. Let the whole mixture cook well till the aroma of cheese reaches your nose. Add some pepper/other flavouring as per your taste.
7. Stop cooking. Eat hot! Enjoy!

P.S.: You might also want to boil hot water in the pan to ensure that you don’t have to go through the pains of removing cheese leftovers in your non-stick pan

The fact that I will be out ( or have to get out of ) of school, and find a job is really weighing heavily on my mind. Also, the fact that I have a thesis to finish off is also another additional thing. I haven’t started writing anything majorly for my thesis is another.

In this current mood, I feel exactly like Agent Smith of the matrix fame, when he is nauseated (or acts to be) when he is interrogating Morpheus. It gets under your skin, not able to finish off the task assigned to you. It’s a state in which you basically do think a lot about things what you need to do, prioritize them, rethink … eventually spending so much time thinking about tasks and organizing them, reduce the risk of the tasks, etc. etc. that you actually end up not doing the task.

The only good thing which I can think of is that I actually realized I was in a such a state! Off to the library!! To finish task 1

Well, the answers vary from person to person. For example, this anonymous poster on my blog feels that it is a complete waste of time.

Anonymous Coward said:

This whole blogging thing according to me is a waste. People will be excited in the beginning and then slowly the task about writing everything you are doing will kind of be another burden in one’s already busy life!

Maybe according to you it’s a waste, but it’s not according to me. The only path here is to elaborate the pro’s and cons. Scroll down to get the pros and cons.

Anything new, you are obsessed with. It’s only natural that people are excited in the beginning and sober down a bit later. Few people quit blogging cause it doesn’t serve their purposes. This is a rational move and I have nothing against this. Few others start to blog in a mature way about more interesting things.

I am also of the opinion that instead of just blogging about what you are doing, it would also be interesting to post about what you learnt from your experiences. I know I haven’t been doing that, but I intend to change that.

BTW, I take the time out to blog by not watching any TV.

Pros:

• Your friends and family can keep track of what you are doing.
• It’s a medium through which you can went your frustrations, thus your blog saves you the hassle of looking for a human being to apply the “Law of Conservation of Frustration”.
• It’s also a medium to get creative with your writing.
• You can keep track of what you wanted to do over a period of time. For example:
  • “5 months ago, I wanted to do this.”
  • “My thinking an year ago was very immature compared to now.”

  Think of it as a online diary, but with comments…now isn’t that cool?

• It’s a good way to communicate with the rest of the world about what you think. If you write interesting stuff, people respond. Sometimes good, sometimes bad!

Cons:

• Takes a bit of time initially to get used to, you end up checking on your blog for comments all the time.
• Your entire thoughts are open to the people who use the internets! But hey, that is a choice you made when you started blogging.
• You might get bored.
• You might think your life is not worth writing about!

I can’t think of anything else right now. I’ve been in front of a computer for over 8 hours now trying to finish writing the lab manuals. Looks nowhere near completion. Sigh…

P.S : To Anonymous Coward(s). Atleast sign with your name so that I don’t have to whois you to find out who you are. Please, I insist!

Next emacs vs vi:

My major problem with emacs is that I like my keys and use them all the time to move around my Apple. There are too many shortcuts which clash. Also, the problem with the meta keys. so no.

vi, similiar key bindings no matter whereever u go, linux, unix or mac. no intereference with apple shortcuts. small and powerful .

So, VI it is!!

I had an exam. And I was late. And stranded. The exam was apparently a hindi/sanskrit exam, during my undergrad. And, the exam was at 10:40 AM, and I was still at home. I had apparently gotten up late. The last bus must have left, I thought. My mom’s kinetic was not at home. All I had at home was my blue chetak at home. I was going crazy with the pressure, so much that I got up from my sleep.

The interesting points to note are that:

* I never had an hindi/sanskrit exam in my undergrad.
* This is not the first time I have had this kind of a dream. Something to do with missing exams always occured at somepoint in my life,either due to a missing hall ticket, or oversleeping.
* Recently, these dreams have been occuring only when I am about to be late for work or something similiar.

My interpretation would be that:

* My traumatic ( ) ) experience once each with me not bringing in my hallticket to exam hall and sleeping during the exam are coming back to haunt me!
* I really did not like both hindi and sankrit back in school.
* The human body/mind has an internal alarm clock which triggers these memories and formats them into an acceptable method to wake us up.

So, what do you think?