Cruciverbalism

Serious Scrabble is not everyone's cup of tea, especially once you realize it has very little to do with words, their usage and meanings, and everything to do with memorization, anagramming, calculation and strategy. As much as I like Scrabble, I have to admit that it merely masquerades as a word game. When you get stuck with a bunch of A's and E's, or worse, all consonants, you wish you were playing in some other language.

The most serious contender for being called the king of word games, in any language, is - the crossword. For many, it is as much of a daily addiction as their cup of coffee in the morning. The meteoric rise of Sudoku puzzles seems to suggest that to the general population even crosswords are just too hard, and even elitist. To them and fellow word fanatics, I recommend Stanley Newman's book - Cruciverbalism. Somewhere along the way, the few rules about crosswords have been obscured from sight. It was a surprise for me to learn the unwritten rule about daily crosswords - they progress in difficulty with the day of the week. So, starting your crossword career on a Saturday might not be a great idea. One of the few pleasant things about Monday is that the crossword is the easiest.

The short book is wittily written and explains the hidden rules of the grid, history of the crossword, and tips on getting better. Enough to get you hooked, provided you start on a Monday. The only feature of the usually ludicrous campus rag, The Michigan Daily, that never lets its readers down is their crossword. As is the case with many newspapers, a large chunk of their readership is attracted by the crossword. Despite their importance crosswords are treated like step-children and are always tucked away in a corner within the folds of the newspaper. Newman argues on behalf of the constructors who spend hours constructing puzzles that aim to tickle and tease readers only to end up as no-name nobodies who don't even merit a byline on the page. It is interesting to note that the most prolific constructors of crosswords are guests of the state. Apparently, felons are among the few who have the time to spend hours and days working on the possibility of a $50 reward.
Passionately making his case Newman says:

"I saw nuances in language, I'd never appreciated before, I savored witticisms that I might have not understood in the past, and I become adept at considering information from a multitude of angles, identifying possibilities and patterns with ease..."

It was a little disappointing to find that the book hardly mentions cryptic crosswords. When crosswords crossed the Atlantic the Brits found them to be too boring and spiced them up by inventing cryptic crosswords. If crosswords are addictive, cryptic crosswords are doubly so (once you get a hang of the idea). The Hindu, which rather magnanimously allows free access to their daily cryptic puzzle, is now a daily fixture till I rise to Guardian level standards.

Quote

This is great!

Why do you have to be a nonconformist like everybody else?
- James Thurber

From the Other Side

Francis Collins, head-honcho of the Human Genome Project, baffles me to no end. I have not read his books and I don't think he has much to offer as this interview in the February edition of the National Geographic indicates.

All he does in the interview is to offer apologies and excuses for God and religion, and pooh-pooh claims that science, including genetics, will eventually be able to answer questions that are currently the domain of religion. He does not have much faith in the power of prayer, except that through it we obtain fellowship (how?) with God; he knows that miracles are highly unlikely, yet believes that they may occur; suffering and evil in the world is not God's fault, but the result of human free-will.

Why only blame the uneducated and the ignorant for holding irrational beliefs?

There are no Spanish Darlings

Really!

From the IT department:

More versions are available here where you can can even order them for 2$ a pop.

The Tragedy of The Commons

Last night when I was renewing my library card at the AADL, the local public library, the librarian politely informed me that I had $4.00 in fines and if I wanted to pay some of them. Having to pay library fines is something I have struggled with all my life. I usually OD on books and despite my furious reading speed I don't have enough time to read all of them by the due date. There was a time when I thought that having to pay fines meant something was wrong with my character; something I needed to improve. I have since rationalized that paying fines is a way to support your local library.

So, I told her: "Sure! I would love to pay the all the fines and support my local library!".
She said: "You are already supporting your local library through your taxes."
I said: "True, but there are some, like me, who use the resources disproportionately!".

She laughed so hard that everbody in the checkout line wondered what I had said. I think she laughed because she looked like a disproportionate user herself! It is quite a club at the AADL. Ann Arbor, is a disproportionately overeducated town, full of self-styled experts and polymaths. You know you are in Ann Arbor when 'serious' books have hold queues with over 200 requests. I call this phenomenon the NPR Effect.

The public libraries in the US are fantastic. They let you borrow as many materials as you want; they will get whatever you want. The libraries do much to educate and engage the community. Perhaps it is less true in Ann Arbor, but in general the public does not use its libraries as much as it should. The public library seems to be a perverse example of the tragedy of the commons-free access and unrestricted demand for a finite resource ultimately dooms the resource through over-exploitation. Here, a great public resource for which the public is paying taxes is being under-utilized. A tragedy indeed!

Old posts on: Fines and library nostalgia.

State of Denial: The God Delusion

Once upon time, I was an agnostic. Being an agnostic doesn't affect your daily life. You could be friends with the religious folk and non-believers and they would all think that deep down you were on their side. Like a certain famous Frenchman, I thought that agnosticism was a good insurance policy, just in case G-O-D did exist. So, I remained comfortably agnostic till I read the Selfish Gene. By the end of the second chapter, I was pretty much convinced of the foolishness of my position and was turned on by the beauty of evolution. He shows how life can happen without any agent. My agnosticism was a euphemism for ignorance. It takes a book like the Selfish Gene to convince you inconvertibly. To deny the existence of something on basis of gut feeling is one thing, but to have it shown scientifically is quite another. I felt a sense of betrayal; I had been misled all my life. I considered the hours I had wasted in prayer and there was no one even listening. What seemed shocking was the fact that the book had already been in publication for decades and things had not changed. Apparently, the word had not got out. God, or the idea of God, was still omnipotent as in John 1:1, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God".

Armed with the powers of scientific method, Dawkins took on the Herculean task of trying to wrest control of the Word. Over the years, he has published numerous books on various aspects of evolution and has been a valiant soldier in the fight against creationism. With the God Delusion, his aims are more ambitious than any of his previous books - combating scientific ignorance; arguing that we are moral despite religion, not because of it; begging atheists to come out of the closet; and the mental torture of children by religious parents. "Children", he says, "should not be called Christian, Hindu, or Muslim, but children of Christian, Hindu, and Muslim parents." They should be taught not what to think but how to think.

He begins the book with the myth about Einstein believing in God. There are many interesting anecdotes and studies cited in the book, out of which I found Russell's teapot of great utility. He notes with irony in the first chapter that he might be preaching to the choir, but he hopes to at least convince the fence-sitters to re-evaluate their beliefs. Indifference is just as bad as ignorance, and he believes that is the moderates that give power to the extremists.

An important point that Dawkins brings up is the privileging religion. He asks why religion, which is like any other belief, is always given a place of privilege. Why is questioning belief in Jesus or Allah or Vishnu different from questioning belief in fairies at the bottom of the garden? Why is religion considered to be beyond the domain of scientific inquiry?

We humans always seem to have an anthropocentric view of the world, even though we are sensitive to only a limited part of the light spectrum, hear only a limited range of frequencies, live on a minor planet orbiting an average star. Science, he says, has a way of opening our eyes to a much bigger and wider universe around us.


Listen to Dawkins on Science Friday.

Male Bonding: The New Casino Royale

I resisted watching the new Bond movie Casino Royale for a very long time, because I felt that the whole Bond enterprise was a stupid exercise. I was greatly disappointed when I saw my first Bond movie and subsequent Bond flicks did nothing to change that impression. The whole concept seemed to be a silly male fantasy - exotic locations, fancy cars, sexy girls, and simply awesome gadgets. The stories are generally terrible and have no sensible thread and the action scenes are rather pathetic. I always thought that Sean Connery did a much better job playing roles other than Bond. However, meta-analysis suggested than when most reviews called Casino Royale the best Bond movie ever, I had to at least give the new Bond a chance. Also, my iron resolve was considerably weakened by the powers of female persuasion.

I was not only impressed, but also entranced by Casino Royale. Casting a blonde Bond (Daniel Craig) was not the only rule that was rewritten. Compared to the old Bond who seemed more at ease sipping his martinis in a black tuxedos and seducing women, this Bond preferred real action - gleefully smashing and blowing up all kinds of objects: glass, humans, cars, heavy machinery, buildings, and whatever else. For more than half of the time, Craig is simply running, running with the frenetic energy of man being chased by hellhounds, or a person who has had too much of Red Bull. In terms of muscle and energy compared to his previous avataars, Craig stands alone; it is hard to imagine Connery, Moore, or Brosnan being able to look credible in the Le Chiffre testicle torture scene. The blonde bombshells of yore with nothing going on upstairs have been suitably replaced with the independent and incredibly sassy - Vesper Lynn (Eva Green). A girl who is capable of telling Bond, 'Back off!'.

James Bond is a remarkably adaptive beast. I was wrong. Male fantasies have not changed, only slightly modified. The basic ingredients are still the same, only packaged and served to appeal to modern tastes, like my metrosexual-macho self. Replace guns with knuckles. Keep the fancy cars and gadgets. Replace Ursula Andress arising like Venus from the sea with a chick who knows how to connect a defribrillator. Keep her looking sexy in backless cocktail dresses. Despite knowing that Casino Royale is another in the series of great packaging cons by the Bond franchise I was converted. The story was silly as usual, but does it matter?

Historical footnote(shamlessly stolen from Nature):
1953 was an excellent year, especially for the bond — the structure of DNA was discovered, the Miller–Urey experiment was carried out, and the death of Stalin. And of course with Casino Royale the other Bond, James Bond, first stepped off the page in 1953.

Winter of our content?

The winter is a curse. Before I really experienced the winter, it always conjured up images of - genial looking snowmen with carrot-noses and mufflers, and snowflakes floating like soft, white feathers. The reality is that all the feathery snow lands on places like your car and you have spend hours dusting the snow and then scraping the ice off the windshield and shoveling the driveway. On windy days the the icy chill will drive out the most romantic notions you ever had of the winter and it seems especially furious when you have forgotten your hat or gloves.

Then there are days like today when there are poems on ice and you are willing to overlook everything.

PS: After all these years, I still have not seen a snowman, I mean snowperson.

One Question

Why our culture deem it acceptable to wear torn jeans but not torn t-shirts?

Pattern recognition

Evolution has made us humans so good at pattern recognition. Recently, in India a butterfly was discovered that has an image of Khatu Shyam, an avatar of Krishna. Reuters Video.

Is it not miraculous that that I was reading Richard Dawkins's book, The God Delusion when I chanced upon the story? Apropos the story, he writes, "We easily infer a shadow for a burglar, but never mistake the burglar for a shadow." The Rev. Paley's watchmaker or design stance is: If something so wonderful and complex exists, then it presumes a designer. Such a stance has distinct evolutionary advantage but tends to trip us up not only while deifying butterflies, but also while negotiating dark alleys. But a false positive is not as fatal as a false negative.

Comments on the New Blogger

The new blogger is so much better and is belated New Year's gift from the folks at blogger.com. They have added a lot of features, most of which were long overdue, like labels. I like the new archive management that looks saner with the collapsible tabs. Blogger, I must admit, is notoriously slow in implementing changes that other services provided eons ago. It took them ages to support comments. Can you imagine, a serious blogging service that did not support comments for years?

While the new page layout, drag-drop interface is a bold step in the right direction, it lacks teeth and too many bugs. For instance, the color selection is rather limited. It should be possible to enter the hex code for the colors you want (unless I missed something). Needless to say, it was quite a bit of a pain in *SS¹ for me to migrate to the new layout and keep my old template, which incidentally has become unique by managing to survive the numerous versions of blogger. Also, if you edit one box in the layout menu then you cannot edit it again till you click on another tab and then come back to it. The rich text/html view is completely nuts and gets messed up all the time.

A good fix however is that the comment notification email now also tells you the post to which the comment was addressed. I have tons of comments which are like landless peasants. I still do not know to what posts they refer to. What can one do with comments that simply say, "Nice!" ?

Truth be told: We are all prisoners of our URL, too meek to complain, and too weak to design our own or implement workarounds. Sigh!

¹*SS = CSS, not what you were thinking!

If you are not okay, then I am okay!

We all know from experience, as the article suggests, that for true happiness we should have - "experiences" over commodities, pastimes over knick-knacks, doing over having.

Economic prosperity and happiness are unrelated. The Economist writes:
"Happiness, as measured by national surveys, has hardly changed over 50 years. The rich are generally happier than the poor, but rich countries do not get happier as they get richer. The Japanese are much better off now than in 1950, but the proportion who say they are “very happy” has not budged. Americans too have remained much as Alexis de Tocqueville found them in the 19th century: “So many lucky men, restless in the midst of abundance.”

Lord Layard and Mr Frank both blame habit and rivalry for this stagnation of morale. People grow accustomed to what they have—however much of it there is. Moreover, having a lot of things is not enough if other people have more. A rising tide lifts all boats, but not all spirits.

For economists, this is radical stuff. They traditionally argue that people best serve themselves and the public by minding their own business."
.

As we well know, people do not mind their own business and there is a good reason for it. Quite sadistically, our own happiness is mostly relative; we are happier if we are better off than our peers. Your misery has a lot to do with my happiness. Economic growth is good but does nothing to ensure happiness. As the leader to the article (access required) points out - Capitalism ensures economic growth, but to ask of it to also ensure happiness is to ask too much of it.

Previous post on this topic.
* * * * *

In the same edition the Economist also surveys the big questions of neuroscience:
"Modern neuroscience has taken many directions, and this survey will not attempt to look at all of them. Instead, it will concentrate on four areas that may shed light on individual identity: the study of the emotions; the nature of memory; the ways that brains interact with each other; and the vexed question of what, exactly, consciouness is."

Babel

Alejandro González Iñárritu along with writer Guillermo Arriaga completes the trilogy - that started with Amores Perros (Love's a Bitch), which was followed by 21 Grams - with Babel. Iñárritu has been hailed as the finest talent to come out of Mexico in recent years and they above more than justify the claim. The director has fallen out with his writer Guillermo Arriaga over story writing credits and this might the last time we see them work together.

Most critics seem to be upset with what they call the usual Iñárritu tricks of using a non-linear storyline, intersecting lives and coincidences. So is this cutting and splicing getting too repetitive? Is it mere idiosyncrasy? Or a conscious attempt at making it his signature style. More importantly, one should ask whether it is really crucial to the development of the story and the film? Speaking of personal style, I am reminded of an interview in which Robert Altman explained why he wanted all his movies to be certified PG-18. His maverick reason was that his movies required a lot of patience and concentration which kids or teenagers do not possess and for the sake of his craft, a PG-18 rating would keep them out. Iñárritu has a long way to go to reach the stature of Altman, but he certainly has the talent and the boldness. In 21 Grams, Iñárritu clearly went overboard with his trademark routine and the mental exercise of piecing that story together was like having to perform long division. The resulting headache tends to distract you so much that you cannot appreciate the movie. With Babel Iñárritu has achieved the correct proportion where there is more substance to the style. A linear telling of this tale would have killed many of the effects of suspense, discombobulation and confusion.

Alejandro González Iñárritu says:
"I realized that what makes us happy as humans could differ greatly, but that what makes us miserable and vulnerable beyond culture, race language or financial standing is the same for all."


The story takes place in three locations - Mexico, Morocco and Tokyo. Gael Garcia Bernal is fantastic as usual as the Mexican maid's nephew Santiago. Anyone who is not a US citizen will emphathize with the of Santiago bristling anger at the border. When the cop at the border is a little gruff, Santiago sees it as another repeat humiliation and he snaps, setting another chain of events in motion. We know shit happens, but this movie is not about that. Butterflies might flap their wings that lead to disastrous consequences, but not before we have made our choices. All people make decisions at the margin in the movie; some work, some don't. The key difference is how they deal with what happens.

In Morocco, Brad Pitt takes his wife played by Cate Blanchett for a vacation in the vain hope of trying to repair their marriage. When at a roadside restaurant they are served water, Blanchett soon tosses the water and asks, "Why are we here?" This is not so much to question the quality of water in Morocco but the quality of their own relationship. It will take two brothers taking care of their goats and their subsequent fooling around with a gun for the husband and wife to rekindle and rediscover their love for each other. The most poignant story is of the beautiful Chieko (Rinko Kikuchi) who is deaf-mute and is desperately seeking a relationship, any kind of relationship. Finally, after a number of missed attempts, she and her friend have managed to make friends with some boys and go on to visit a hip disco. There are the usual frenzied laser lights, thumping electronic music and a crowd of bodies dancing like crazy. Suddenly, there is silence and we only see the laser lights moving. It is only then we realize how silent and lonely Chieko's world actually is. The realization is devastating. The movie is full of such moments wonderfully captured - sibling rivalry, the humiliation of taking a leak in public, the human need for simple affection, traditional wedding celebration. While is no surprise that the star-studded cast delivered incredible performances, the big 'discovery' was the stellar performance by the lesser known actors, such as the Moroccan Berber family, the cops investigating the scene(s), the Japanese teenagers and the two kids. While it may seem that Iñárritu's canvas has considerably expanded since the Mexico City chronicles in Amores Perros, he is really still exploring the same themes of relationships, love, loss and longing, only more polished this time around. Gustavo Santaolalla having given music for the movie makes it reason enough for me to watch. Quite clearly, this is one of the best movies of the year.

Pune, Horn Okay Please

So give me a... stage
Where this bull here can rage
from Raging Bull

If Jake LaMotta ever rode a two-wheeler in Pune he would find it an appropriate stage. In Pune, forget all the politeness that is associated with driving that one has been conditioned to in the US. On the first day, you wince every other minute because you feel that there is going to be a collison. Miraculously nothing happens. There are dangers, but foreigners and out-of-touch NRISs (Non-Resident Indian Students) tend to overestimate them. After taking to the road yourself, you see your old touch returning. Suddenly, you feel free like the caged beast who has been set free on the prairie. Only, Pune is not a prairie, but a minefield.

Donning my helmet and bestriding my rusty, but trusty M-80, I take to the streets. I can personally attest to the fact that zipping along at 30 kmph on a crowded street is infinitely more thrilling than a dull 190 kmph on the Autobahn. There is constant road construction, debris from construction sites, pedestrians spilling onto the streets, the odd cow who nonchalantly sits in the middle of the road. There are no 'STOP' signs, no question of giving way, or the hope of a friendly wave when you do. Blocking the intersection is almost an article of faith. Traffic lights are like Christmas decorations, just for show. In short - there are no rules. Riding a 2-wheeler in Pune is not for the meek, the weak or the faint hearted.

The greatest pleasure of driving, that the land of the free and the home of brave denies, is:
The right to use my horn whenever and however I want.
One cannot but admire the many innovative uses we have for the humble horn.

I use my horn:
a) to communicate to others that I too am sharing the street,
b) as an accompaniment when I sing my songs,
c) as a symphonic element at an intersection when the light turns green along with the rest of the band,
d) on empty streets to keep me company,
e) to warn others of the approaching menance of my M-80,
f) as a bell to call my friends from their third floor apartments.

The M-80 is not the kind of bike that helps you pick up the chicks. It is a veritable chick anti-magnet. The benefit is that there is rather slim chance that the mammas (or cops) will ever stop you and harass you for your license, papers, pollution certificate, etc. If you ride an M-80 with a helmet, you can ride pretty much as you please in Pune. Besides it has one of the most irritating horns in existence. Ah! The sheer annoyance of its neigh!