Kansas Board Approves Challenges to Evolution from NYTimes
"The standards move beyond the broad mandate for critical analysis of evolution that four other states have established in recent years, by recommending that schools teach specific points that doubters of evolution use to undermine its primacy in science education.
Among the most controversial changes was a redefinition of science itself, so that it would not be explicitly limited to natural explanations.
The vote was a watershed victory for the emerging movement of intelligent design, which posits that nature alone cannot explain life's complexity. John G. West of the Discovery Institute, a conservative research organization that promotes intelligent design, said Kansas now had "the best science standards in the nation.""
I have a simple question how can a board of some people decide what is to be taught in science when the majority of scientific community has little or no doubt abt evolution?
What is taught in science classrooms should not be decided on what majority thinks...
Nov 9, 2005
What to say!!!! Redefinition of science???
Software's real bugs!
History's Worst Software Bugs from wired.com
My fav...
"With that recall, the Prius joined the ranks of the buggy computer -- a club that began in 1947 when engineers found a moth in Panel F, Relay #70 of the Harvard Mark 1 system. The computer was running a test of its multiplier and adder when the engineers noticed something was wrong. The moth was trapped, removed and taped into the computer's logbook with the words: "first actual case of a bug being found.""
However, there is a list of software bugs as we know of it today.
Nov 7, 2005
I did not know such a thing existed
The Literary Darwinists from NYTimes
"Jane Austen first published "Pride and Prejudice" in 1813. She had misgivings about the book, complaining in a letter to her sister that it was "rather too light, and bright, and sparkling." But these qualities may be what make it the most popular of her novels. It tells the story of Elizabeth Bennet, a young woman from a shabby genteel family, who meets Mr. Darcy, an aristocrat. At first, the two dislike each other. Mr. Darcy is arrogant; Elizabeth, clever and cutting. But through a series of encounters that show one to the other in a more appealing light - as well as Mr. Darcy's intervention when an officer named Wickham runs away with Elizabeth's younger sister Lydia (Darcy bribes the cad to marry Lydia) - Elizabeth and Darcy come to love each other, to marry and, it is strongly suggested at book's end, to live happily ever after.
For the common reader, "Pride and Prejudice" is a romantic comedy. His or her pleasure comes from the vividness of Austen's characters and how familiar they still seem: it's as if we know Elizabeth and Darcy. On a more literary level, we enjoy Austen's pointed dialogue and admire her expert way with humor. For similar reasons, critics have long called "Pride and Prejudic" a classic - their ultimate (if not well defined) expression of approval.
But for an emerging school of literary criticism known as Literary Darwinism, the novel is significant for different reasons. Just as Charles Darwin studied animals to discover the patterns behind their development, Literary Darwinists read books in search of innate patterns of human behavior: child bearing and rearing, efforts to acquire resources (money, property, influence) and competition and cooperation within families and communities. They say that it's impossible to fully appreciate and understand a literary text unless you keep in mind that humans behave in certain universal ways and do so because those behaviors are hard-wired into us. For them, the most effective and truest works of literature are those that reference or exemplify these basic facts.
From the first words of the first chapter ("It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife") to the first words of the last ("Happy for all her maternal feelings was the day on which Mrs. Bennet got rid of her two most deserving daughters"), the novel is stocked with the sort of life's-passage moments that resonate with meaning for Literary Darwinists. (One calls the novel their "fruit fly.") The women in the book mostly compete to marry high-status men, consistent with the Darwinian idea that females try to find mates whose status will assure the success of their offspring. At the same time, the men are typically competing to marry the most attractive women, consistent with the Darwinian idea that males look for youth and beauty in females as signs of reproductive fitness. Darcy and Elizabeth's flips and flops illustrate the effort mammals put into distinguishing between short-term appeal (a pert step, a handsome coxcomb) and long-term appropriateness (stability, commitment, wealth, underlying good health). Meanwhile, Wickham - the penniless officer who tries to make off first with Darcy's sister and then carries off Lydia - serves as an example of the mating behavior evolutionary biologists call (I'm using a milder euphemism than they do) "the sneaky fornicator theory.""
A different scrutiny on one of the books I really like. I wouldn't think of it this way!!!!!!! The entire atricle is rather long but good read.
Blog regulations
Most blogs are terrible [from The Examined Life] [via IndiaUncut]
This is a write up on blogging (good and bad) and how will regulating blogs will effect.
Fuel alternative
World's next fuel source could be designer organisms from CNET
"J. Craig Venter, who gained worldwide fame in 2000 when he mapped the human genetic code, is behind a new start-up called Synthetic Genomics, which plans to create new types of organisms that, ideally, would produce hydrogen, secrete nonpolluting heating oil or be able to break down greenhouse gases.
The initial focus will be on creating "biofactories" for hydrogen and ethanol, two fuels seen as playing an increasing role in powering cars in the future. Hydrogen also holds promise for heating homes and putting juice into electronic devices. "
Nov 5, 2005
Nov 4, 2005
Husband & Wife
From Vishnu Bhagavata
Husband and Wife must be souls like twin flames illuminating all about them.It is not a question of equality between them but of identity.
She is language; he is thought
She is prudence; he is law
He is reason; she is sense
She is duty; he is right
He is author; she is work
He is patience; she is peace
He is will; she is wish
He is pity; she is gift
He is song; she is note
She is fuel; he is fire
She is glory; he is sun
She is motion; he is wind
He is owner; she is wealth
He is battle; she is might
He is lamp; she is light
He is day; she is night
He is justice; she is pity
He is channel; she is river
She is beauty; he is strength
She is body; he is soul
Nov 3, 2005
quote
You cannot make yourself feel something you do not feel, but you can make yourself do right in spite of your feelings.
-- Pearl Buck
Nov 2, 2005
This is pathetic!!!
In pictures: Force Fed from BBC
"Souadou’s fingers are often clamped between two sticks, a frequently-used instrument of torture.
This, her grandmother explains, will stem her urge to vomit by distracting her with some local pain.
Officially, force-feeding is said to have disappeared after government health campaigns pronounced it wrong, but the message has yet to reach some remote areas of Mauritania."
...
"Some young women affected suffer from conditions such as early diabetes, heart disease, gallstones and arthritis, which may immobilise and eventually kill them.
The obsession of some Mauritanians with female obesity is continuing to cripple a small but extremely vulnerable sector of its society."
Another thought... why are women in most societies treated as a object to represent something, it can be wealth, honor, anything?
Intresting non-techinical readup on Gravity etc.
On Gravity, Oreos and a Theory of Everything from NYTimes
Nov 1, 2005
Translations of Hindi song lyrics
Not bad translations.... from http://www.bollywhat.com/lyrics/swad_lyr.html
yeh jo des hai tera swades hai tera
this country of yours is your motherland
tujhe hai pukaara
and is calling out to you
yeh woh ba.ndhan hai jo kabhi TuuT nahii.n sakta
this is a bond which can never break
miTTii kii hai jo khushbuu tuu kaise bhulaayega
how can you forget the scent of your earth
tuu chaahe kahii.n jaaye tuu lautke aayega
you can go anywhere but you'll always come back
nayii nayii raaho.n me.n dabii dabii aaho.n me.n
in new paths, in every sigh
khoye khoye dil se tere
to your lost heart
koii yeh kahega
someone will say
yeh jo des hai tera swades hai tera
this land of yours is your motherland
tujhse zi.ndagii hai yeh kah rahii
life is telling you
sab to paa liya ab hai kya kamii
you have achieved everything now what's left
yuu.n to saare sukh hai barse
looks like hapiness has been showered on you
par duur tuu hai apne ghar se
but you're far from your home
haa.n laut chal tuu ab deewane
now come back oh crazy one
jahaa.n koii to tujhe apna maane
where at least someone will call you their own
aawaaz de tujhe bulaaye
and will call out to you
vahii des
that very same country
yeh jo des hai tera....
this land that is yours.....
yeh pal hai vahii jisme.n hai chhupii
this moment has hidden in it
puurii ek sadii saarii zi.ndagii
a whole century of life
tuu na puuchh raaste me.n kahe
don't ask why in the road
aaye hain is tarah do raahe.n
has come a fork with two ways
tuu hi to hai raah sujhaaye
you are the one who should choose the path
tuu hii to hai ab jo yeh bataaye
you should choose
jaaye to kis disha me.n jaaye
which direction to take
vahii des
this very country
yeh jo des hai tera....
this land that is yours....
quotes
Curious things, habits. People themselves never knew they had them.
-- Agatha Christie
It isn't what you have, or who you are, or whereyou are,
or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy.
It is what you think about.
-- Dale Carnegie
Happy Diwali
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