Pristine !!

A beautiful person doesn't need any jewels.

A beautiful voice doesn't need any music.
A beautiful art doesn't need any explanation.

Overrated post

I heard from one of my senior colleagues "Hair is overrated". Most of u can guess the obvious reason why he said that. I have heard/read a few others:
"Facebook is overrated", "iPhone is overrated"I guess one can prepare to hear similar ones like
"Height is overrated"
"Leanness is overrated"
"Figure is overrated"
"Talent is overrated"
"Hard work is overrated"
"Cricket is overrated"
"Love is overrated"

Any overrated remark you have heard?

Tea break

During my PhD and postdoc days, tea breaks meant taking a fresh air (literally) out of the chemicals-filled labs to go to tea kiosks which were 5-10 mins away. I wasnt a tea or coffee drinker, so I just used to go for a company (and tea(m) spirit). Some profs wernt big fans of that idea, as tea kiosk became secondary residentials for some students. It was also a hot gossip-mongering spot. While some thought it to be detrimental to the group dynamics, some exactly wanted that, i.e., groupism, and some others thought it would help in better group harmony by allowing people space and time to vent out their -ve feelings about other group members to their friends and get a relief.

In my company, tea and coffee are served right at the workstations, obviously because the company doesnt want man-hours to be lost in the whole process. Their funda: u want tea, u will get tea. In fact, I (and my PhD supervisor) suggested this idea in IISc itself. Some opine that the whole purpose of tea is to take a break from the workstations and so, by bringing the tea to the desk, the use of the tea is gone.

Now, I wonder what made Ian Bell get himself run out y'day. Was it his quest for tea, or the break?

Unique days

Recently I read that July 22 (22/7) and March 14 (3.14, American-style of writing a day) are 'pi-lovers' day. Interesting! As a sequel to my recent post on days and mathematical rarities,and the old one on numbing numbers, some other unique days:
October 1 & January 10: (01.10 & 10.01) Shortest palindrome.
December 21: (21.12 or 12.21). Only non-zero palindrome
July 24: 24/7. Workaholics' day
01:12:35 AM on 8/13/21 (Aug 13, 2021, again American-style) For Fibonacci fans.
01/12: (Either Dec 1 or Jan 12), an off-shoot of the date above.
Aug 24: Can also be written as Au 24 (not A 24, as April also starts with 'A'). Day for 'ultra-pure' (like unadulterated gold) people. [Au is the symbol for Gold]

If you find any other day uniquely interesting (not like september 2011, the whole month being 9/11), pl do comment.

Meet Flexy Stu

whose name deserved to be floating on the water (I call it "தண்ணீரில் ஓர் கவிதை" - thaNNeeril Or kavithai). Flexy Stu is the choreographer of VTV's songs. The salient part of his dance movements was that, it was stylish and simple (or looked simple, thanks to the dancers) while appearing new for Tamil cinema. Especially for Hosanna and Omana Penney, it was simply brilliant! Hats off to you, Stu !! Wish to see more of your contribution in Tamil movies.

Rare months? NOT!

(Pic Courtesy: walyou.com)
From being amusing and funny, it has gone down to downright irritating to read and receive via e-mail and SMS, news that a particular month is rarely unique. An example is this month itself - July 2011 having an once-in-823-years-occurrence of 5 each Fri, Sat & Sundays. How more absurd can it get? A little application of school maths would have prevented the gossip mongers from making a fool of themselves.

There are 7 months in a year that have 31 days. After subtracting 4x7=28 days, u get 3 days which get repeated for the 5th time. Now, for any combination of Fri, Sat & Sun or Sat, Sun & Mon, the first day in the sequence also has to be the first day of the month. The probability that any of the 7 days of the week is the first day of any month is 1/7. Usually, one particular date on the next year falls on the next day. That is bcos, every 'normal' year has 365 days, which is 52 weeks PLUS one day. Some of you would have noticed that if your birthday was on Sat this year, it would be on Sun the next year, if there is no 'Feb 29' in between. In that case, it is 52 weeks + 2 days.

So, for any particular month, one can say that, usually once in 7 years, most of the Sun-Sat w'd be the first days of the month. But not all days, because of the leap year problem. Whenever that month appears for the first time after any Feb 29, the days get pushed by 2. In any case, here are the facts: Of the 7 months having 31 days, only 2 will have the same day pattern from 1st to 31st: Jan & Oct in a normal year, and Jan & July in a leap year. It means that there are 6 different patterns out of the possible 7. It also implies that, the occurrences of 3 Fri, Sat & Sun or Sat, Sun & Mon are very common. Also, leap year or not, every one of these 7 months w'd have gone through a particular Sun-Sat pattern atleast once in a decade.

On the other hand, 11th of Nov this year will be a unique occurrence, which happens once in 100 years. 11-11-11 wont be possible until 2111.

Gujarat running at full capacity

The stepney creates 2 extra seats!! Some things about India are the same wherever you live.

The Crocin Headache

Crocin is a very common medicine that would surely find a place in the medicine box and travel kits of most Indian middle+ class families. It is available in almost all medical shops and in many stationary stores even, without any physician's prescription. I had studied in my UG that it is the brand name for paracetomol, which is a common name for N-(4-hydroxyphenyl)ethanamide, or N-acetyl-4-aminophenol. The latter name is the reason why it is sold over-the-counter in US pharmacies under the name 'Tylenol'. I was under the impression that 'crocin' signifies nothing other than the above chemical.

Until today. I learnt that there is actually a chemical called 'crocin' and it is what gives the orange color to 'saffron' (குங்குமப்பூ or kungumappoo). Its wiki entry is here. It is a 'carotenoid', meaning it is structurally similar to the chemical that gives orange color to carrot, viz., beta-carotene. It also has some medicinal properties, which are very different to those of the paracetemol drug. The chemical structure of the two drugs are (left-paracetemol; right-crocin):


Usually there is a sense to the way drugs are named. But, IMHO, it is a blatant mistake to sell one chemical with the same name of another known chemical. Those who consume saffron regularly, try telling ur mom or someone who cares for you that you are nowadays taking crocin twice a week, without making them to freak out.

Taylor-made for a CEO

(Pic adapted from Cricinfo)

From the pose, the office with lappy attached to an external LED screen (and a cam), Ross looks more like the CEO of a company than the captain of a cricket team !! Strange is the way New Zealand cricket works.

Book reading 301

(Pic adapted from Cartoon Stock)

I feel that a great fiction must keep the reader so engrossed that one should get no clue about the ending of the book - both 'how' and 'when' it ends. As you are holding the book and reading it, you know that you are approaching the end, because on the right side of the book, the pages are going to exhaust. Imagine, on the other hand, the publisher keeps some unspecified number of dummy pages. Either you know about it, or you don't. That can work in 2 ways as one can see. Unless you are too curious like some people that you WANT to know how many pages are left, you will be kept in suspense as to where you are in the fiction - towards the end, or somewhere in the mdidle. I think that is the right way how a work of fiction should be.

The same thing can be applied for a movie too. It can be a 1 1/2 hr movie like most Hollywood products, or the 3 hour epics like the LOTR trilogy. Either way, not knowing the actual duration of the movie and not peeking into the watch, one can truly enjoy this other form of fiction, though the screenplay usually revs up quite a bit as moves towards climax.

Now, as I am talking abt movies in the context of books, let me also talk on the suspense in movies adapted from books. When Suhasini remarked in her movie review that it was so easy to guess who the culprit was in 'Angels & Demons', I was like 'Come on, you can't, unless you have read the book'. But, when I think about it, if you are reasonably good at movies, you can! When you see someone like Ewan McGregor in a role, you immediately sense that his role is damn important. And with Tom Hanks as the protagonist, it extrapolates itself to Ewan as the antagonist. Such a revelation could be averted by either making the entire cast from famous stars, or by giving that role to someone unknown. He could be a new, talented Hollywood actor (hard, as he c'd have made it big in some other media), or an established actor from European countries.

Such a revelation of importance can be camouflaged in books, as it provides the liberty of hiding the face and character while introducing the character. Still, usually the authors would give an elaborate physical description of that character, but as (and if) they do so to several other characters too, the importance of the suspense character isnt explicitly revealed.

Now, back to the length of the books in the e-format. There are a few ways to keep the reader from guessing where one is at the story: One, split the story into several chapters, and no info is given on the # of chapters. So, when you see the scroll bar, it is just for that chapter; Second, no scroll bar at all while reading it on the screen; third, like in print versions, have a number of dummy pages. No issues to the additional costs of dummy pages incurred in the printed version here.