points of departure

MOVING DAY

2006-02-02T11:46:00.000+11:00

I'm moving to wordpress. Follow me here. Change bookmarks, feeds, etc etc.

The trip to Wollongong

2006-01-31T17:26:00.000+11:00

North Wollongong station, deserted but for D and me. D thinks we've gotten off at the wrong place, but it turned out to be the right one.

View of the lighthouses from the beach. There's a nice walk along the beach going past rockpools.

Closer to the lighthouse, we came across a small inlet where the sailing boats came home to roost.

And here they are. Waiting.

Me and D at the Hindu temple in Helensburgh.

Some kids hanging out on the streets at Helensburgh, notice the weird cycle/car things the two boys are riding. Very cool.

christmas at the beach

2006-01-06T20:31:00.000+11:00

It was a most atypical christmas, in many ways. First, I've never actually been in the thick of christmas celebrations, on account of me not being christian for a start. Plus I've had a few passing encounters with christmas at other peoples' houses, but it was always a tangential thing. In Israel, the holy land, christmas is not even a holiday, and all the action happens near and in the palestinian territory. Last year, I was in the lab. I was in the lab this year as well, but only for a short time, just enough to feed some birds I'm taking care of, which is a post all by itself. But Diana was spending christmas away from home, and insisted on doing SOMETHING, so we had a small party/celebration in the house that we were taking care of for a friend of a friend. The only reason we were house-sitting was that this house was a ten minute walk away from the beach. The beach at Bondi. The favourite destination of Australians during christmas week. Despite the lingering tension in the air due to the riots the previous week,- indeed, we saw groups of police officers patrolling the streets and the beach- we decided to make it a christmas at the beach. Christmas is usually associated with snow, and not hot sun and deliciously cold sea water. I always avoided going into the pacific ocean, but this time I decided to brave it and spent 15-20 mins in freezing water, so cold that all my hair stood on end even underwater. In the sky above, a biplane lazily wrote cryptic messages, while a lifeguard told off kids for trying to swim in areas clearly delineated as not swimming areas. The meal we had was vegetarian. Gasp. None of the others had ever been subjected to such a blatant indignity, especially at Christmas time, but X cooked a really cool meal that more than made up for any burnt animal.

PS: cross posted here, a new blog service I'm trying out.

Hex blog: WMF Vulnerability Checker

2006-01-03T11:49:00.000+11:00

Attention, WINDOWS users. All hell is about to break loose. Basically there's a possibility of using mages to run a malicious program. You can get infected by just browsing a bad site, or by getting images in Email, or Instant messenger service or howsover you get images. Please go to the link and check if your computer is vulnerbale. Also there's a temperory fix available there (from the link). Do it NOW! This affects ALL versions of Windows, irrespective of browser/ antivirus software et al (any doubts,leave a comment or see the Wikipedia entry on this virus)
UPDATE: Microsoft has issued a patch.

Sydney New Years Eve Fireworks - New Year 2006 - 360 Panoramafoto QTVR Photo

2006-01-02T12:48:00.000+11:00

If you look carefully in this photo, you'll see me. Somewhere. Atleast, I'm sure I'm there. No, really.

Happy New Year!

some more slang

2006-01-01T15:09:00.000+11:00

From here: "See, it is currently illegal in Australia to record shows off the telly, or to transferbangle (Australian for copy) music from CDs to portable music players."

I did a search on google for this term 'transferbangle', and I checked my favourite aussie slang site, and I cannot find any mention of 'transferbangle'. Plus I've never seen it in the newspapers or heard it in casual speech, and since typically Aussie slang words are rather short and pithy, so I call bullshit on this one.

some slang

2005-12-23T20:26:00.000+11:00

In the early days, when the house was still bare, and I'd just about managed to fill a tiny corner with an old analog TV that I'd bought for a ridiculously cheap price. The woman on the phone had said,- it's an old TV, but it works, so on the strength of that conviction, i'd said yes to the TV, especially because the woman was kind enough to offer to drop it off at the house. Anyway, the TV came, and I saw that it was so analog that it didn't even have a remote, and nor did it need an antenna to work. The woman saw the state of the house, bare from wall to wall, and in a spasm of compassion offered to sell us a futon at a damn cheap price. Subsequent negotiations over the futon- the thing was beastly big- did not function as smooth and eventually, we lost touch. But what struck me during the entire affair was the fact that the woman seemed to be using an aussie slang term- "No Dramas", meaning, "No Problem", all the time. When I asked other locals whether this term meant what I thought it to mean, I was met with blank looks. Nobody seemed to have heard of it, not even the Internet. So I put it down to yet another misheard phrase, and forgot about it.

Flash forward to 8 months later, and I pick up Bill Bryson's "Down Under" and there, right there on the third page or so, he documents its usage. By an Australian, no less.

canberra meanderings

2005-12-09T18:26:00.000+11:00

It's been almost a year since I visited Canberra last, and I'm happy to report not many things changed on this trip. I stayed at the same backpacking place, my destination was the same both times. Only, this time I went there by car and to attend a special spider symposium. It felt good to be in a room full of arachnologists, and hear spider stuff all day.

On the way, to keep myself amused and awake, I wrote down names of roads and creeks and fields that we passed. The rule was simple- I would write down only the names that suggested a back story. Therefore I could not include any of the aboriginal names, because though they might have fascinating backstories, as they usually do, these stories are more or less inaccessible to me. So i hereby present to you, dear reader, a list of place names:

Black Bob's Creek; Hanging Road; Winfarthing Road; Boxer's Creek; Murray's Flat Road; Run-o-Waters Creek; Stillwater Road; Willow Tree Creek; Collector Creek; Brooks Creek; Macs Reef Road; Oldbury Creek; Blacksprings Creek.

Closer to Canberra, we passed Lake George. Unfortunately, the lake is lake in name only, it looks more like a shadow of a lake. Apparently the water disappeared from the lake almost overnight, and I can imagine some vast realignment of the underground water table forcing the lake to give up its up-worldly existence and the lake is now a vast field of golden yellow grass, dotted by sheep.

I saw this painting (Alfred Ducôte’s E-migration, or, A Flight of Fair Game) at the National library of Australia, they had an exhibition called National treasures of Australia.

obscure movie meme

2005-11-27T17:25:00.000+11:00

From here. I don't see many obscure movies, but anyhow.

1. Black Cat White Cat
2. Dark City

La Virgen De Los Sicarios

2005-11-25T16:34:00.000+11:00

A movie where death is arbitrary but has a definite pattern at the same time, where you can predict a death coming by the sheer number of them. There were a few intriguing scenes in the movie which struck me, but for the most part it's a depressingly cynical look at violence in Colombia. I'll let an academic type explain all this while I just point out the scenes that I liked:

1. The protagonist visits a church he was always afraid to go to before, because he believed that if he entered the church he would die. Inside the church he experiences a strong deja vu feeling, that he had known how the church would be, and we also know this, because the film shows snippets of a dream of his where he sees the interior of this church.

2. There is a church where the assassins go to, in order to get their bullets 'blessed', by heating the bullets till they are red-hot, and then cooling them with holy water. The local killers believe that 'blessed' bullets do not miss.

3. Every time there's a new set of assassins out to kill the protagonist's companion (Alexis- who's also an assassin), there's a warning given to Alexis by a punk.

small changes

2005-11-24T11:29:00.000+11:00

So I discovered delicious's linkroll script, and added it to the blog. If you look at the sidebar, under quicklinks, I will be posting the one-off links that I stumble upon. and devote the main blog to longer pieces. I think I will be writing short pieces again, but enthusiasm is a bit lacking these days. Haven't been travelling much either, so basically I'm scraping the bottom over here. I think I'll put up atleast a book review every now and then. Just to indicate that the blog's still alive.

just checking a new cool thingy

2005-11-23T12:51:00.000+11:00

Ojos azules

Personality Test

2005-11-13T18:42:00.000+11:00

One click personality test. Brilliant!

my advisors

2005-11-11T17:35:00.000+11:00

my advisors
Originally uploaded by dinrao.

This image is part of a Uni Ad campaign to entice new students to join the Uni. The two pictured, in mock X-files style, are my thesis advisors.

The Worst Jobs in Science

2005-11-03T13:57:00.000+11:00

"Pain, Tedium, Danger, Disgust, Humiliation—It's all just part of the average workday for the (often proud, more often smelly) members of our third annual honor roll of the Worst Jobs in Science"

secret places

2005-10-31T15:31:00.000+11:00

If you leave the botanical garden by the other entrance, especially when dusk is just falling and there are hardly any other humans around, you will find yourself on a small street that winds down the hillock to the sea. You can't actually see the sea from there, but you can see that the land dips away suddenly and you catch a glimpse of the scores of waterfront restaurants. If you then follow the street a little way down, you'll notice that the street suddenly splits into two, circumventing a rise in the ground. It's grassy, and with some odd rocks here and there. Avoid the single bench standing in a nook in front of one of the rocks- there are signs of frequent usage- a cup, some food debris and the embers of a half forgotten fire. Instead go to the peak, so to speak, of the hillock, and among the bulky eucalyptus trees, and the herd of sulphur crested cockatoos, you will come across a statue to the poet and story teller, Henry Lawson. He's standing up there, deliberately not facing the sea, but instead looking up the street. He has a dog and some other guy with him. You may not know anything about him, but that doesn't stop you from building your own story. Lay yourself down on the grass little away from the statue, and settle down for night to come. Look back over your shoulders into the darkening garden. As the light vanishes, hundreds of fruit bats take to the sky. Watch them wing around in ever widening circles, as they begin to realize where they are, and start their nightly flights. There is no other order or pattern, and they don't even fly agilely, if you watch them carefully, you will even see that they have several near misses with each other, and if you're really lucky, you might even see a collision. After a while, the bats start thinning- there are fewer of them- and after a while their silhouettes are harder to see against the night. Turn around now, and look at the cityscape opposite. The buildings across the water are all lit up, looking like hollow structures lit up on the inside by candlelight. Watch the first stars appear across the cut-out city, and feel the cool night breeze.

Lagaan

2005-10-31T13:17:00.000+11:00

"Bhuj is a dusty, walled fort town in a remote corner of north-western India. With plenty of soldiers. Pakistan is only 70km away, and given the delicate nature of relations between Islamabad and New Delhi, the Indian government regards the area as 'highly sensitive'. So all foreigners are required to register with the police. In big letters, my little registration card reads: 'Please note that landscape photography is prohibited.' Interesting. Did anyone tell them we have come here to shoot a film?"

I saw Lagaan yesterday, so here's a link detailing the (mis)adventures of one of the british actresses.

Obligatory opera house photo

2005-10-23T17:59:00.000+10:00

I really am in Sydney, ya know...

the bee whisperer

2005-10-19T20:08:00.000+10:00

(a tip of the hat to AH)

It's not an easy task to get the bees to do my bidding these days, because the weather is fine and there's tons of good food hanging about, just waiting for the taking. No self respecting bee is going to prefer the dry and rather insipid sugar water solution that I use in my experiments when all the flowers, with their cunning born of millions of years of evolution, are calling the bees to come to them. Sure the sugar water is easy, and it's so handy, just outside the hive, but ask a bee and they'll go for the flowers any day. Meanwhile, one cannot wait till the weather goes bad, I have to try all sorts of weird hijinks. For example, when the stingless bees were disoriented in their new location, I put a few drops of the essential oil of frangipani to attract them and get them accustomed to their new home. I even have tried to add pure honey to the feeder just to make it easier for the bees to get there. The bees are not in a mood to be placated by these sops. It's going to take more than a few bribes for them to do what is needed. I will have to call in the Bee Whisperer.

UPDATE: I GOT STUNG TODAY!!! I HATE BEES!

Followup/Distraction

2005-10-15T15:26:00.000+10:00

"Distraction is necessary. Minds need to wander to get anything done. But the Internet is sort of the mental equivalent of the snack aisle at a convenience store, filled with satisfying fatty chips and tasty cream-filled cakes."

sculptor and head

2005-10-15T14:23:00.000+10:00

sculptor and head
Originally uploaded by dinrao.

This was taken in Fremantle, in the town square like area. Most of the photos this time sucked, so I have put only around ten up on Flickr. I really should invest in a different camera. And oh, I also added some photos of bondi beach in Sydney

| Unicef bombs the Smurfs in fund-raising campaign

2005-10-09T12:56:00.000+10:00

"The people of Belgium have been left reeling by the first adult-only episode of the Smurfs, in which the blue-skinned cartoon characters' village is annihilated by warplanes."

tales from freo

2005-10-08T17:57:00.000+10:00

I landed in Freo in the middle of the night...I didn't anticipate that it would take me so long to find a willing airport shuttle driver, and I walked the streets looking for a place to stay. Freo felt safe enough to walk around at midnight...but there were suspicious characters loitering about. As I reached what turned out to be the city centre, there were packs of kids lolling about, like feral dogs. It was quite surreal. Deserted town, middle of the night and all these teenagers. And on a monday night! I wandered around till I found a backpacking place that was open and crashed for the night. But right next to this place was a cafe that was open all night! I cannot stress enough how rare this is in Australia. In the rest of the country all shops tend to close around 5 or 530, and in Freo they have all these cafes that go way into the night and open on Sundays as well. I noticed that a lot of shops had the sign "open 7 days" on them and it turned out that there's a concerted effort to keep businesses open for longer, a concept that is as natural as night in the rest of the world. The best thing about Freo (and for that matter, Perth) is that they have this free bus system called the CAT service which goes around the city centre. The bus stops in Freo were painted with wild colours and themes, but sadly I forgot to take any photos of them, so ...well too bad.

The conference itself was quite good. It was held in what I guess is Freo's biggest hotel, but apart from the fact that the screen was so high that everybody suffered from neck-aches at the end of the conference, everything went smooth. I was ill at ease till my talk got over, unfortunately it was on the last day...so I really started relaxing only when everything was almost over.

All of us were staying in a charming beachside cottage that was at the very end of the main road in Freo. It was just a few minutes from a nice white sand beach, but the weather was absolutely un beach-like. Chilly and windy and intermittently rainy, so regrettably I didn't spend much time on the beach. The one time I did venture to take a look at the Indian Ocean from the other side, my only companions were gulls battling to keep their place in the wind. The highlight of the trip was the visit to a really strange pub/ micro-brewery called the Little Creatures. The pub was IN the brewery, so we had beer sitting amidst these huge silver coloured metal canisters that looked all the world like missile silos. The beer was strange but nice, and the food was even more eclectic. I also spent a lot of time in one of Freo's markets, in my quest for a wooden ring, but it proved to be fruitless.

After the conference i headed to Perth. I think I overdid Perth- I walked everywhere, from the awfully domesticated King's Park Botanical Garden (this link doesn't work in FireFox for me...) to all the museums. I touched a meteorite. Many meteorites actually, apparently, there was this big shower some time ago and the Museum of Western Australia has a whole bunch of them. Very interesting to see the pockmarks made by the heat from the entry into the atmosphere. They also had a preserved specimen of one of the ugliest sharks -the Megamouth- I'll ever see, and one of the most rare as well. I think only around 5 specimens have ever been seen worldwide.

MIscellaneous notes: Saw Serenity, (★★★) read Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell (★★★★★) and Charlie Stross's Singularity Sky (★★★).

some phrases

2005-10-04T15:03:00.000+10:00

Here are some phrases that I noted down from the conference. Taken out of context, they become touchstones (or points of departure, if you will), and set off trains of thoughts. Here are some of those nano-stories.

the frog's dilemma
parasitising the attractiveness
mosaicism
system frozen in time
fossil language
attractiveness research
warp scores
fewer dimensions than traits
dispersal is a creative force
genetic swamping, genetic rescue
self compatible
ill-behaved regions
serpentine miner
leaf-mining guru
cue transfer
casual trait
engineered focal males

off again

2005-09-26T11:58:00.000+10:00

I'm going to be in Fremantle/Perth this week for the Australasian Evolution Society Conference. See ya.

Building the Cabinet National Library

2005-09-23T14:28:00.000+10:00

"For its Spring 2002 'Property' issue, Cabinet beat hearty competition on eBay to buy, sight unseen, a 1/2 acre piece of scrubland outside Deming, New Mexico. The resulting Cabinetlandia was divided into sections with differing functions, some generous, some wholly self-serving: Readerland, Nepotismia, Funderlandia, Editorlandia, Internlandia, and so on. Three sections were left for future projects to be done on the land.
In July 2003, we received a letter from someone in San Francisco purporting to be a devoted reader of Cabinet, one Matthew Passmore. His outlandish and extravagant scheme for building the Cabinet National Library on one of the project spaces seemed to be the stuff of a Werner Herzog short. We published his letter and diagrams in issue 12. To our astonishment, this past summer he made good on his perhaps hasty promise to go out to New Mexico with some friends and build the library. Here is his report."

the shoveling monk

2005-09-21T18:53:00.000+10:00

One day the shoveling monk was in deep meditation, as he was shoveling stones, when his concentration was abruptly shattered by the snide comments of a passing ninja-arachnologist. The ninja-arachnologist merely commented on the incredibly inefficient method of shoveling that the shoveling monk had, which to a shoveling monk was like squashing a spider would be to a ninja-arachnologist. But the shoveling monk, who could have easily beaten the ninja-arachnologist in fair fight, chose to respond in an another indirect way.

He asked the ninja, -"what is the most famous saying of a ninja arachnologist?"

The Ninja Arachnologist replied "hah, thats easy,..When a ninja-arachnologist cuts the web, the spider doesn't even know!"

The shoveling monk waited for a few seconds and quietly said "I was the one who coined that phrase"

The ninja arachnologist was really perturbed; -shocked that someone who he thought was an incredible waster of energy was actually the coiner of the most famous ninja-arachnologist's sayings. He immediately started looking at the shoveling monk's shoveling technique. And lo and behold...patterns of efficiency started appearing in front of his eyes. The angle of the shovel, the depth of the heave, the usage of gravity itself to fill the shovel head and even the delicate balancing of the shovel by using just two fingers as a fulcrum. All these saw the ninja arachnologist. And he bowed. And the shoveling monk bowed. And both went their separate ways.

The Flying Mobulas of the Sea of Cortez

2005-09-21T16:27:00.000+10:00

"As my kayak arrows towards the activity, I grow anxious, willing the sun to stay up a just a bit longer. About half an hour later, I am paddling among them, in the middle of a pancake commercial, flapjack-like creatures tumbling over themselves, flying everywhere, some of them off in the distance, some only feet away. From the shore, which is now far away, the impromptu camp too small to be seen, you'd think there were a dozen, maybe twenty, but here, sitting on my kayak surrounded by them, it becomes immediately clear, there were hundreds."

If I dig a very deep hole, where I go to stop?

2005-09-09T11:21:00.000+10:00

"Are you concerned about where you go to arrive if you dig a very deep straight infinitous hole on Earth?
Your problems are solved!
Surf on the map below, find where you will dig your hole and click there.
After this, click on 'Dig here!' and you will see the place where, one day, you will (believe me) put your feet."

They dont write like this anymore

2005-09-08T13:40:00.000+10:00

From Robinson and Robinson (1980): Courtship and mating behaviour of araneids

Gasteracantha falcicornis
"We studied this species in Nairobi, Kenya, where we found it abundant in the gardens of the Kenya National Museum and the Nairobi City Park. We saw and filmed many courtship sessions, but unfortunately were attacked and robbed while working on this species in the Nairobi City Park. The armed robbers stole all our exposed film that was in a bag with other valuables. We were left with only our notes on this magnificient species"

They don't write scientific papers like this anymore. I miss those days.

synchronicity

2005-09-06T17:38:00.000+10:00

There was once a time when I used to think synchronicity was rather cool, and that it was a cosmic message of some sort, and revelled in the ability of the human mind to spot patterns everywhere, even in clouds and events and all sorts of sets of data, but now, with the passing of time, I have come to the realisation that I absolutely hate synchronicity- there's no cosmic message people, its just a bloody brain deluding itself into thinking there is order...there is NO order, it's all figments of a fractured mind, thats what it is, and dont even get me started on coincidences...it's all just a figure/ground problem. so there.

Parasites brainwash grasshoppers into death dive

2005-09-01T11:02:00.000+10:00

"A parasitic worm that makes the grasshopper it invades jump into water and commit suicide does so by chemically influencing its brain, a study of the insects’ proteins reveal.

The parasitic Nematomorph hairworm (Spinochordodes tellinii) develops inside land-dwelling grasshoppers and crickets until the time comes for the worm to transform into an aquatic adult. Somehow mature hairworms brainwash their hosts into behaving in way they never usually would – causing them to seek out and plunge into water."

Meanwhile, at one Swedish library...

2005-08-31T12:09:00.000+10:00

"A Swedish library, realizing that books are not the only things being judged by their covers, will give visitors a different opportunity this weekend—to borrow a Muslim, a lesbian, or a Dane.
The city library in Malmo, Sweden's third-largest city, will let curious visitors check out living people for a 45-minute chat in a project meant to tear down prejudices about different religions, nationalities, or professions. "

river

2005-08-25T15:29:00.000+10:00

river
Originally uploaded by dinrao.

Photos of the field trip to Katherine are now up.

boat stories

2005-08-20T17:17:00.000+10:00

The first day, I almost fell into the water. I'd stood up to take a closer look at a spider that was hanging off a tree that stretched almost horizontally across the water, and it was too early in the field study and consequently the boat was moving a bit erratically. I was absorbed in watching the spider and didn't notice that the boat was drifting away. I was at one end of the boat and I realised that I was just about to be pushed into the water by the tree. I couldn't sit down because there was no time or space to sit down. I grabbed onto the tree and strove to push the boat back, and succeeded, not without getting some bruises from the tree as a parting gift. But we soon grew better with the boat, except that I always had problems with the fine precision movements designed to bring us close to the webs but not crash into the webs. Measuring spider webs is more or less routine work on land, but on water it becomes quite tricky. The boat is always moving, and holding it steady for the measurements involves 1 person with instruments and 2 to hang on to the roots/ branches/ leaves/ whatever that doesn't break. Because this stretch of the river is quite popular with fisherman, occasionally a motor boat with a cray fisherman whizzes past us sending a series of waves that rock the boat. After getting used to the placid lake like character of this stretch of the water, the waves come as a rude shock. But this is a rare occasion, and most of the time, the greenish water flows by with hardly a movement.
The submerged logs are more insiduous. You're whizzing along, care free, your oars are in rhythm when suddenly with an alarming thunk the boat halts in mid oar. There are logs all along the bank, and they're always poking their ends out of the water. Like crocodiles. I found out that I have an uncanny ability to direct the boat right into the trees. Even the overhanging ones. I have now a close acquaintance with many pandanus crowns. Which, I hasten to assure you, has really thorny edged leaves. Apropos of nothing, we did see a log hanging halfway up another tree, no doubt put there by some flood in the past.
Today was a good day for birds,- the heron that watches us with tranquil amusement caught one, and so did a bird that looked like a small blue kingfisher. We were also passed by three white ducks winging their way upstream, all the time quacking mournfully.

a myth

2005-08-20T17:15:00.000+10:00

The rao people, to whom the radon spider is sacred, pass through what is now known as Katherine river atleast once a year. Each time they head to the river banks to pay their respects to their ancestral totem, which are found overhanging the pandanus bordered banks in vast aggregations. Once,in ancient times, one of the rao people was walking along the bank when he heard the crash of breaking branches and sounds of frantic running. He followed the sound, thinking of wallaby, because the banks were also sacred to the wallaby people. But the sounds ended abruptly with a splash and the rao did not know if wallaby could swim, as the river was very deep next to the bank. The rao forgot about the radon spider as he waited anxiously for wallaby to resurface but wallaby had vanished. The rao waited for a long while, but in vain. This spot where rao waited for wallaby is now sacred and is considered as a meeting place by wallaby and spider.

Katherine Diary

2005-08-11T15:59:00.000+10:00

Well it looks like I have access to the internet, but somehow it sucks to write in an internet shop, so I'm typing this from M's laptop. Later today I'll make a trip to Katherine and post it, well, if you're reading this, then...so what was I saying?

We're staying at Manbulloo Homestead (est. 1919), which is situated a few kilometers from town, just along the Katherine River. Our room, if I can call it that, is perched on stils, for some odd reason,and just overlooks the river. If you bend your head this way and that you might just be able to make out the water from the balconey, but in the afternoon when the sun's in the right place, you can see flashes of light glinting from the waters through the riverine vegetation, looking all the world like a swarm of daytime fireflies. We (M & L & me) go to the river every morning at around 7, when the sun is yet to gather strength and there's still a fine mist rolling on the river. We're using a boat borrowed from the homestead owners to observe the spiders, because the bloody things really like to hang their webs just above the water, which makes it pretty damn hard to measure from the bank. The spider in question is called Argiope radon, and quite rare in the sense that it's one of the few of the genus (maybe the only one) to live in aggregations. The book says that it prefers tropical riverine habitats, rainforest even, and I'm of the opinion that what we see here is basically an outpost population. I think this because we went looking for them all over the place, including the gorge and hardly found any. It's not rainforest habitat here, mostly riverine, so that might explain its relative rarity.

The homestead is overrun with wallabies. They're always bounding around the place, usually being chased by something or the other, but normally dogs, because the homestead is one of the few places around here that's 'pet-friendly', which means that we're surrounded by all sors of dogs. But then the wallabies are always running, even if nothing's chasing them. One of them was fleeing from something when it got stuck in some logs next to the river and L found it while she was doing her run of prey observation. She called us on the walkie-talkie thingy and before we got there to look at it, the wallaby had given up the fight and died. M checked its pouch and there was a joey, a small pink creature. L went up to the homestead to tell the owners and some guy took the wallaby away, but no idea where. There are crocodiles in the river, mostly freshwater ones. We saw one or two slipping off a log and splash into the river, but mostly we only hear odd splashes that made me jumpy in the beginning, but now it's so normal. I saw a dead one on the bank once, partially decomposed.

This homestead seems to be pretty popular with travellers, there are lots of people who come here in order to go fishing or canoeing or whatever. Crayfish nets are all over the place. And where the river converges into a gentle 'rapids' section, among the reeds is a good swimming spot, albeit a bit algae-fied.

I dont think I'll post anything more on this trip...unless you want to hear boring details about which spider ate well and which didnt etc, but in case anything interesting happens, I'll post it.

The outback beckons

2005-08-03T12:33:00.000+10:00

I'm leaving for Katherine for some field work tomorrow. It's in the north of Australia, I've been there before and it's a beautiful place. Be back in three weeks, but this time I'll try to post while there, but lets see how it goes.

Poetry and science: greatness in little

2005-08-02T13:23:00.000+10:00

"Poetry is one way of trying to reconcile different and contradictory aspects of life. Poetry is another viewpoint, a way of getting stereoscopic vision or at least perspective. James Watson is not a poet, but when he wrote an account of his work on the double helix he gave a different perspective compared with that given by the famous paper published in Nature. People were shocked or delighted because it told a human story. It told of science, but in the voice of someone who also chases girls, is competitive and does the million-and-one things we all do. A scientific culture that eschewed such an approach completely and insisted that only the academic papers mattered would not be a culture: it would be pedantic formalism gone mad."

The Bombay floods, and the aftermath

2005-08-02T11:15:00.000+10:00

"Almost a thousand people dead in Maharashtra, about half of them from Bombay.

Transport screwed, no electricity, no running water, some areas STILL under water a week later.
They haven't even begun figuring out how many people were injured. Or
what the tolls might increase to if the epidemics we all fear do
happen. (And that's likely, if you have sewage mixed with rain water
standing thirteen feet deep in some places)
They have't even begun estimating what the losses of property are
going to be like. So many have lost everything.
Bombay needs help folks. We can analyse what wrong later. We can
figure out what to do about it later. Right now, Bombay needs help.
Bombay's bloggers (and some friends - the net doesn't worry about
borders) are trying to do their bit, by making sure information is
easy to find. Information was one more thing we all didn't have enough
of last week. Not that it's much better now.
Mumbai Help is an effort to put online such critical "for emergencies" information as we can find. We hope to turn
this into a permanent site that will act as a Bombay disaster portal.

Cloud Burst Mumbai is a collection of news, both from the media as well as stories sent in via email and blog links."

Tiny caterpillars assail unsuspecting snails

2005-07-22T11:31:00.000+10:00

"Freakish killers lurk in the forests of Hawaii: tiny caterpillars that sneak up on unsuspecting snails, hogtie them, and devour their unfortunate victims alive. This surprising way of life - unprecedented among caterpillars - may eventually help biologists understand how evolutionary innovations arise."

In which I get a mention in the TimesofIndia

2005-07-19T16:52:00.000+10:00

"Talk about single-minded! This blogger, to take a wild guess, is kinda partial to spiders. This is a very specialist filter blog that exclusively links to pages, news items, pictures and all kinds of trivia about our eight-legged friends. No comments section, though, so I guess he isn’t looking for an audience."

Thanks for the plug, Peter.

Ron Moore's Deep Space Journey - Battlestar Galactica

2005-07-18T11:16:00.000+10:00

"As in the original show, the humans of the Galactica and its fleet are relentlessly pursued by evil robots called Cylons. But in the current version, conceived by Ronald D. Moore and David Eick, most of the evil Cylons look like people and have found God. Ruthlessly principled and deeply religious, the Cylons have been compared by fans and critics both to Al Qaeda and to the evangelical right. And the humans they are relentlessly pursuing are fallible and complex. Their shirts are not clingy or color-coded; the men of space wear neckties. They are led by Edward James Olmos as the Galactica's commander and Mary McDonnell as the president of the humans, and their stories revolve as much around the tensions within -- between the military and civil leadership of the fleet -- as they do around the Cylon threat. "

volleyball

2005-07-11T17:44:00.000+10:00

volleyball
Originally uploaded by dinrao.

New photos up!

a shadow play

2005-07-10T18:27:00.000+10:00

I can hear the wind, I can sense the trees shaking, trying to maintain their silhouettes against the weak midday sun. The wind is swirling the clouds around, and the sun throws the shadows of the roses through my window and onto the blank wall opposite. The shadow-roses take on all the shades possible...at times darkly confident, and other times grey blurs, as they play with wind and light.

the village square

2005-07-06T21:16:00.000+10:00

Back at the village square, there is a small pedestal where the village idiot stands during lunchtimes, glaring balefully at the swirl of happy lunchers around him. The pedestal has only three statues of sports people decorating it, one is missing, and I could never find out what the missing sports-player played. But never mind, the village idiot makes up for it. He's singing, he's talking, he's even throwing his hands about in theatrical gestures. Nobody meets his eye, and the security guard watches him through the corner of his eyes, waiting for a wrong move, but it never appears, and the crackle of his walkie talkie takes him away. Meanwhile, the food-stall people remonstrate with him when he gets too close to their customers, but by and large, the village idiot is free to sing and babble his way through the entire square. I see him occasionally in other places in the square, and he walks with the assurance of one who is comfortable in the land.

mobile houses in context: israeli west bank settlements

2005-07-05T17:49:00.000+10:00

"The mobile houses in the Israeli settlement development in the West Bank (or Judea and Samaria) since the 1967 war confirm this different story. Mobile and portable buildings are a common phenomenon in the West Bank and in parts of Israel as they can be found in various locations, yet they are extensively used for the settlements in the West Bank. Various reports on the Israeli settlements in the West Bank commissioned by the ‘United Nations,’ the ‘Foundation for Middle Eastern Peace,’ the ‘Applied Research Institute Jerusalem,’ ‘B’Tselem’ or ‘PeaceNow’ observe the implementation of ‘caravans,’ ‘trailers,’ ‘mobile homes,’ ‘mobile houses’ or ‘shipping containers’ only when a new settlement is being established in the so-called ‘illegal settlement outposts.’ Yet, remaining for several years or decades in the same settlement or used in neighboring settlement the mobile and portable houses constitute a considerable part of the buildings. Thus, they are a serious housing option and a common pattern in almost all settlements in the West Bank, constituting an essential and vital part of the settlement establishment process. "

I spent two years in one of these. It was a lot more comfortable that you'd think.

Cash Machine installed in UK Jewish cemetery

2005-07-04T18:28:00.000+10:00

"The Board has agreed to a test project which has put a cash machine in a tombstone at Chester Jewish Cemetery.
Following the death of Morris Gorski earlier this year, he put in his will a clause that his heirs would only be entitled to get their share of his money by visiting his grave in River Path Road on a weekly basis."

In India, Marking the Paper Trail of History

2005-07-01T17:20:00.000+10:00

"In the walled quarters of the old city, a Sanskrit language scholar walks purposefully along the packed, narrow and twisting alleyways, jostling past rows of jewelry shoppers, cycle rickshaws, bullock carts and beggars. When he comes upon an old temple with an ornately carved doorway, he stops, sweating profusely in the sweltering sun.
'Do you have any ancient handwritten manuscripts here?' Dilipkumar Rana, the scholar, asks in a whisper. The stunned temple manager nods. 'The government is doing a survey of old manuscripts,' Rana says."

Boffins create zombie dogs

2005-06-28T22:07:00.000+10:00

"SCIENTISTS have created eerie zombie dogs, reanimating the canines after several hours of clinical death in attempts to develop suspended animation for humans."

Kevin Johansen + The Nada

2005-06-28T21:10:00.000+10:00

"Granted, most styles of contemporary Latin music are anchored in some kind of fusion or another. But Kevin Johansen has taken the entire hybrid concept a step further by putting every possible musical genre in a imaginary blender, hitting purée, and serving it up with a generous helping of his witty sense of humor and penchant for absurdity. Born in Alaska but raised in Argentina, Johansen spent most of his life switching back and forth between North and South America, a fact that may explain his tendency to toy with cultural conventions."

Care to mentally map your city?

2005-06-27T20:22:00.000+10:00

"Imagine if you were walking in an unfamiliar area of town and suddenly you realized that it was very dark and the shadows looked distinctly unfriendly. But what if you had a map— a map that clearly marked out entire sections of the city as safe, or peaceful or even scary.

Such a map would be dramatically different from normal maps, in that the data being presented is no longer merely objective, but also subjective. Welcome to the new world of psychogeography. "

written by me :)

The Bat Bombers

2005-06-26T00:20:00.000+10:00

"DR. Lytle S. Adams, a dental surgeon from Irwin, Pa., was vacationing in the southwestern US on December 7, 1941. Like millions of Americans, he was shocked at the news from Pearl Harbor and couldn't believe Japan had been able to mount such an attack. In those days, 'Made in Japan' meant cheap, shabby, and inferior. Americans' image of Japan was of crowded cities filled with paper-and-wood houses and factories.

Dr. Adams pondered how the US could fight back. In a 1948 interview with the Bulletin of the National Speleological Society, Dr. Adams recalled: 'I had just been to Carlsbad Caverns, N. M., and had been tremendously impressed by the bat flight. . . . Couldn't those millions of bats be fitted with incendiary bombs and dropped from planes? What could be more devastating than such a firebomb attack?'"

The loneliness of writing

2005-06-23T12:40:00.000+10:00

"The 30ft (9m) sculpture, The Writer, will be on Parliament Hill for four months before returning to Italy.
The tribute to the loneliness of writing is meant to inspire visitors to the heath, which has associations with writers Keats and Coleridge."

The Obscure Cities

2005-06-19T17:47:00.000+10:00

Imagine another world (french site), a heartbeat, a breath away, and yet at the same time more distant than the farthest star. You can walk to it without even noticing, just by going through a door in some crooked building, or by day dreaming after having seen a curious painting or read an unusual book. It is a world of quaint vehicles (french site, flash), wondrous architecture and strange customs. {via vacapinta}

15 Min challenge roundup

2005-06-19T17:41:00.000+10:00

Here's a list of the people (in no particular order) who participated in the 15 min challenge as laid out here:

JP's Visitation
Harneet's non-surrealistic interpretation (of Windwriting)
Fence's Sentinels
Boomsa's Boomerang
Forgotten Machine's Skyscrapers
Cardboard Judas's you know, that monty python line...
Banzai Cat's In Media Res: Triumvirate (no permalink?! scroll down to the June 9 entry)
Finny's Skyscrapers
Still waiting for Jenn See's piece
And finally, mine own- Windwriting

The stories simply flow off the images :)

Let me know if I've missed any.

serendipity in sydney

2005-06-16T20:07:00.000+10:00

The plan was to go to the Powerhouse museum in downtown sydney- they were having a special exhibition of greek artifacts. I wasn't too keen, I've been to enough museums and the sight of so many limbless, headless statues only tends to depress me. But it had been a while since I've actually been to a museum, so when DP suggested we go there, I agreed. It turned out to be one of my better decisions, because the day was an unusually fortuitous and multicultural experience. Here's a list of the things we saw/did that day-

The Sydney Jazz Festival: We could hear the music from the bridge, and there were three separate stages. Two of those were floating stages and the third was in a park. Each stage had a completely different style of jazz, and we lingered for a couple of songs worth in each place...though I have to admit I wasn't really impressed with the Air Force Band's orchestra-type jazz, still it was a real pleasure to hear this music on such a sunny bright day.

The Chinese Garden of Friendship: A carefully constructed garden packed with all sorts of allusions to chinese philosophy and culture. A still lake fed by waterfalls in the middle of city. I tried to take a photograph of the rock standing serenely in the lake, and the skyscrapers in the background did their best to look like mountains in the distance. A short walk through a bamboo forest- thin reed like bamboos- and a longer walk around the garden, stopping every now and then to gaze at the huge white carp in the water.

The Powerhouse Museum: There weren't that many headless statues, but there were disembodied heads. Lots of jewelry and clothing. The highlight for me, was the beautiful illuminated medieval books, but DP claims that the gold leaf wreath, with its intricate patterns, was the best. The rest of the museum was pretty much a damp squib, though.

Market City: This is one of Sydney's largest closed door markets, and i've always wanted to go there, but never managed to get there in time. Walked through hundreds of stalls selling all manner of things, mostly chinese made australiana, but didn't linger long.

Chinatown: Do you see a theme developing? We walked through the China town area and had lunch at a chinese restaurant, where I did my customary struggle with the menu, trying to find non-boring vegetarian food.

The Aboriginal Music Demonstration: At the Northern Territory centre, we noticed that they were just about to start a performance intended to be an introduction to Aboriginal Music. The guide was quite good, and he played the Didgeridoo with great flair, and described what the sounds intended to depict. I think I finally understand a bit more about the music of this land. The power of the didgeridoo was amazing...I immediately wanted to try out the ones on sale, but all I could make were miniature fart noises. Someday...

The Fortune Teller: An automatic fortune teller, who spoke in such a garbled speech that I could hardly hear what it was saying.

Fireworks over the Harbour: To end the day's Jazz performances, there were fireworks. The harbour and surrounds lit up more than normal, and there was a collective oooh of the crowd when something special happened. Sparkly!

And finally a beer at one of the trendier nightclubs. A fitting end to an eventful day.

Seed of extinct date palm sprouts after 2,000 years

2005-06-14T13:22:00.000+10:00

"Planted on Jan. 25, the seedling growing in the black pot in Solowey's nursery on this kibbutz in Israel's Arava desert is 2,000 years old -- more than twice as old as the 900-year-old biblical character who lent his name to the young tree. It is the oldest seed ever known to produce a viable young tree."

Some Cafe Owners Pull the Plug on Lingering Wi-Fi Users

2005-06-13T17:49:00.000+10:00

"The staff at Victrola Café & Art is sick of talking about Wi-Fi. Given the opportunity, as at a recent cupping in the back of the store to smell and taste the latest in-house roasts, the group prefers to talk about cafe culture, or how to create a nuanced light roasted coffee."

Dangerrrr: cats could alter your personality

2005-06-11T14:50:00.000+10:00

"They may look like lovable pets but Britain’s estimated 9m domestic cats are being blamed by scientists for infecting up to half the population with a parasite that can alter people’s personalities.
Infected men, suggests one new study, tend to become more aggressive, scruffy, antisocial and are less attractive. Women, on the other hand, appear to exhibit the “sex kitten” effect, becoming less trustworthy, more desirable, fun- loving and possibly more promiscuous."

How to make a book

2005-06-10T18:13:00.000+10:00

"More than 100,000 books are published every year in the UK. Some go on to become multimillion bestsellers, the vast majority do not. Oliver Burkeman follows the 18-month-long journey of one novel, from the author's flash of inspiration in a pub, to the moment it hit the shelves at Books Etc"

Physics of knife throwing

2005-06-08T21:39:00.000+10:00

"It is important to keep in mind that a knife throw happens instinctively, without thinking, much like walking or riding a bike. You must not try to think of the throw! Helpful notions like 'release when the knife is pointing exactly at the target' are necessary to learn the motion sequence, but your brain will automatically adjust to release the knife in the right moment (a little earlier). Another example for this is 'holding higher'. Here too, you just can`t explain what exactly you change in your throw."

wind writing

2005-06-07T19:24:00.000+10:00

It's not an absent God that I hate: it's a fickle one that torments me. Obscure messages are hidden in the winds itself, and ever since the Elders discovered my knack, I have been chained to this desk. It wouldn't be so bad if I was considered an oracle, but they look at me with dismissive glances, as though what I do is not really important, or that my energies could be better utilized in other more productive ways. I can't say I disagree with that, but here I am, laboriously translating the smallest whiffs of air in to hard commandments. The Elders use them sometimes, but mostly in times of disaster...I am so tempted to add my own voice to the mix, how would they ever know? But I cannot be certain that they are not watching...and I cannot take that chance. But here I sit, I turn my back on those who need me the most, and listen to the wind whisper in my ears, an eerily soothing hypnotic melody, that I must transcribe- from an alien or even godly tongue- to this language of the earth. And one day, the Elders will themselves see that the wind is everywhere, and to catch a part of it is but a single thread in the tapestry, and that we follow the thread without understanding truly the nature of things, in the hope that the single gust might lead us onto greater things. And then I'll put away the tools of my trade, freed from the burden of being the only one who listens to the wind. Wind writing.

15 min thingy

2005-06-07T18:49:00.000+10:00

It's been quite a while since the rather ominous Beksinski episode, so I hereby announce another 15 min challenge thingy.

Rules:
1. Click here and choose any image you like.
2. Compose your piece in less than 15 mins.
3. Post it to your blog.
4. I think for this round it might be interesting to read the piece without seeing the image first, so just provide a link to the image after the piece (note that since the website uses frames, you can get the URL for particular images by hovering over the thumbnails).

The story of Community Bridge

2005-06-05T18:25:00.000+10:00

Well, OK, the bridge is a real bridge. But none of the stonework on this bridge is real. The Community Bridge mural project transformed this plain concrete bridge in Frederick, Maryland, near Washington D.C., into the stunning illusion of an old stone bridge. The entire structure was painted by hand by an artist and his assistants, using advanced trompe l'oeil ('deceive the eye') techniques. What is perhaps most unusual is that the bridge contains ideas, symbols and stories contributed by thousands of people from all over the community, across the country, and around the world."

Vegetable Rights Militant Movement

2005-06-03T21:57:00.000+10:00

"The Vegetable Rights Militant Movement (VRMM) is a nationally active, grassroots, vegetable liberation and defense organization. The VRMM differs from other vegetable activist organizations in that it really does all that it can to stop people from torturing, killing, humiliating, and ultimately eating vegetables and fruits."

Earth microbes may survive on Mars

2005-06-03T21:30:00.000+10:00

"Terrestrial microbes that hitch a ride to Mars on spacecraft may be able to survive under special circumstances, according to a new laboratory study. The research suggests scientists should take extra care when analysing potential signs of life during future missions to the Red Planet."

In the Eye of the Whirlpool

2005-06-02T22:08:00.000+10:00

"It had been written in blue, in the middle of a strait that separates two Inner Hebridean islands—one small and little known called Scarba, and another, larger, called Jura. At the northern side of this strait, two-thirds of the way toward its Atlantic exit, the map said, with neither comment nor explanation, 'Whirlpool.' The body of water in which it was sited was known as the Gulf of Corryvreckan: whatever it was that lurked two-thirds of the way along it was therefore known as the Corryvreckan Whirlpool.
But hold on! Whirlpools, I thought, were mythical entities, not the kind of thing to put on a modern-day map."

Blaschka Sea Creatures

2005-05-31T21:26:00.000+10:00

"During the fall of 1957 an unusual find was made at Cornell University in upstate New York. Professor Thomas Eisner, a young faculty member who was working in Roberts Hall and had begun to explore its musty corridors, found a series of locked antique wooden cabinets. Through the dingy glass windows were visible hundreds of delicate and unusual sea creatures, all the more extraordinary because landlocked Ithaca is several hundred miles away from the closest tide pools. Eisner picked the locks with a paper clip and were absolutely mesmerized to find that the highly detailed ocean invertebrates, including octopus, squid, pelagic snail, and sea cucumber, were made of glass. Altogether, 570 creatures had been-well, how had they been?-fashioned by someone, for some purpose. But why? And when?"

Collaborative art

2005-05-31T17:04:00.000+10:00

I took part in a collaborative art thingy.

Swastika trees

2005-05-30T20:54:00.000+10:00

"These trees were planted in the 1930's by a local resident during Nazi times. They were largely forgotten until after the German reunification in 1992 when planes once again flew over the area."

fallen angel

2005-05-30T20:14:00.000+10:00

I unexpectedly found myself in a small museum of natural history tucked away into a corner of the labyrinth that they call the department of biological sciences. There were mostly stuffed animals and skeleton displays, but also a few really old microscopes and cabinets and cabinets of mounted insects. The museum was deserted, but well lit, and I spent a few minutes lazily skimming over the features of the exhibits. One wall was devoted to aboriginal artifacts and old photographs illustrating their way of life, but what really caught my attention was the crucified bat-

One settlement (known only by the local name of 'bau.uli' ) was so remote that it was virtually cut off not only from the rest of civilization, but also other settlements. Their only contact with the outside world was when Fr. William, a wandering missionary, stumbled upon the site, in a state of starvation and despair, after having lost the rest of his comrades to disease and death. He recuperated slowly in the settlement, and started preaching. But the isolation and his repeated experiments with psychoactive herbs finally drove him insane. His teaching of Christ's story became more and more garbled till unfortunately, he left behind him a strange legacy. The main feature of his twisted religion that remained in the settlement was that since Christ was a fallen angel and the only reason why He was crucified was to free him from his sin against God. Every Good Friday, the people of the settlement caught a local bat, and crucified it, in a ritualistic recreation of that event.

Fanimation Enigma Fan

2005-05-27T23:02:00.000+10:00

Fanimation Enigma Fan - extraordinary fan | Trendir: "Fanimation makes some unique fans that are innovative and extraordinary. The Enigma Fan was featured in the movie I, Robot. This blade like fan does look futuristic."

Twins Days

2005-05-27T15:47:00.000+10:00

This is the official web page for the Twins Days Festival. Twins Days in Twinsburg, Ohio is the world's largest annual gathering of twins. Every August since 1976, twins, supertwins, and parents of same from around the world descend on this small town just south of Cleveland for a weekend of socializing, celebration and fun.

Creationism: God's gift to the ignorant

2005-05-26T14:55:00.000+10:00

"The creationists’ fondness for “gaps” in the fossil record is a metaphor for their love of gaps in knowledge generally. Gaps, by default, are filled by God. You don’t know how the nerve impulse works? Good! You don’t understand how memories are laid down in the brain? Excellent! Is photosynthesis a bafflingly complex process? Wonderful! Please don’t go to work on the problem, just give up, and appeal to God. Dear scientist, don’t work on your mysteries. Bring us your mysteries for we can use them. Don’t squander precious ignorance by researching it away. Ignorance is God’s gift to Kansas."

See also this piece in the New Yorker: Why intelligent design isn't.

eurovision 2005

2005-05-23T22:32:00.000+10:00

So here's some unsolicited advice for you. If somebody is selling sweepstakes tickets for the Eurovision contest, don't hesitate, buy one. Even if you draw a country like Malta, and even though you've already seen the video on the webpage and you've already written off the money, you can never predict how things will go with the Eurovision contest. You might even get your country to come in at second place, ensuring that you rake in enough cash to go have lunch at the Indian food stall in the shopping mall.

Technorati Tags: eurovision, me

Battle for the Taj Mahal

2005-05-23T14:04:00.000+10:00

"An ownership battle has erupted over the world’s most famous monument to love, the Taj Mahal, as it celebrates its 350th anniversary.
The magnificent 17th-century structure built by Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan as a tomb for his beloved queen, Mumtaz Mahal, is owned and managed by the Archaeological Survey of India as a national monument.
But the Sunni Waqf Board, which oversees Sunni Muslim graveyards and mosques throughout India, has staked a claim to the white-marbled tomb, saying since the monument houses Muslim graves, the Taj belongs to it."

Technorati Tags: india, religion, TajMahal

The Mermaid

2005-05-23T13:58:00.000+10:00

"Recently, as I was waiting in line at the local Starbucks®, I overheard two customers arguing about the Starbucks' logo. Is it a siren or a mermaid? The current logo doesn't give enough visual information, as one customer pointed out, but the original logo was a creature with the upper half of a woman and a split fish tail—a mermaid by his reckoning. The other customer pointed out that Starbucks refers to the image as a siren. Could they be wrong about their own corporate logo?"

vampire bees

2005-05-20T17:06:00.000+10:00

It seemed like a typical mad scientist experiment. Doing things just to see if could be done. A large amount of science works like this, all it needs is some demented mind saying, -wonder what happens if I mix this with this, -and voila, boom. This guy was training bees for some typical psychology experiment, you know, see how far they'll go, what they remember and stuff. Normally one would have to train bees with a small bottle-cap filled with sugar water, but he was lazy and the cap wasn't working, so he started dipping his finger in the sugar water and getting the bees to lick at it with their weird tongues. The bees used to hang on to his finger so it was easy to carry them over to wherever he wanted to . But on that fateful day, our mad scientist had a cut on his finger.To his surprise, the mixture of blood and sugar water was greatly liked by the bees. So he thought, what the hell maybe they really prefer blood. He started training them with blood acquired from the medical centre where he bribed some junior researchers. Soon the bees grew fat and fertile on this diet of blood. They wouldn't like sugar water anymore. He tried to get them to switch back, but it failed, they converged on the exposed parts of his skin and tried to penetrate the surface. But their tongues were not up to the task. He thought that would be the end of it, but he didn't know about the mutation.
Technorati Tags: bees, vampire, irreal, writing

Red is the colour if winning is your game

2005-05-19T20:30:00.000+10:00

"Five teams in the Euro 2004 competition who had predominantly red in one of their two kits all did significantly better while wearing red, scoring around one extra goal per game."

UPDATE: in the FA cup, Arsenal (wearing red) beat Manchester United (wearing black) in a closely contested match that went to tie-breaker. (5-4).

God's total quality management questionnaire

2005-05-16T23:19:00.000+10:00

"God would like to thank you for your belief and patronage. In order to better serve your needs, He asks that you take a few moments to answer the following questions. Please keep in mind that your responses will be kept completely confidential, and that you need not disclose your name or address unless you prefer a direct response to comments or suggestions."

dinner at juju's

2005-05-16T20:00:00.000+10:00

You may reach Juju's without much difficulty, if the directions are good, even though the doorway is so small that you might easily miss it if you were distracted by the early crowds of King's Cross. As you reach the end of the stairs, don't be alarmed by the guy holding plastic bags who welcomes you, sort of, because all he wants is your shoes, because you see, Juju's is an AUTHENTIC Japanese restaurant, and we all know that AUTHENTIC Japanese restaurants don't let you wear your street shoes inside, and make unbecoming street marks on the lovely wood panelling. Oh no, that wouldn't do at all. So you pack your oh-so-beautiful shoes in a not so beautiful supermarket plastic bag and carry it with you to your assigned table. And the tables WILL be assigned, make no mistake, for Juju's is a wildly popular place, and it IS a Saturday night after all. Oh no, they don't care if the birthday girl has booked in huge numbers. They get that all the time. So just take your shoes, look for your table among the vaguely cubicle-like seating arrangements and slide your feet under the table with good grace, nevermind if you've never been to a Japanese restaurant before. Ok. Let's get serious. You're in for a Serious cultural experience here.

Order the sake. When they ask warm or cold, say warm- of course! Everybody knows that Sake must be drunk warm. Try not to hear you neighbour saying that it tastes like mouthwash- what does he know! Ignore, somehow, the fact that none of your table companions have ordered sake, and you know THEY'VE been to a Japanese place before, because you see them wielding the chopsticks like natives. Pour the sake in the little porcelain cup and quaff it, and you realize that your tongue has finally tasted something it never has before. Good. One down. Order the food, and wait for the impending culture clash to be played out on your tongue. This is one time you must turn off the tastebuds, because your brain is telling you that it tastes like..well..nothing, but hey there's an abundance of Soy sauce. Dip it. It will end soon, anyway.
It's getting there, you're close to 10:30 now. That's why people come here, to see the ponytailed guy head to the microphone and announce the rules of the Karaoke. Who cares if you can't understand a word of what he's saying or even if he's speaking english. you already know what he's saying. Let the music begin.
Wait what is it...it sounds familiar...it's the BIRTHDAY SONG!!! for all three lucky people who shared not only the same birthday but the same idea even. well. Now the day has really begun. Try not to make sense of the videos accompanying the singer, it's all a bunch of vaguely appropriate generic videos. Some verses connect with the songs, but most times, it provides an all too deliriously over the top re-interpretation of the songs, and the night fritters itself away with alarming ease.

Technorati Tags: restaurant, sydney, me,

Crimen ferpecto (Ferpect Crime)

2005-05-13T20:03:00.000+10:00

Crimenferpecto
Originally uploaded by dinrao.

This film by director Alex de la Iglesia was showing in town as part of a theater's Spanish Film Festival. A bunch of us piled into a car and headed through the city to reach there. It was a dark rainy night, and all the sidewalk cafes boasted inviting italian names. The film is a dark comedy about a departmental store champion and rake (Rafael) who accidently kills his rival for the position of floor manager and tries to cover it up with the help of one of the girls (Lourdes) who works there. The catch is, Lourdes is really 'ugly' and to top it madly in love with Rafael. So the film is essentially a comedy of friction, as Rafael desperately tries to retain his status as the king of the shop floor while trying to keep the girl from blackmailing her way into his life.
The movie is hilarious, it's been a long time since I actually laughed out loud in a theatre. And the situations presented by the plot are so surreal and hypnotic, that I found myself going along for the ride. The movie has everything: politics in the workplace, gender fights, the concept of beauty and even fashion. However, the plot starts unravelling at the end and the conclusion is satisfactory at best.
Cool scenes: the scene where Rafael rents a whole slew of murder movies in order to plan a murder, and one of the films he rents is called "Crimen Ferpecto"- delightfully self referential; the scene where Rafael meets Lourdes's family, and especially Lourdes's dad's collection of all sorts of miniature things; the scene where Lourdes proposes to Rafael on Live TV.

Scientology Losing Ground To New Fictionology

2005-05-12T13:14:00.000+10:00

"According to a report released Monday by the American Institute of Religions, the Church of Scientology, once one of the fastest-growing religious organizations in the U.S., is steadily losing members to the much newer religion Fictionology"

Now this is one religion I can endorse :)

Book purge

2005-05-10T16:33:00.000+10:00

"It is the darkest chapter in 40 years for Mumbai’s booksellers. The 45-odd booksellers lining the artery from Churchgate to Flora Fountain were evicted by the BMC on May 6."

Bombay govt is getting stupider by the day.

Metaphilm on Star Wars

2005-05-09T17:56:00.000+10:00

"The fictional universes depicted in movies like the Star Wars or Star Trek series tend to get very complex . That complexity means that—inevitably—the occasional “continuity error” occurs. In normal movie parlance, a continuity error means one of those embarrassing moments when, say, the bandage on an actor moves from the right hand to the left hand between scenes due to a mistake by the makeup department. For science fiction fans, though, continuity refers to the overall logical and historical coherence of our beloved fictional universes."

Elizabeth's story

2005-05-06T18:08:00.000+10:00

Every once in a while, when the sun comes out, I see Elizabeth, the Lizard girl. There are a few like her in the campus, but most are shy and reclusive. Elizabeth too is not very keen on being identified as one with the Lizard gene, but the sun is a rare pleasure as winter draws ever closer. She has a favorite spot, just next to the emu enclosure and just behind the small stand of trees that separate the grass field from the lake and the rest of the campus. Somedays, when the weather is just too good to ignore, all the lizard people come out in force, and settle down on the grassy veld silently or in pairs. They're well equipped with their blankets and whatnot, somehow they seem to know what the weather is going to be like. I pass them on the way to the coffee shop, trying hard not to stare, or even let them know that I'm passing by, but that's an easy thing to do, most of them are already in their own worlds, changing their skin colour slowly with time. Elizabeth, especially, becomes a glowing red, an almost fluorescent red that can be seen for a long distance. I've never actually seen the skin change, just before and after scenes. And then, when enough colour has seeped onto the skin, and with the body recharged, Elizabeth will pull herself upright, and walk gently, slowly across the grass. There's a sense of peace about her now.

Wrong Number of the Beast

2005-05-04T12:17:00.000+10:00

[Link]: "A newly discovered fragment of the oldest surviving copy of the New Testament indicates that, as far as the Antichrist goes, theologians, scholars, heavy metal groups, and television evangelists have got the wrong number. Instead of 666, it's actually the far less ominous 616."

How to cook with Lava

2005-05-03T21:08:00.000+10:00

[Link]: "With a shovel you don't plan on using again... gather a good amount of 2000° F Lava. Try to find Lava from a recent breakout, where the Lava is fairly fluid.
Once you have a shovel full, place it on the ground far enough away from the Lava field that you won't worry about having to move it."

on SF

2005-04-28T18:28:00.000+10:00

Several years back, I somehow ended up at the first ever meeting of the Indian Association for Science Fiction, an organisation which may or may not be defunct by now, and one of the 'big shots' there was this telegu writer of SF. Since he was one of the few there who actually wrote science fiction, he was getting a lot of attention. But his most annoying repetitive contribution to the discussion was the take that SF is *supposed* to predict the future. And I found that this view is quite prevalent, i.e., that SF is just another term for Futurology. Bring up anything and he'd go on and on about how it was all mentioned in the Vedas, and that the Ancient Indians thought of everything first. The real point of SF, as JP says, is that it gives us an opportunity to hold up a mirror to reality, but not so much an objective one, but rather a distorted one, with the irregularities in the image a product of the writer's particular point of view.

I think that the genre of SF really comes into its own when writers attempt to show a world not so different from ours in the grand scale of things, but very different from ours where it counts. Just a small tweak in a social custom and you can have entirely unpredictable and fascinating consequences. To use a bad analogy, it's a bit like exaggerating to make a point.

Smoking manners in Tokyo

2005-04-28T13:02:00.000+10:00

[Link]: "But thankfully this hasn’t stopped Japan Tobacco from continuing its (unintentionally) funny and often-unfathomable smoking manner campaign."

This Shrimp's Got Rhythm

2005-04-26T17:21:00.000+10:00

[Link]: "In the new study, Becker's team observed the interactions between cleaner shrimp and various species of parasite-laden predatory fish in the wild. As potential customers approached, one or more shrimp moved toward the fish, shifting side-to-side in a dance the researchers suspect signals that the shrimp are available for cleaning: Every time a cleaner shrimp danced, it successfully lured a new customer"

Jack Spencer - Aparicioñes

2005-04-25T16:05:00.000+10:00

[Link]: "Spencer is an accomplished self-taught photographer whose umber-colored images of rural life in the American south and Mexico have been compared to the writings of William Faulkner, Cormac McCarthy, and Flannery O'Connor. His exquisitely crafted prints are the result of an exceptional vision, original darkroom technique, and a marvelous sense of story.
"

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's flight writings

2005-04-23T12:19:00.000+10:00

[Link]: "No one has written about air like Saint-Exupéry. Air was a substance whose beauty so astonished him that he often lapsed into dream-like states while at the controls: the aeroplanes he was flying did not have autopilot. 'I live', he once wrote, 'in the realm of flight'."

a moment

2005-04-22T15:30:00.000+10:00

I'm sitting at the outdoor part of the cafeteria, sipping a coffee, and doing that gazing off in to the distance routine. It's been a drizzly morning, and the grass in the Uni is just a shade wetter than dew. Grey sky, but the east is actually pretty, with the sun trying to break free but losing the fight. There's a couple at a table next to mine, and they're having a heated discussion, when suddenly the clouds open up and a brief but dramatic downpour starts. I'm jerked out of my reverie and start looking at the rain. The conversation at the neighbouring table ebbs for a minute, and the guy gestures to the rain and says, into the rain-studded silence, 'This is just like India'

Molecular gastronomy

2005-04-22T14:37:00.000+10:00

[Link]: "The application of science to domestic and restaurant cooking has developed into the new science of Molecular Gastronomy - the application of scientific principles to the understanding and improvement of gastronomic food preparation."

petting bumblebees

2005-04-21T22:21:00.000+10:00

petting bumblebees
Originally uploaded by zÐµn.

"If you still the conversation inside you and watch bumblebees go about their business for a while,... then at some point when your body tells you to, reach over and lightly pet one."

The Glory

2005-04-21T21:14:00.000+10:00

[Link]: "Looking out the window of an airplane, you might be lucky enough to see 'the glory' in the direction directly opposite the Sun. Before airplanes, the phenomenon, known to some as the heiligenschein or the Specter of the Brocken, was sometimes seen from mountaintops. There, when conditions were right, one could look away from the Sun and see what appeared to be the shadow of a giant surrounded by a bright halo. The giant turns out to be the observer, as in the modern version a silhouette of an plane frequently occupies the glory's center."

I saw this on a recent flight.

Webmaster Borges

2005-04-19T21:47:00.000+10:00

[Link]: "It was in the story 'Pierre Menard, Author of the 'Quixote,'' that I found just such a phrase, a tip-off that the greatest inspiration for Borges' work was a phenomenon that wasn't invented until four years after his death in 1986: the World Wide Web."

an etymological argument

2005-04-19T20:18:00.000+10:00

I was showing AH one of my three Rings of Power, the one that has a dull grey metallic look, and I told him that it was a typical tourist ring because this kind of stuff is mostly available in airport stores and Australiana shops. It's made of Haematite, and I kinda chided him that he should have at least guessed that haematite was iron ore. To illustrate the point I referred to Haemoglobin (AH is also a biologist), and that he could have connected the iron atom containing structure of the molecule to the 'haemo' part of the ore. But he countered that Haemo refers to the red colour of blood. I replied that red is erythro and cannot possibly be Haemo. He dug up another biological example, saying that the Red rumped parrot is also known as Psephotus haematonotus, and the haemo refers to the red ..well, rump. We had reached an impasse, and to resolve the argument, we fled to our respective computers. I verified the red rumpedness of the red-rumped parrot. Doubts started to creep in. I checked an online latin dictionary, but it told me what I already knew, the latin for iron is Ferreus. Well, I reasoned, maybe its Greek. But the Greek dictionary told me that the word of Iron was Sidiros. Now I was thoroughly confused. What the hell was Haemo anyway? In desperation, I went to the Online Etymological dictionary, which kindly told me that AH was right, sort of, all this while and that Haemetite is 1543, from M.Fr. hematite, from L. hæmatites, from Gk. haimatites lithos "bloodlike stone," from haima (gen. haimatos) "blood."