Death of a bird

My daily commute to office is a dreary affair, gobbles up 20% of out of home - in office time. The sounds of everyday offer nothing new and nothing really shakes you up in the time you spend traveling. It might be the scraggly beggars or the bold eunuchs or the honking honchos who think decibel is a credible solution to a traffic wipe out. I find it fascinating to listen to the auto drivers and pretend to understand their  stories. While you have the "I want a star inside my auto" drivers there are other who believe in driving a spartan existence. 

Today was one such sample. While Vijayakumar (aka the spartan driver) was negotiating a turn suddenly I was kicked by a sound that appeared to be a cross between an emergency siren and almost the sound of chirp.

Something is awry, I thought. I checked my "usually dumb" smartphone to see if it had chosen to emit sounds, after being silent from the day it was possessed. That not being the case, I triangulated (the third point of this triangulation is day dreaming, which is not a skill I possess) that the auto must be experiencing a snag, so I asked Vijayakumar. You have various spectrum of people who want to model their horn-sound on their characters, their likings, their songs. Left to me I would put a horn that would say "Hat jaa M#^$%jaat" in an escalating crescendo.

Back to the auto ride, Vijayakumar informed me that this was a sound of a bird, obviously marred by the cheap electronics of his auto. Why would someone put the sound of bird - I asked. He said that this was the sound of a sparrow. Sparrow - the relic of our immediate past - that somehow vanished from our daily existence. The sound of this past was something unexpected. Even if its a surprise (which it is intended to be), it does not quite convey what I felt then.

V added - with a confidence that indicated he must know his stuff well - "You can only find sparrows in villages". "These towers kill them". When I asked them what towers (buildings or something else) , as if correcting a wayward child, he said "Cell phone towers, what else". The power emitted by them (at those frequencies, I am assuming) kill sparrows.

If you want to see sparrows - go to Bangalore International Airport. Sparrows - the closest definition of a chirp, long dead in our ears. 

Some lines

Collected memory from the last few weeks -

"A friend in need is a ghost indeed" - From "Hamlet - The Clown Prince" - Adaptation of the eponymous play by Shakespeare - Rajat Kapoor

"...after these long years don't ask me how have I been but instead ask me who have I been or what have I become..." - Bungled / Mungled lines from a play that I dont remember.

As one goes through their lives, dip stick at the 35s should answer the question - "See how much rubbish I have collected over the years"

Some paradoxes that puzzle me -

"Our brains helping us understand about how our brains work." Mighty self referential

On a similar vein -

"Language helping us understand the nature of language itself." We live in powerful, self reinforcing ideas.

Soul searching

Cat on a hot tin roof, woof woof or rather meow. Very influentials for an 1880's play.

Naseeruddin Shah doing a GB Shaw for $20. Definitely not worth it. I slept through Arms and the man mostly.

I be the difference between Run and Ruin. Wow Linguistic overtures is back.

And finally from the vaults of outbursts of anger - like electricity, anger also seeks the path of least resistance. There is no use putting up to it (or resisting), you will be burnt and the anger will seek a better prospect.

Die all ye people who shout for no rhyme or reason or even for patriarchal reason.

Consumables

Some thoughts on changing atmosphere I see around -

1. Indigo Manza is now being called Tata Manza (Guess now it has become a brand of its own)
2. Facebook Ads - All the options, if one clicks the "x" button is that it tries to get feedback about the ad insert but never asks if the user is actually interested in the ad? Why?

Wordplay

Trees of fruits bearing life hanging over the river of death. Waiting for their fall!

Resume Hat tip - Peter Norvig

Job hunting while sucky, tacky etc can be fun as well. Consider this piece from Peter Norvig's (Research Director, Google) resume / bio / self description bit. I consider this ingenious, a great moment to turn the conversation to places.

File it under other information / achievements or just below professional summary. Of course the nay sayers may say only Peter Norvig can do this. I think its crazy style brilliance.

Fun from the world

As I spend more days waiting for someone's final decision to finally hire me, I continue to enjoy the small world around me. For proof -

Text under the fold is an email I got for a job posting -

Hi

Warm Greetings. We have an excellent opening with one of our client for the Position "French resource".
Please find the details below:
Location: Bangalore
Shifts Any one of the below options
1) Rotational shift (Preferable) every 3-4 months
2) Early morning shift starting 8 am
3) Regular day shit-9 am thru 6 pm .... (so on)

Regular day shit - That's one typo I would never forget / condone. Mighty LOLs occured.

University of Iowa's Internation writing programs mentions this -

"His short tories ....."

Short tories ? I understand but short tories. Please explain.

Linguistic Overtures - 29 Sep 2010

Self sufficient words in a sentence (could not think around it much)

Organism in orgasm ...

(Take "in" out from the organism)

Linguistic Overtures - 20 Sep 2010

Not at least literally or in terms of language but this is the kind of the firsts for me.

Japan's two cities are infact anagrams of each other -

1. Tokyo (the capital)
2. Kyoto (the environment protocol)

Are there any other examples or does this make Japan unique?

Linguistic Overtures

Noun and a verb as anagrams - proof - see the two end-letter reversal in the word

Noun - Categories

Verb - Categorise

PS - Works in one version of grammar only

Linguistic Overtures

This one is titled "Musically yours". Well, self explanatory-anagrammatic five letter words presented below -

Till its done well "Notes" and "Tones" are great. If not, all I saw was a "Stone".

Its like this cryptic world view of words.

Rediscovering Saala, Sasur, Devar

Sometimes it is very adventurous to trace origins of common-place words -

1. Saala - Brother in law - Shyaalah (Sanskrit)
2. Devar - Husband's brother - Dhevarah (Sanskrit)
3. Sasur - Father in law - Shwasurah (Sanskrit)

Such fun !!

The Bombing of Dresden - Kurt Vonnegut's words

"On about February 14th the Americans came over, followed by the R.A.F. their combined labors killed 250,000 people in twenty-four hours and destroyed all of Dresden -- possibly the world's most beautiful city. But not me. "

Notice the day - Feb 14 (St. Valentine eh!!)

Notice the number - 250, 000 and 24 hours (Oh my god)

Notice the last three words - "But not me" and I am thankful for the above.

Seen somewhere

A message on a t-shirt

Cogito cargo sum

(Rene Descartes seen committing suicide)

Colour me a few months of life

The colour of life, lived in the

the colour of lies;

the colour of imagination, lost in the

the colour of effervescence;

the colour of the gaze, seen through the

the colour of a veil;

The colour of the eyes in

the colour of the mind;

Reproduction - Used books

Found inscribed in a used book, that I brought some time back from the bylanes of Calcutta -

"To Partha,

Always remember

Love,

Papa"

!!Oh the irony!!

Reproduction - Panwari

Panwari - Shop around the corner selling betel nuts and other uniquely Indian digestives.

Heard from one -

"Saab, choona lagate lagate 15 saal ho gaye" and then after some time

"mera matlab, paan main".

He goes on to justify that indeed it was necessary for clarifying the context as his duty.

Such gems I say.

Reproduction - Shakespeare as a mathematician

Q - Prove that Shakespeare was a mathematician? (let 2 minutes pass to overcome the surprise)

A - He solved the equation a^2 - 4b^2 = 0

Q - Please prove?

A - To be or not to be

Disclosure

-Again quoting with permission. "Not" to be read as negation and "be" loses an e.

Linguistic overtures

Discretion provides Directions (only the SC moves)

Note - Long time since some word has really made some meaning while juggling. Well this one came while reading this.

Rant - Chrome

Having recently switched to Chrome (100 %) I find its handling of RSS Feeds to be poor. Let me illustrate -

So I install this extension for auto subscribing to RSS feeds (Link). This page says "okay I am now subscribing to the feed that I wanted". However even after checking the box above, it automagically forgets that "yes I had indeed asked you to remember that I want to subscribe to all feeds via Google Reader ONLY".

Now this screen says "You are not subscribed to this feed yet". I would swear that I indeed did that before (in the screen above).

Or maybe I am using a wrong extension.