The BookWorm

"The road to knowledge begins with the turn of the page."
-- Anonymous


Reading is one of my greatest passions. It is fun, offers a different insight, helps me to learn things, and makes me travel around the globe (and beyond, at times). Here are some of the books that inspired me

End of Eternity : (Issac Asimov)
Genius of an author in the sci-fi category. It is amazing how Asimov can come up with the idea of intergalactic politics or the complexities that the laws of robotics might pose. End of eternity is a fantastically woven story with intergalactic politics and science. (The problem with asimov’s work is that it is not available in our place as much as I would like, sigh…).


Lord of the Rings : (J.R.R Tolkein)
Lord of the rings has its own universe, its own characters, and its own material. It took almost one complete month for me to read the entire book (and while I was at it I only did just that, read…) How far can man’s creativity reach, read for yourself in this book.

Andromeda Strain: (Micheal Crichton)
I won’t say I like all of his books (especially NEXT - a real bummer), but the books I liked are science fiction’s magnum opus. Apart from making you sick and helping you with the digestion process what else can a bacteria be used for? Hmm... Let’s see, to make contact with extraterrestrial intelligence, perhaps? If you are confused to visualize the concept, read for yourself in this book (if you are a movie freak, watch the movie of the same name).

Freedom at midnight : (Dominique Lapierre and Larry Collins)
Sheds so much light about the pre freedom India that I felt ashamed that there is so much I don’t know about my own country. Normally I won’t go for non-fictional work or self improvement book. But this one has opened my eyes towards this genre. (Jai Ho)

The Collected Short Stories & Cat of nine tales (Jeffrey Archer) :
He is known as a master storyteller and my inspired books cannot be complete without his work. How can one forget ‘the steal’ or ‘the maestro’ or ‘the old love’? (or Mr. Robert Mallory from his recent work ‘Paths of Glory’).


Mahabharatha:
The great Indian epic. One cannot simply categorize mahabharatha as a book. Rather it is a life in itself. From endless drama to never ending action mahabharatha is one of the finest books there is. It draws inspiration from life and many of us Indians find spiritual guidance in its phrases (I wonder whether Tolkein had the chance to read this one).

Search of truth

Having watched the movie contact was, kind of enlightening. Not that the facts handled in the movie was unknown, but the way it was told makes it more realistic.

Apart from the political drama, it was very well done.

Now for some of the facts that I have gathered:

SETI (Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence), was a program originally launched by the United States government. The U.S contributed to earlier SETI projects, but recent work has been primarily funded by private sources.

In 1960, Cornell University astronomer Frank Drake performed the first modern SETI experiment. Since then only once a possible non-terrestrial radio signal was found. It was named the WOW signal. After that SETI project has never aroused much interest. Perhaps, due to the fact, that the space is too big for the humans.

Although, this part of science doesn’t get much respect in the field of astronomy, postulating regular communication in several star systems makes a successful SETI effort more defensible.

In other words it is highly unlikely that we are going to make contact with a Extraterrestrial civilization with just SETI. We need intergalactic travel systems for that. Which is extremely expensive, so much expensive that the entire human society funding for a intergalactic travel will not be enough.

Despite all these facts, I believe there is definitely some one out there. As it was told in the movie

“if it is just us... seems like an awful waste of space”.

Hypercube

Yesterday i saw the movie cube 2. Though it was a crap movie with bad acting and poor graphics the concept behind it intrigued me. Wanted to learn more about a hypercube I googled the internet and found some fascinating information about it.

Definition :

In geometry, a hypercube is an n-dimensional analogue of a square (n = 2) and a cube (n = 3). It is a closed, compact, convex figure whose 1-skeleton consists of groups of opposite parallel line segments aligned in each of the space's dimensions, at right angles to each other and of the same length.

Actually, that was the answer I got from wikipedia. And yes, I cannot make head or tail of it (being a math genius and all). So I continued my search in you tube and then bingo !

Explanation:




More Explanation:

Though it was very well explained, I still had problems in visualizing a 4d object. So, i continued my search and landed in this site


http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/7997/hypercube.html


Sigh! I badly wanted to be a math genius

Things I wanted to be

“Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.”
- Harriet Tubman

We are made of many things – we all wanted to be many things. All of us have dreamt of a career, while some of us are lucky enough to get their dream job others are content enough to stick to the ones they got. Below are the list of things that I wanted to be.


Astronaut:

Who are we? What are we? Where are we? Solutions for the puzzles of universe are mankind’s greatest conquest. I am awed at the enormity of the universe and how insignificant earth is, in comparison. I would give up anything to take on this job

Archeologist:

If you have ever played Tomb Raider or seen Indiana Jones you will know how lucrative this job can be. Raid tombs, kick villains, dive from mountain, unearth ancient treasures, the list goes on. Sadly, though, I have learnt that it is not as adventurous as it sounds.

Actor:

Well, this is not just the job but this is THE JOB. Apart from incredibly famous and unbelievably rich you can also play all the above characters as an actor. (Did I see someone smirking???)

Detective:

No one could have inspired me for this one than our iconic sleuth Sherlock Holmes. With a razor sharp mind and flashing reflexes and an enigmatic persona no one can escape his spell.

Singer/ composer:

Whatever I said about the ‘actor’ suits pretty well to this one as well. However, I find singing more enjoyable as it is kind of soul related.

What am I doing now? I am a banker now. As much as I hate to admit how much I hate this job (the reason being I HATE MATHS) I must also accept that this is a far better job than my previous jobs.

Well, we cannot get everything in life, Can We?

In a way it is like the doorknob used to say in ‘Alice in wonderland’, “Read the directions and directly you will be directed in the right direction”.

Faire du tourisme`

"Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life." ~ Mark Twain

Life can be hectic at times. You could muster every ounce of energy to get a job done only to be dragged behind for the simplest of reasons. And this is exactly how my mood was last week… until my friends arrived.

We traveled from hill station to falls to hilltops. Our three day venture went like three minutes

Day one : Yercaud
A hill station which is about 45 minutes from my home.




Day two : Hogenakkal
River, falls and more water.




Day three : Hilltop
Have to do some trekking to reach the hilltop for 45 minutes to reach a small venkatesa temple.





Life cannot be much happier than this.

Simple Pleasures

We are always on the lookout for new things to reinvent and divert ourselves from our daily routine. Following are the list of things that kept me ticking this month despite my busy schedule.

1. I’m yours – Jason Mraz
The music is not too jazzy, the video does not have any CG in it, and even the lyric is kind of crappy. And yet it has something in it that makes me hear it (and sing it) at least three or four times a day.

2. The Fear – Lilly Allen
Songs that have the F*** and S*** and B*** doesn’t agree with me very much. But “The Fear” slaps you in the face with some hard lyric and great music.

3. Gives you hell – All American Rejects
This song has a wry sense of humor which might remind you of your ex girlfriend.

4. Twilight
I know it’s been several months since this movie was released. But I’ve seen it just few weeks back. And I had been seeing it everyday since then, for the beautiful Bella Swan aka Kristen Stewart. Hmm.. I could only wish I’ve born in US in LA near her house (sigh).

5. Tomb Raider – Underworld
Apart from the incredibly unruly camera and clipping issues underworld is an exciting game. The locations and the puzzles are very well done. Some cool costumes and moves add spice to an already addictive formula.

Annoyances of a pc gamer

Finally, I was able to get my hands on Mass Effect PC version (don’t be surprised, it usually will take months for games to find its way to our town. At times it won’t even be available). But, to my annoyance I was not able to play the game on my pc due to my older graphic card (6600 LE), it was like watching a slide show. After much thought I bought myself a ATI Radeon 4850 for Rs10,000, which is Rs3000 more than my current salary (I am seriously considering about robbing a bank now). Again to my annoyance I found out that my PSU or SMPS lacks the 6 pin connector for the latest graphic card (argh, yif yaf, that’s me tearing my hair apart). So, I spent another Rs2700 (*@## %&&) on a new PSU (black diamond 500 watts).


It was worth the money, I was able to play the game in maximum settings with all the eye candy on. But then again, corner of my brain started asking me questions. Whether it was worth spending such huge amount on gizmos and luxuries, as there are so many out there who can’t afford for a decent meal.


As a wise gamer once said,
To play a game these days one has to
1) Be happy playing the game with low settings (in other words, you should be a saint)
2) Be a billionaire (no I am not exaggerating, an alienware ALX X 58Desktop Perfection starts from $3,949)

Better still; find a job as a game reviewer in a game magazine.