Magically Tragic

Science is a wonderful, fascinating day-to-day explanation of facts, phenomena and the like.

The wonder and magic that's encapsulated within its expanding realm,
The peculiarities and oddities of things happening around
The understanding and awe it imparts,
And questions more it provokes us to ask;
Stands a distance away and entices us with answers
Till we seek, the mystery remains
And once we know, the bubble is broken
So does vanish all the stun

Continuing after my unexpected creative outburst, well that summarises one of the problems in science.

You feel like a wondering, hopeful, thinking, questioning kid who feels the need to know answers to many questions,
And as the questions are answered by science, all the magic vanishes, all the awe ends.
Of course, the appreciation of nature's way of doing it stays.

But, once we know and understand, we say, "Oh, that's it!" and move on to more questions.

Keep questioning
And Thinking

Yours

Costliest Coffee

In a conversation today about coffee-drinking habits of people, I was told about the World's Costliest Coffee - Kopi* Luwak

*I so bet that they flicked the name from modest tamil South Indians known for their kaapi
You bet you'd want it.
Priced at about 30$ per cup after being shipped to say, Switzerland (No, I have never been there, nor have I drunk the coffee, but I doubt if it sells here, they are standard prices. And I don't do numbers in dollars).

Yes, yes you will become rich and go to the swiss and have a cup of the costliest coffee.

But, why is it so costly?

So, here's the bit!

Marsupial civet cats in Indonesia eat coffee seeds. And coffee brewers collect the seeds back from their faeces and remove a thin layer off it and it's ready for grinding and roasting. The droppings of these wild civets are rare to find and so, the price. It has also been found that the gastric juices in the digestive system act upon the coffee removes some of the caffeine and some proteins that make the coffee bitter.

There's nothing in there that can cause harm.

Care for a cuppa?
Come over

At the thought of amma's filter coffee, salivating-ly
Yours

Guess

The crisp, uncrinkled daily lands with a smooth skid and you acknowledge its presence as you take your eyes of the cooling coffee. A silent stretch and you are off to melt into the world with its woes, worries, joys and jargon. Sifting through the carbon-filled pages, sipping the cooled coffee, some days you look at me walking groggily with a toothbrush docked in my mouth, other days you watch me come with a few deliberate droplets of water on my eyes. Trying to stifle a smile, I stride upto you (inspite of the sleepiness), and wrestle with words (mostly due to my incapacity in others). After a much expected defeat, I slide onto the sofa and wait for the coffee to come. Meanwhile, digesting a 14 pg newspaper, you trot away to do your chores of the day. And that's when I pick it up. Trying to leave the paper as uncrinkled as it was after you read it to prevent detection, I skim through the pages catching words - here and there - Power cuts - Water woes - Bribery - Money - Investment - Victory and done! My paper reading for the day is over.

May be it's inherent, may be it's just me, but what I dislike the most is creases on papers - papers whatsoever, the fresh morning daily, radiant sheets from an A4 bundle, unnecessary folds on answer scripts, casual creases on my notes, thumbing of page edges, browning due to touch., Oh STOP!

Do people ever notice it? Or they don't care?

Either way, let me not spot another unnecessarily crinkled sheet!

Momentarily disgruntled this morning-ly
Yours

PS : When you're hungry and have no option, look on peacefully at the vada-pav guy who packs it up in newspaper just so he leaves you less hungry.

And yes, what do you think the first passage is about? I thank YOU in this passage. Post your guesses.

Kubuntu | linux for human beings

Kubuntu is a user-friendly operating system based on the K Desktop Environment.
I am a rather frequent user of KDE, especially after my (sniffle) GNOME crashed due to someone (swallows) let's pass over that.

(clears throat)

But, KDE has been a great substitute. I know I am being relatively disloyal but I really cannot help overcome the personal touch it comes with. You might not particularly relate to it unless of course, we come as close to naming. Still!

The applications that come along with KDE are worth some notice and thought :

KSirtet (I play it atleast 15 times a day, so a personal favourite)
KBounce (Childhood favourite)
KCalc (15+9-2+3-4-10+1-4-5+3-6=?)
KAlarm (wake! wake!)
Kandy (Drool!)
Klipper (clipper, clamper and super!)
KDict (innocuous?)
KNotes (right right right away)
KPDF (Adobe!)
Kooka (Sounds like a childish referral)
Korn (slurp!)
Konqueror (of the World!)
Korganizer (Fall into slumber!)
Kaboodle (Bamboozle?)
K3b (sorry but memory --> Bollywood)
Keyboard (haha! what did you expect?!)
Kwikdisk (Nor do i know, why risk?)

Clap both my hands together, A Happy laugh!!!

Humph! Only, I realised its existence after my GNOME died, but it's worth it, I tell you!

The pride that comes along....
That feeling of being special....
Beams....

A Humble Bow

Flourishingly
Krithika

PS : With pride comes patience, for I ain't boldened every capital K that didn't feature!

Rain, Rain, Come Again!!!!

Rain, Rain Come Again...

Urghh...Oh my Holy God!
i cannot remember that rhyme, i just know it, wait, let me try, just once more,
rain rain...oh what is it!
i even remember the illustration in my rhyme book
there was an umbrella, and drops of rain
and a small boy foreboding the rain to go away!
Ahh...there...visual recall!*

*I don't think in capitals, that's why the change in style, but I do think in green. Really!

Now let me try

Rain, Rain, Go Away
Come again another day
Little someone* wants to play
Rain, Rain, Go Away.......

*someone = arthur, kids, john (of course) [and the other variants of english names. (we wouldn't say li'l rama/gopi/raju wants to play)].

Wait, I wonder why these are the only names that strike me now.

AHH!!!! Thank God. Now I have a better thought. At least I remember my rhyme if not action potentials or scaffolding! I shall definitely write a longer post and describe my rhyme book and learning as I toddled! It remains a mystery till today.

Oh my! I really do digress, but that's what's interesting too.

So, it's raining here, where I live. No, not like the way it rains cats and dogs in Bangalore (because i only know of those), it's just a damp drizzle which doubtlessly did us a lot of good. A lot of respite from the heat of Pune.

Merry times are here, rejoice people!

Hope rains are showered often enough and the city flourishes and green-ing begins.

PS : It's mainly a lot of fun to blog because you can wonder aloud, and digress as you feel!

PPS : And, I don't want the rain to go away, hope the heavens haven't listened too attentively!

So long

I really have to confess, I got the first line from google!

Humour

I had this interesting thought about humour, comedy and the similar. Many of us belong to an audience that subscribes to good comedy as we prefer to call it. But think about this.....

Humour is invariably at the expense of the comedian or the situation that is being explained. Sure, it is. All our oh-so-famous sardarji jokes talk about a community and their flaws. The analogue in Western culture would be 'blondes'. Any comedian would always put himself in a relatively menial position to entertain others. Let me tell you, we are plagued by Crab Mentality (A teacher told me what this meant about three years ago!).

Crabs, many crabs when put into a jar never let another climb up to the brim. If one does succeed, it is pulled down by its jar mates.

I am not saying that subscribing to humour is bad, it's not!

But do give it a thought once a while!

Signing off on a windy day, the wind blew in intervals, like waves of the ocean.
Yours

The day that is...

Today is a good day.

I read the whole newspaper, as in flipped through all the pages and read an interesting article, actually TWO interesting articles.

No, they were not about LTTE surrendering, nor where they about the victories for the Royals. I actually support one of them. (That's a clue!). It's not too hard nor is it too obvious.

Digress back: Today, MAY 18th is the day Wolfram|Alpha has been launched.
What is it?
It is a search engine for all computations that you need to perform. And yes, this Wolfram was the same guy as the one who created Mathematica. ( Steven Wolfram who got his phD at the age of 20..child prodigy!)

And news 2:
I also read an article in the newspaper about the efficiency of news channels in the coverage of the general elections that just happened. That was funny! The news channels are all out to sensationalising events and then there's the newspaper which talks about who did sensationalising the best! Anyway, he concluded that even if CNN-IBN used their panelists suboptimally, they won with NDTV and Times Now as rivals.

My second blog entry!
Adios.

Typed yesterday, but posted on the day it says...

Hello World

This is my first blog entry!

I agree it sounds like one of those C tutorials or some cool software that you try to learn. And the first thing they ask you to do is say "Hello world" and the like.

Let me explain the nomenclature. This blog is not at all about Cats, nor is it about curious people nor am I revengeful.
Only, as an aspiring writer, I decided that my first book should be named so. No plot, yet though.

Well, with no plots and my book not shaping up in a while, I settled for a compromise.
Saved me the effort of naming my blog!

I will be back today to 'blog' more, so long, till then!

PS : Actually, I really want to See my blog!!