Had a mixed run at Palomar last two nights. Lost much of the first night as it rained, and it even snowed a bit. But the second night was clear, less windy and very cold. After a good sleep I started down the mountain. It looked like another nice day. Only when I reached the turnout about 8 miles form the observatory that I realized how nice the day was. This is the point from where you can look towards the ocean, and far off the ocean looked stunningly beautiful. It was golden and rather harsh on the eyes. On most occasions you can barely see the ocean and generally you have to be told that it is there. On the few occasions it has been in clear view, it has still been hazy with the LA smog having its say. Today however it was exquisitely clear. No clouds in sight, no trace of smog. Very non-LA. Clearly the most clear I have ever seen the sky. Had I realized this while at the observatory, I would have made it a point to go to the catwalk of the 200-inch telescope and get a few snaps of the ranges seen from there.
As I drove down from 5000 ft, passing through big and small hills, the clarity was emphasizing itself all round. Much more detail was seen on the hills and one could see so much farther in general. Lake Elsinore looked out of the world with the sloped shores standing out. It was close to sunset by then and the range of colors as the sun vanished behind the mountains was wonderful. These were not the colors you see when clouds and particulate material is in excess in the atmosphere but just a gradation blue, red, yellow and intermediate hues. I wondered if I would witness a green flash if I chose a good spot. Its only the start of winter and there is not much snow around otherwise the distant mountains would have looked so much more pristine. As it is, it was a terrific sight
Twilight is that magical time of the day that rushes in feelings you will not believe exist the rest of the day. In mountain-country its even better with the modulating shadows of the peaks sliding across. The hills were seen in relief as never before. The serpentine freeways and the necklace formed by the beads that are cars merge well with the So Cal state of being by virtue of being nearly everywhere. But the big brightly lit signs outside malls and outlets (and casinos in the Indian country) stick out like a mismatched pendant, especially on such occasions. Many of the hillsides are now doted with small uniform houses, another blot on the landscape. Civil twilight turned into astronomical twilight. When there is no stuff in the atmosphere (or not as much) to reflect the 'man-made' light from the ground it seems so much darker. For the first time so many lights could be seen spread all-over. Even in the rear-view mirror one could feel the expanse and continuity of greater LA, something that is normally seen only while taking off or landing.
Once I turned on the section of I-15 north of 91, I realized the possible reason for the missing smog. It was still very windy here and at 70 MPH the car shook from side to side and tumbleweeds tumbled across the freeway. It was the winds that had driven the smog away, if temporarily. Once it got really dark, one could not help but notice the queues of airplanes slowly making their way towards one or the other airport in the vicinity. It was clear as clear can be all the way to Pasadena.
Overall it was a very enjoyable drive and one I am bound to remember for a long time.
Monday, November 29, 2010
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Hummingbird antiques
On the afternoon on 6 May 2010, as I enetered my office, looking over the North field through the window, I saw a hummingbird doing the U-shape dives characteristic of their display to woo a female of their species. It did it about half a dozen times. By then I had my camera out and started to take a video. Managed one ascent and one descent and the bird was gone. I continued the video panning the area for 15 seconds, and then every now and then looked outside the window hoping it will come back, but I did not notice it.
Only the first couple of seconds of the video contained the hummingbird. I give here two links. The first has first 4 seconds of the original video. At 25 frames per second. The second one is a slowed down version where I took the first 49 frames (=2 seconds) and inserted a delay of 0.2 seconds between successive frames to make the second movie. The stripping was done using:
mplayer -vo png hummingbird1.mpg
The recombining was done using:
convert *[0-4]?.png hummingbird2.mpg
I had expected the length to be 48*0.2+29*0.04=10.76 but the second one turns out to be almost 14. So someone is messing up somewhere. Anyway, remember that the actual duration for the second one is 2 seconds.
Its best to download the movies and watch them since over the internet the frames may not flow smoothly. In both, the hummingbird is seen on the right side, first going up and then coming down.
Hummingbird (original, truncated to 4 seconds) 0.5 MB
Hummingbird (with delay between frames - duration 2 seconds)2 MB
From the frequency of hummingbirds here I would have thought its Anna's, but consulting The Sibley Guide to Birds
and remembering how chracteristic U's were being described, could it be a Calliope's? Caltech's weekly data will not support that, nor will their typical habitat. Comments welcome.
BTW, Hummingbirds are amazing birds. They weigh only a few grams (below 5) and everyday eat in food (mostly fluids) several times their bodyweight and need to incessantly feed so as not to die of starvation. What they CAN do is slow down their metabolism (in torpor, a hibernation-like state) by amazingly reducing their heartrate to well below 100. The usual rate - during feeding - is around 1200. Some species are known to fly non-stop for over 500 miles.
Oh, and about the dives: research has shown that hummingbirds can reach 9G during the dives. Jet pilots would pass out at such accelerations. The birds can cover 400 times their bodylength in a second, twice bettering falcons and jets.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Morphogenetic fields, Memes, Lamarckian evolution etc.
Several years ago I had read an article on Morphogenetic fields, asking if it is fact, fiction (,fantasy) or fraud. According to the theory learning to ride a bike is easier for children these days because everyone who has learnt to ride one set up a field which everyone else has access to.
Lamarckian evolution has some traits of that but has a somewhat sounder footing.
See http://www.technologyreview.com/biomedicine/22061/ for an example. Conditions that someone grows in, their memory, can apparently be passed on. What that means though is that you have to actually see a few people learning to ride bikes to benefit from it.
Vaguely speaking, this is akin to memes, the mental counterparts of genes - ideas that can jump from one person to another. But in the case of memes, you latch on to an idea. It can be completely abstract. You make it yours and spread it.
Watched today a TED talk by V Ramachandran: Neurons that shaped civilization. Here he talks about mirror neurons which fire when you see some one do some action (remember yourself trying to stretch out to catch a ball when you want the fielder on the TV screen to catch it?). Apparently the firing of the neurons can allow you to learn some tasks (as well as experience feelings the other person may). So very likely it is these mirror neurons that help you learn riding a bike quicker than the first person to do so.
That, I feel, still does not explain phenomena like my dreaming that Nandu Narvekar, a Marathi detective, was eating a lot at a party and the food ended up in my stomach. I had an upset stomach the next day.
Lamarckian evolution has some traits of that but has a somewhat sounder footing.
See http://www.technologyreview.com/biomedicine/22061/ for an example. Conditions that someone grows in, their memory, can apparently be passed on. What that means though is that you have to actually see a few people learning to ride bikes to benefit from it.
Vaguely speaking, this is akin to memes, the mental counterparts of genes - ideas that can jump from one person to another. But in the case of memes, you latch on to an idea. It can be completely abstract. You make it yours and spread it.
Watched today a TED talk by V Ramachandran: Neurons that shaped civilization. Here he talks about mirror neurons which fire when you see some one do some action (remember yourself trying to stretch out to catch a ball when you want the fielder on the TV screen to catch it?). Apparently the firing of the neurons can allow you to learn some tasks (as well as experience feelings the other person may). So very likely it is these mirror neurons that help you learn riding a bike quicker than the first person to do so.
That, I feel, still does not explain phenomena like my dreaming that Nandu Narvekar, a Marathi detective, was eating a lot at a party and the food ended up in my stomach. I had an upset stomach the next day.
Sunday, March 08, 2009
Terrorist attacks and leisure time
The very basis of human civilization was leisure ... spare time in which to indulge curiosity and experiment.
-Edmond Hamilton in "The Ephemerae" (1938)
The recent Mumbai attacks bring this back with full force in more than one way. If you look at the lower life forms, much of their time and energy is spent in surviving, not leaving them much time to experiment or to build higher structures. As Terry Pratchett said in "Equal Rites" (1987): Animals never spend time dividing experience into little bits and speculating about all the bits they've missed. The whole panoply of the universe has been neatly expressed to them as things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and (d) rocks.
With us humans of course it is different. We farm, build walls, build hierarchical structures, and above all divide types of labors so that we can all get some time to try out different things, and generally relax. A clear move away from mere biological evolution.
The trouble is that we tend to take these things for granted and forget that it has been but a handful of centuries during which we have been trying to perfect this art. We are becoming civilized, but are far from being it. There are pockets of dissenters who would, without realizing that that is what it amounts to, pull us back towards barbarianism. We should of course resist that. What that means is that while this firefighting is done, we have to reduce our leisurely preoccupations, and give that time - call it an investment - to ensure that the structures we need in place are strong and secure and reliable. This includes a strong political will, an able law enforcement system, and, above all, law-abiding, non-stab-in-the-back'ing, non-shortsighted world citizens. In a welcome move many top business leaders in India have started saying that they need to take more interest in all the processes concerning the democracy.
If we value our time and wish our values to stay intact, we need to invest a fraction more of our time in examining and helping strengthen the basics.
-Edmond Hamilton in "The Ephemerae" (1938)
The recent Mumbai attacks bring this back with full force in more than one way. If you look at the lower life forms, much of their time and energy is spent in surviving, not leaving them much time to experiment or to build higher structures. As Terry Pratchett said in "Equal Rites" (1987): Animals never spend time dividing experience into little bits and speculating about all the bits they've missed. The whole panoply of the universe has been neatly expressed to them as things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and (d) rocks.
With us humans of course it is different. We farm, build walls, build hierarchical structures, and above all divide types of labors so that we can all get some time to try out different things, and generally relax. A clear move away from mere biological evolution.
The trouble is that we tend to take these things for granted and forget that it has been but a handful of centuries during which we have been trying to perfect this art. We are becoming civilized, but are far from being it. There are pockets of dissenters who would, without realizing that that is what it amounts to, pull us back towards barbarianism. We should of course resist that. What that means is that while this firefighting is done, we have to reduce our leisurely preoccupations, and give that time - call it an investment - to ensure that the structures we need in place are strong and secure and reliable. This includes a strong political will, an able law enforcement system, and, above all, law-abiding, non-stab-in-the-back'ing, non-shortsighted world citizens. In a welcome move many top business leaders in India have started saying that they need to take more interest in all the processes concerning the democracy.
If we value our time and wish our values to stay intact, we need to invest a fraction more of our time in examining and helping strengthen the basics.
Borg and Maharashtrians
The Borg: Strength is irrelevant. Resistance is futile. We wish to improve ourselves. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Your culture will adapt to service ours.
-Michael Piller, "The Best of Both Worlds" Part I, episode of Star Trek: the
Next Generation (1990)
I have always been fascinated by the Borg. Though they are the enemies of starship, and of my heroes aboard the Earth spaceships, there is something about them that I find agreeable. It certainly isn't their ruthlessness. Very likely it is their will to assimilate knowledge in other species. And their mechanisms. The will to expand not just physically, but in those dimensions that
are not easily fathomable. The hive like structure was another fascinating aspect. We see it among bees and ants but not in what we term as higher beings. One possible reason is that as entities get more complex, passing on information back and forth, and sharing it with far strung quarters becomes time and
energy consuming. So distributedness is in fact a more sustainable model. (That is what makes a "controlling" God a difficult thing to digest - but that is for another day).
Back to the Borg. I find a curious thing happening in Maharashtra. People are turning away from assimilating other cultures, alien knowledge, alien influences in the name of retaining an authenticity of their own. At least the vocal ones are. They are forgetting that nothing can be authentic. Everything
is ephemeral and hence borrowed. You just have to dig deeper to realize that.
The backers of Marathi often forget that English rules mainly because it assimilated influences from other languages more easily (besides the fact that English speakers boldly went forth rather than drawing artificial boundaries around themselves). A language is only as flowery or terse as your understanding of it. To two lovers a wink on an eye means the universe. It doesn't even need words.
The starship crew generally defeated the Borg by springing a surprise. Something that the Borg did not expect. A uniqueness of humanity that the Borg had not assimilated from anywhere else. Maharashtrians need to do exactly that if they feel their culture is being threatened. Identify what is unique about Marathi or Maharashtrians. Not just items that others have under different names or variations, but truly unique.
On a related note, the civil system needs to be strengthened to see that justice is meted to everyone alike, that there is opportunity available for the fittest and the most industrious of people. Dissolve boundaries, make the world your own. To unite, does it have to be against something or someone?
Show of strength is futile. A show of will will go farther and be more effective.
-Michael Piller, "The Best of Both Worlds" Part I, episode of Star Trek: the
Next Generation (1990)
I have always been fascinated by the Borg. Though they are the enemies of starship, and of my heroes aboard the Earth spaceships, there is something about them that I find agreeable. It certainly isn't their ruthlessness. Very likely it is their will to assimilate knowledge in other species. And their mechanisms. The will to expand not just physically, but in those dimensions that
are not easily fathomable. The hive like structure was another fascinating aspect. We see it among bees and ants but not in what we term as higher beings. One possible reason is that as entities get more complex, passing on information back and forth, and sharing it with far strung quarters becomes time and
energy consuming. So distributedness is in fact a more sustainable model. (That is what makes a "controlling" God a difficult thing to digest - but that is for another day).
Back to the Borg. I find a curious thing happening in Maharashtra. People are turning away from assimilating other cultures, alien knowledge, alien influences in the name of retaining an authenticity of their own. At least the vocal ones are. They are forgetting that nothing can be authentic. Everything
is ephemeral and hence borrowed. You just have to dig deeper to realize that.
The backers of Marathi often forget that English rules mainly because it assimilated influences from other languages more easily (besides the fact that English speakers boldly went forth rather than drawing artificial boundaries around themselves). A language is only as flowery or terse as your understanding of it. To two lovers a wink on an eye means the universe. It doesn't even need words.
The starship crew generally defeated the Borg by springing a surprise. Something that the Borg did not expect. A uniqueness of humanity that the Borg had not assimilated from anywhere else. Maharashtrians need to do exactly that if they feel their culture is being threatened. Identify what is unique about Marathi or Maharashtrians. Not just items that others have under different names or variations, but truly unique.
On a related note, the civil system needs to be strengthened to see that justice is meted to everyone alike, that there is opportunity available for the fittest and the most industrious of people. Dissolve boundaries, make the world your own. To unite, does it have to be against something or someone?
Show of strength is futile. A show of will will go farther and be more effective.
on valuable contributions
Thou shalt leave valuable contributions for future generations.
- 5th commandment of the Ethical atheist fromhttp://www.ethicalatheist.com/docs/ten_commandments.html
I bumped in to this interesting website recently and the 5th commandment in particular caught my eye. What they mean is that your facts are based on facts discovered by others (just like a dwarf on a giant's shoulders sees more than the giant). You should make a note of those and leave a legacy behind so that generations that follow may be able to make use of them. That is all very well and very positive advice to provide and is indeed worth emulating.
However, the reason it caught my eye was the very quirky interpretation it launched somewhere deep within me that made me inwardly smile. Having seen so many claims from people at all levels about how all knowledge future and past is contained within religious sacred books (e.g. vedas, bible etc.) I was immediately convinced that what the author meant was that do not be oversmart and do all the work yourself, but leave some contributions for future generations. What point is there if you do all the fun stuff and leave the others to have no "aha" moments of their own?
All work and no play make Jack rather dull even if Jack be the master of all trades.
- 5th commandment of the Ethical atheist fromhttp://www.ethicalatheist.com/docs/ten_commandments.html
I bumped in to this interesting website recently and the 5th commandment in particular caught my eye. What they mean is that your facts are based on facts discovered by others (just like a dwarf on a giant's shoulders sees more than the giant). You should make a note of those and leave a legacy behind so that generations that follow may be able to make use of them. That is all very well and very positive advice to provide and is indeed worth emulating.
However, the reason it caught my eye was the very quirky interpretation it launched somewhere deep within me that made me inwardly smile. Having seen so many claims from people at all levels about how all knowledge future and past is contained within religious sacred books (e.g. vedas, bible etc.) I was immediately convinced that what the author meant was that do not be oversmart and do all the work yourself, but leave some contributions for future generations. What point is there if you do all the fun stuff and leave the others to have no "aha" moments of their own?
All work and no play make Jack rather dull even if Jack be the master of all trades.
Monday, February 04, 2008
the truth
If you [are] a real seeker after truth, [you must,] at least once in your life doubt, as far as possible, all things.
-Rene Descartes (1596 - 1650)
I recently met a few people who used to doubt the existence of God and then turned to Him. I have also met people who used to believe in God (or at least believe in the belief in God) and then started doubting it. It is often these issues around which debates on doubts revolve. Thankfully not many doubt the scientific methodology though they do doubt its being able to grasp all truths. Quoting Godel's logic to extend to non-formal systems, the reachability of truth is put beyond not just logic, but also thought.
The ancient Indian cosmology, as opposed to most other western religious cosmologies (for instance the ones that claim that the universe, or the earth is 6000 years old) was aware of the vastness of space and time and had become aware that to understand the hierarchy is a rather daunting task. They decided that until telescopes are invented we better turn to nuclear physics. As a result, they turned their attention inward and discovered the vastness inside. It should be possible to gaze at the truth by getting closer to zero than to infinity, they concluded.
The Greek philosophers (and then western in general) shot down the sometimes imaginative but often more holistic stuff of older philosophies replacing it with hard logic that is slow in moving outward (as also inward). But, combined with other branches of the sometimes stuttering, sometimes rocked by fraud, science, it does make definite progress throwing out everything that is not really needed. Scientists are often like horses tied to a cart, with their eyes seeing only what is in front of them. But if there are enough of them, one ends up covering all directions.
Descartes belonged to the rationalist school (in fact he was one of the founders) as against the empiricist school that included philosophers like Hobbes whose thoughts, to an extent, paralleled Indian philosophy. It is Descartes' Cogito ergo sum (I think therefore I am) that tells us if we do really exist (or rather how do we know we do exist).
The confusion often is about the purpose of life. Why do we exist? Or even, why do we need to exist? THAT is what sends people scampering off in search for truth, or Truth, or even truths. This generally gets entangled with Right and Wrong (ethics, morality and all that) too. Along that path people doubt many things, including the reality of it all. Descartes would have been partially proud. Unfortunately, they do not heed him to the T. They forget that they should also doubt that there has to be a, some, definite truth. May be there isn't any.
If you are a real seeker, you must, at least once in your life doubt, as far as possible, that a specific truth or purposefulness can be ascribed to the universe. The creativity that will then flow will really be your own.
-Rene Descartes (1596 - 1650)
I recently met a few people who used to doubt the existence of God and then turned to Him. I have also met people who used to believe in God (or at least believe in the belief in God) and then started doubting it. It is often these issues around which debates on doubts revolve. Thankfully not many doubt the scientific methodology though they do doubt its being able to grasp all truths. Quoting Godel's logic to extend to non-formal systems, the reachability of truth is put beyond not just logic, but also thought.
The ancient Indian cosmology, as opposed to most other western religious cosmologies (for instance the ones that claim that the universe, or the earth is 6000 years old) was aware of the vastness of space and time and had become aware that to understand the hierarchy is a rather daunting task. They decided that until telescopes are invented we better turn to nuclear physics. As a result, they turned their attention inward and discovered the vastness inside. It should be possible to gaze at the truth by getting closer to zero than to infinity, they concluded.
The Greek philosophers (and then western in general) shot down the sometimes imaginative but often more holistic stuff of older philosophies replacing it with hard logic that is slow in moving outward (as also inward). But, combined with other branches of the sometimes stuttering, sometimes rocked by fraud, science, it does make definite progress throwing out everything that is not really needed. Scientists are often like horses tied to a cart, with their eyes seeing only what is in front of them. But if there are enough of them, one ends up covering all directions.
Descartes belonged to the rationalist school (in fact he was one of the founders) as against the empiricist school that included philosophers like Hobbes whose thoughts, to an extent, paralleled Indian philosophy. It is Descartes' Cogito ergo sum (I think therefore I am) that tells us if we do really exist (or rather how do we know we do exist).
The confusion often is about the purpose of life. Why do we exist? Or even, why do we need to exist? THAT is what sends people scampering off in search for truth, or Truth, or even truths. This generally gets entangled with Right and Wrong (ethics, morality and all that) too. Along that path people doubt many things, including the reality of it all. Descartes would have been partially proud. Unfortunately, they do not heed him to the T. They forget that they should also doubt that there has to be a, some, definite truth. May be there isn't any.
If you are a real seeker, you must, at least once in your life doubt, as far as possible, that a specific truth or purposefulness can be ascribed to the universe. The creativity that will then flow will really be your own.
Saturday, February 02, 2008
hellish perspectives
Hell is full of musical amateurs
-George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)
The Nobel winner Shaw was a critic and dramatist (not necessarily in that order) among other things. He was not a musician of note, but he did criticize, or favour, certain musicians in his column. His view of hell would be a good indication of what he treated as good music.
Yesterday I watched an episode of the original star trek where Kirk and co. go to a planet which is like paradise except that the humanoids are under complete control of a machine living peacefully. Spock even remarks how serene their lives are without the human envy, anger etc. But when threatened, they end up destroying the machine and causing the humanoids to start living like humans. Back on the ship, Spock semi-accuses the captain of giving them the knowledge of the apple and thus destroying Eden. The captain is quick to remark that before calling him Satan Spock should take a look at himself.
People do create hell and heaven in their image of bad and good. That is part of the drive of seeing things in black and white. Once you label things, life becomes easier to cope with. Squash complex dimensions by making projections on to familiar ones and keep treading there. Life is simpler and stays in a rut. Helps make one a kupmanduk.
On the other hand, if you attach new connotations to the old, you can get to higher dimensions. See the world in a whole new light, different part of the electromagnetic spectrum. Get a wing, so to speak.
Rather than defining hell and heaven, how about converting the Earth in to the best it can be?
-George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)
The Nobel winner Shaw was a critic and dramatist (not necessarily in that order) among other things. He was not a musician of note, but he did criticize, or favour, certain musicians in his column. His view of hell would be a good indication of what he treated as good music.
Yesterday I watched an episode of the original star trek where Kirk and co. go to a planet which is like paradise except that the humanoids are under complete control of a machine living peacefully. Spock even remarks how serene their lives are without the human envy, anger etc. But when threatened, they end up destroying the machine and causing the humanoids to start living like humans. Back on the ship, Spock semi-accuses the captain of giving them the knowledge of the apple and thus destroying Eden. The captain is quick to remark that before calling him Satan Spock should take a look at himself.
People do create hell and heaven in their image of bad and good. That is part of the drive of seeing things in black and white. Once you label things, life becomes easier to cope with. Squash complex dimensions by making projections on to familiar ones and keep treading there. Life is simpler and stays in a rut. Helps make one a kupmanduk.
On the other hand, if you attach new connotations to the old, you can get to higher dimensions. See the world in a whole new light, different part of the electromagnetic spectrum. Get a wing, so to speak.
Rather than defining hell and heaven, how about converting the Earth in to the best it can be?
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Involved writing?
-Natalie Goldberg, in Writing down the Bones
Natalie is describing how a writer, in a restaurant scene, can mention a fly, even the particular sandwich it walks over, name its species, but if she digresses too much in discussing the patterns of its wings and a mathematical discussion of its trajectory and such details unconnected to the scene where the reader is expecting the waiter to arrive or something else related to happen, how it can be a put-off.
While I believe that digressing is a fine art that is not very well explored yet - at least to my knowledge - let us leave it to another time.
The reason I thought of bringing in the fly in the ointment is its inappropriateness elsewhere. It is analogous to the mindless use of analogies. Suppose a great unnamed spiritual leader - or one treated as such - is describing the theory of unity of souls and how there is one big soul and all our souls merge with it once we die (or may be are one even when we are alive). A typical example he would take (I am giving up my political correctness by not saying she here. Howmuchever I would like to see the equality of sexes in the arena of priesthood, the males have unabashedly taken control over it, and the women should really do something abut it. But they should replace some rather than add to them) is to say that JUST LIKE sugar dissolves in to water and becomes invisible, unidentifiable, so also our soul becomes one with the ultimate one. This is an analogy. The sugar and water are tangible substances and have nothing whatsoever to do with the souls. Their physical properties in this case are based on the intermolecular spaces as well as the structure, composition of the molecules. But in one stroke that is equated with the soul which can otherwise not be decomposed in to any structure. When others seem to believe it, the guru starts believing it himself (in case he did not earlier), and all this has a very positive effect and it becomes a fact (just like ganesh idols drinking milk is a fact). Oh, the power of analogy. Poor Einstein, he once said: Make things as simple as possible, but not simpler. If only he could use analogies, everything would so much simpler.
PS: budding authors may find some good pointers in Natalie Goldberg's book.
Her website is: http://www.nataliegoldberg.com
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