In my not-so-humble opinion, the Olympics is dead. Sure, every four years a bunch of athletes gather in a frantically-renovated city and the world is treated to an ever-more-spectacular extravaganza, but these are not the Olympic Games of even my relatively recent youth. Those, as I say, are dead. And the sad thing is that, having survived geopolitical turmoil, drug scandals, incompetent committees and nationalist tensions, it took just two words to kill them: "sponsors' rights".
Now this is not a new opinion (I have felt so ever since the athletes were forbidden to publish their diaries lest someone's "sole broadcacsting rights" be infringed upon, and nothing since has contradicted that), nor is it an isolated one - indeed, the 1996 Atlanta Olympics is widely held to be a turning point in the blatant commercialisation of the Games. Nor, at this point do I particularly care - I was never that keenly interested in the games themselves, and whatever sadness I might have felt for the passing of an institution has long since faded to a mild sense of regret. What I do want to write about is a phenomenon I have only noticed this time around - people1 who defend the Olympics from this sort of criticism not because it is undeserved, but because slamming the games is "a slap in the face of the athletes who have worked all their lives to get there". No, seriously.
For one, this is sadly symptomatic of society's tendency to idolise athletes - it's a hard life, sure, but so are lots of other, less glamorous occupations, and no one speaks of a slap in the face of all the fast food workers when McDonalds is criticised - but that's a rant for another day. The question I do bite back is - why do they think the athletes even care?
Personally, while I am neither an athlete nor a sports fan, I am involved in a subculture with similar issues - the world of competitive scrabble. Now, first of all, let me hasten to add that the tournaments I have attended have had very generous and light-handed sponsors, and I am not trying to draw any parallels between the actual situations involved. What I am getting at is this: you gather a bunch of scrabble players in a room for a tournament, and there is only one thing they care about - playing each other. The audience, the press, the opinions of the rest of the world, don't really matter. And I'm willing to bet that by the time an athlete gets to the Olympics, he couldn't care less about the Olympic committee, the host city, the sponsors, the trappings, or even the audience. What matters is competing against the other athletes - indeed, lacking that mindset and psychological reward system, I find it hard to believe that anyone would keep at it long enough to get to the Olympics in the first place.
So, perhaps the Olympics isn't really dead after all - it has just split up into two different Olympics. In one, a bunch of athletes have the pleasure of seeing someone else spend a lot of money and give them a place and time to compete against each other. In the other, a bunch of corporations broadcast a televised spectacle to millions of people worldwide, and count it advertising money well spent. And these two Olympics lead a happy commensal existence - I am tempted to call them mutually parasitic, but that's just my personal distaste talking - and all is indeed well.
What's that you say? The "Olympic Spirit"? Ah, now that, I'm afraid, really is dead, and I see little chance of it reviving. From all indications, it will not be missed.
[1] this might well be an American thing [back]
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Monday, September 1, 2008
Bad desi jokes
Because we are a blog of many facets. We collect desi jokes where the humor is based on word play. All contributions gratefully accepted.
1. What is the most well-informed polygon?
2. Why was the banana lonely?
3. What is the area of San Francisco with all the desi restaurants called?
4. What English word can be represented as gtttt?
5. What do you call a newly elected Bengali politician?
SPOILER ALERT
Answers
1. The square. Because he had naal-edge.
2. Because he was a kela.
3. The Tandoor-loin.
4. Oru-g-naalu-t.
5. Fresh off the bhote.
1. What is the most well-informed polygon?
2. Why was the banana lonely?
3. What is the area of San Francisco with all the desi restaurants called?
4. What English word can be represented as gtttt?
5. What do you call a newly elected Bengali politician?
SPOILER ALERT
Answers
1. The square. Because he had naal-edge.
2. Because he was a kela.
3. The Tandoor-loin.
4. Oru-g-naalu-t.
5. Fresh off the bhote.
Thursday, April 17, 2008
maths for fun and profit
Someone who had begin to read geometry with Euclid, when he had learned the first proposition, asked him "What shall I get by learning these things?"
Euclid called his slave and said "Give this person a penny, since he must make a profit out of what he learns"
-- Stobaeus, as quoted by George Simmons in his "Calculus Gems: Brief Lives and Memorable Mathematics" [0]
Euclid has come and gone, but the question remains - a plaintive "but when will I ever use this?" from generation upon endless generation of bored students, a skeptical "but what use is all this, then?" from their hard-headedly pragmatic elders, and the general feeling that the question is but rhetorical, that "all this" is patently of no use to anyone but the eggheads.
One easy answer, of course, is that the universe runs on mathematics, a truism whose startling nature is beautifully expressed by the physicist Eugene Wigner in his "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences". But this misses the point - everyone knows that mathematics is of use to someone, to scientists and engineers and 'that sort of person' - indeed, Wigner's argument is precisely that everyone does know that; that we internalise that assumption without ever stopping to wonder why.
Another common answer is that it may not be obvious now, but "sooner or later" you'll find out what it's good for. Children are told "you'll realise how useful all this is when you grow up", often by parents who have no real idea either, but vaguely feel that it is their duty to see that their offspring learn some maths. The skeptic is diverted with "applications turn up in the most unexpected places", a favourite supporting fact being that number theory, that most impractical of fields, has suddenly proven of immeasurable worth to cryptography, and hence to online commerce in general. But this, while true, is a somewhat defensive tack to take - it implicitly assumes that mathematics is only worthwhile because it is useful, and that in questioning its utility the sole error lies in not realising why it is useful.
While the two arguments above are, indeed, fundamental to the field of mathematics, they do little to address the real question: what shall I get from learning these things? And this is a question that must be addressed - Euclid's dismissal of his student may make for an entertaining anecdote, but it does very little to further the cause of either mathematics or humanity-in-general.
In the conclusion of their paper "How to Differentiate a Number", Ufnarovski and Åhlander provide one answer: "This article is our expression of the pleasure [of] being a mathematician. We have written it because we found the subject to be very attractive and wanted to share our joy with others." [1] Now this "pleasure of being a mathematician" may sound like it is confined to the very few, but the truth is, it is more accurately "the pleasure of mathematics", and is accessible at every level of the subject. [2] Whether it be a mathematician assisting the birth of a new theorem or a student suddenly understanding Euclid's marvellous proof of the infinity of primes, mathematics is a human pleasure on the same level as poetry, art and literature - an appreciation of beauty and the joys of thinking. And, of course, there is the entire field of recreational mathematics - puzzles, games, magic tricks, and all the other diversions of the mathematician at play - again, capable of appealing to people across the gamut of mathematical sophistication.
The other good reason to study mathematics is that, quite simply, it changes the way you think. Or, more specifically, it changes the way you can think about things - it adds an entire range of tools to your mental toolbox. The "unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in the natural sciences" is only half the picture - a far more compelling half is the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematical thought in day-to-day life. Topics like arithmetic, probability, geometry, basic calculus[3] and set theory are invaluable not just for the explicit solving of problems, but for the powerful way in which they shape and aid your intuition in situations that are not, on the face of them, mathematical in nature.
A final objection is "yes, that's all well and good, but I've actually tried to learn mathematics, and hated it". In my experience, this is inevitably the result of bad teaching, an entrenched school of thought that stresses a pedantic teaching of facts with no appeal to the power and beauty of the underlying structure (because that, of course, is advanced mathematics).
So what is my solution? Well, I certainly don't propose to reform the teaching of mathematics in a single post! There have been several fascinating proposals in this area, some of which I shall touch upon in future posts - my intent in this one is more of an evangelical plea to go see for yourselves. Good starting points are recreational mathematics websites and books, and articles dealing with the "mathematics of everyday things" (again, more about these topics later). And above all, remember, mathematics not only can be, but is fun.
[0] Simmons goes on to add "The reliability of these smug little stories can be judged from the fact that their authors (Proclus and Stobaeus) lived in the fifth century AD, more than 700 years after the time of Euclid
[1] This struck me all the more forcibly because I had been thinking "okay, this is pretty, but why is it worth a paper?"
[2] At this point, I'd like to recommend Yakov Perelman's tragically-out-of-print "Mathematics Can Be Fun" - should you ever run across a used copy, grab it!
[3] The word 'calculus' has scary, 'advanced maths' connotations, but at its heart it deals with some very basic concepts like the way things change over time, or the way quantities add and accumulate
Euclid called his slave and said "Give this person a penny, since he must make a profit out of what he learns"
-- Stobaeus, as quoted by George Simmons in his "Calculus Gems: Brief Lives and Memorable Mathematics" [0]
Euclid has come and gone, but the question remains - a plaintive "but when will I ever use this?" from generation upon endless generation of bored students, a skeptical "but what use is all this, then?" from their hard-headedly pragmatic elders, and the general feeling that the question is but rhetorical, that "all this" is patently of no use to anyone but the eggheads.
One easy answer, of course, is that the universe runs on mathematics, a truism whose startling nature is beautifully expressed by the physicist Eugene Wigner in his "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences". But this misses the point - everyone knows that mathematics is of use to someone, to scientists and engineers and 'that sort of person' - indeed, Wigner's argument is precisely that everyone does know that; that we internalise that assumption without ever stopping to wonder why.
Another common answer is that it may not be obvious now, but "sooner or later" you'll find out what it's good for. Children are told "you'll realise how useful all this is when you grow up", often by parents who have no real idea either, but vaguely feel that it is their duty to see that their offspring learn some maths. The skeptic is diverted with "applications turn up in the most unexpected places", a favourite supporting fact being that number theory, that most impractical of fields, has suddenly proven of immeasurable worth to cryptography, and hence to online commerce in general. But this, while true, is a somewhat defensive tack to take - it implicitly assumes that mathematics is only worthwhile because it is useful, and that in questioning its utility the sole error lies in not realising why it is useful.
While the two arguments above are, indeed, fundamental to the field of mathematics, they do little to address the real question: what shall I get from learning these things? And this is a question that must be addressed - Euclid's dismissal of his student may make for an entertaining anecdote, but it does very little to further the cause of either mathematics or humanity-in-general.
In the conclusion of their paper "How to Differentiate a Number", Ufnarovski and Åhlander provide one answer: "This article is our expression of the pleasure [of] being a mathematician. We have written it because we found the subject to be very attractive and wanted to share our joy with others." [1] Now this "pleasure of being a mathematician" may sound like it is confined to the very few, but the truth is, it is more accurately "the pleasure of mathematics", and is accessible at every level of the subject. [2] Whether it be a mathematician assisting the birth of a new theorem or a student suddenly understanding Euclid's marvellous proof of the infinity of primes, mathematics is a human pleasure on the same level as poetry, art and literature - an appreciation of beauty and the joys of thinking. And, of course, there is the entire field of recreational mathematics - puzzles, games, magic tricks, and all the other diversions of the mathematician at play - again, capable of appealing to people across the gamut of mathematical sophistication.
The other good reason to study mathematics is that, quite simply, it changes the way you think. Or, more specifically, it changes the way you can think about things - it adds an entire range of tools to your mental toolbox. The "unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in the natural sciences" is only half the picture - a far more compelling half is the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematical thought in day-to-day life. Topics like arithmetic, probability, geometry, basic calculus[3] and set theory are invaluable not just for the explicit solving of problems, but for the powerful way in which they shape and aid your intuition in situations that are not, on the face of them, mathematical in nature.
A final objection is "yes, that's all well and good, but I've actually tried to learn mathematics, and hated it". In my experience, this is inevitably the result of bad teaching, an entrenched school of thought that stresses a pedantic teaching of facts with no appeal to the power and beauty of the underlying structure (because that, of course, is advanced mathematics).
So what is my solution? Well, I certainly don't propose to reform the teaching of mathematics in a single post! There have been several fascinating proposals in this area, some of which I shall touch upon in future posts - my intent in this one is more of an evangelical plea to go see for yourselves. Good starting points are recreational mathematics websites and books, and articles dealing with the "mathematics of everyday things" (again, more about these topics later). And above all, remember, mathematics not only can be, but is fun.
[0] Simmons goes on to add "The reliability of these smug little stories can be judged from the fact that their authors (Proclus and Stobaeus) lived in the fifth century AD, more than 700 years after the time of Euclid
[1] This struck me all the more forcibly because I had been thinking "okay, this is pretty, but why is it worth a paper?"
[2] At this point, I'd like to recommend Yakov Perelman's tragically-out-of-print "Mathematics Can Be Fun" - should you ever run across a used copy, grab it!
[3] The word 'calculus' has scary, 'advanced maths' connotations, but at its heart it deals with some very basic concepts like the way things change over time, or the way quantities add and accumulate
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
The last of the great adventures?
In which the difference between textbook and reality is illustrated
In my school geography textbook, there was a sentence "In Tibet, where it originates, the Brahmaputra is called the Tsangpo".
The Yarlung Tsangpo, often referred to as the highest river in the world, originates at Mount Kailash -- holy to Hindus, Jains and Buddhists. It flows East along the Tibetan plateau, at an average elevation of 13,000 ft, gathering runoff from the Northern Himalayas. 1700 kilometers later, near the Eastern edge of the Himalayas, this mighty river disappears. Just downstream of a little village called Gyala, the Tsangpo roars into a narrow canyon between the 24000 ft+ peaks of Namcha Barwa and Gyala Pelri, whose summits are separated by just 13 miles. Through the era of the great British led adventures, the subsequent fate of the Tsangpo was unknown. Popular theory had it that it emerges from the Himalayas, hundreds of miles away, as the Irrawady - the only major river in the vicinity that emerges from the Himalayas flowing east.
The Brahmaputra, on the other hand, emerges from the Himalayas as the Dihang in Arunachal Pradesh. Within the space of 35 kms, it is joined by two more major rivers, the Dibang and the Lohit. From this point, the river becomes very wide - as much as 10km in places - and proceeds in stately fashion across Assam and into Bangladesh. About the origins of this great river, though, very little was known. It emerges from the Himalayan canyonlands fully formed, flowing West at nearly sea level.
In the 1870s, British colonial explorers tried to solve the mystery of the origin of the Brahmaputra. They were, however, barred from the lower end of the canyon by hostile tribes in Arunachal Pradesh and from the upper end by Tibet's closed border. Stymied, they hired Tibetan speaking Indians to survey the river and prove the connection between the Tsangpo and the Brahmaputra. The most famous of these agents was Kintup, a tailor from Sikkim. His task was to make his way to the upper end of the gorge, where the Tsangpo disappears, and launch 500 marked logs into the river. Watchers posted downstream on the banks of the Brahmaputra would then be able to settle the mystery once and for all. However, Kintup was captured and sold into slavery on his journey and only escaped after a year of captivity. Even so, he did fulfill his end of the bargain. Alas, his marked logs must have floated all the way to the Bay of Bengal, as the watchers were long gone.
Between 1885, the date of Kintup’s mission, and 1913, the Tsangpo - Brahmaputra connection was a topic of speculation far and wide. Then, in 1913, the borders of Tibet were opened. British officers Frederick Bailey and Henry Morshead completed a journey up the canyon, following the river's general course but making significant detours due to the difficulty of the terrain. With this expedition, all debate about the actual course and identity of river was put to rest. The Tsangpo and the Brahmaputra were indeed one.
But how could such a great river lose more than 10,000 feet in altitude and change its direction of flow so completely in the space of less than 200 miles? Somewhere in that gorge, speculation went, must be a waterfall to rival the Niagara and Victoria Falls. And so was born the legend of the Tsangpo Gorge - unexplored territory that no man had seen before, a place where the world's greatest waterfall still waited to be discovered. The story of this gorge is thought to have inspired James Hilton's Shangri-La in 1935.
In 1924, a botanist by name of Frank Kingdon-Ward led an expedition that not only solved the riddle of the Tsangpo Gorge, but also reduced the unexplored part of the Gorge to a section about 10 miles long. It was proven that the river’s descent is not by means of a great waterfall, but by a near-constant series of violent rapids. For the next 70 years, the Tsangpo gorge lay largely undisturbed. In the 1990s, with the rise of whitewater paddling as a recreational sport, there was a resurgence of interest in this "Everest of river running".
In 1993, a Japanese expedition put in to the Tsangpo, but quickly withdrew after losing a team-mate to the river. In 1998, an expedition funded by the National Geographic Society attempted to run the gorge, only to lose a team-mate, Doug Gordon. Finally, in 2002, an expedition funded by Outside magazine successfully ran the Upper Gorge. Even they, though, quickly and wisely gave up on their original plan of running the entire gorge. The Lower Gorge, they declared, is unrunnable. This team finally came away with a special prize - a photograph of Hidden Falls, the mythic 100 foot waterfall in the heart of the gorge - after their expert mountaineer Andrew Sheppard rappelled down to stand at the edge of it. Read all about this expedition here and see the photograph of a lifetime here.
And so, as my textbook said long ago, "In Tibet, the Brahmaputra is called the Tsangpo".
In my school geography textbook, there was a sentence "In Tibet, where it originates, the Brahmaputra is called the Tsangpo".
The Yarlung Tsangpo, often referred to as the highest river in the world, originates at Mount Kailash -- holy to Hindus, Jains and Buddhists. It flows East along the Tibetan plateau, at an average elevation of 13,000 ft, gathering runoff from the Northern Himalayas. 1700 kilometers later, near the Eastern edge of the Himalayas, this mighty river disappears. Just downstream of a little village called Gyala, the Tsangpo roars into a narrow canyon between the 24000 ft+ peaks of Namcha Barwa and Gyala Pelri, whose summits are separated by just 13 miles. Through the era of the great British led adventures, the subsequent fate of the Tsangpo was unknown. Popular theory had it that it emerges from the Himalayas, hundreds of miles away, as the Irrawady - the only major river in the vicinity that emerges from the Himalayas flowing east.
The Brahmaputra, on the other hand, emerges from the Himalayas as the Dihang in Arunachal Pradesh. Within the space of 35 kms, it is joined by two more major rivers, the Dibang and the Lohit. From this point, the river becomes very wide - as much as 10km in places - and proceeds in stately fashion across Assam and into Bangladesh. About the origins of this great river, though, very little was known. It emerges from the Himalayan canyonlands fully formed, flowing West at nearly sea level.
In the 1870s, British colonial explorers tried to solve the mystery of the origin of the Brahmaputra. They were, however, barred from the lower end of the canyon by hostile tribes in Arunachal Pradesh and from the upper end by Tibet's closed border. Stymied, they hired Tibetan speaking Indians to survey the river and prove the connection between the Tsangpo and the Brahmaputra. The most famous of these agents was Kintup, a tailor from Sikkim. His task was to make his way to the upper end of the gorge, where the Tsangpo disappears, and launch 500 marked logs into the river. Watchers posted downstream on the banks of the Brahmaputra would then be able to settle the mystery once and for all. However, Kintup was captured and sold into slavery on his journey and only escaped after a year of captivity. Even so, he did fulfill his end of the bargain. Alas, his marked logs must have floated all the way to the Bay of Bengal, as the watchers were long gone.
Between 1885, the date of Kintup’s mission, and 1913, the Tsangpo - Brahmaputra connection was a topic of speculation far and wide. Then, in 1913, the borders of Tibet were opened. British officers Frederick Bailey and Henry Morshead completed a journey up the canyon, following the river's general course but making significant detours due to the difficulty of the terrain. With this expedition, all debate about the actual course and identity of river was put to rest. The Tsangpo and the Brahmaputra were indeed one.
But how could such a great river lose more than 10,000 feet in altitude and change its direction of flow so completely in the space of less than 200 miles? Somewhere in that gorge, speculation went, must be a waterfall to rival the Niagara and Victoria Falls. And so was born the legend of the Tsangpo Gorge - unexplored territory that no man had seen before, a place where the world's greatest waterfall still waited to be discovered. The story of this gorge is thought to have inspired James Hilton's Shangri-La in 1935.
In 1924, a botanist by name of Frank Kingdon-Ward led an expedition that not only solved the riddle of the Tsangpo Gorge, but also reduced the unexplored part of the Gorge to a section about 10 miles long. It was proven that the river’s descent is not by means of a great waterfall, but by a near-constant series of violent rapids. For the next 70 years, the Tsangpo gorge lay largely undisturbed. In the 1990s, with the rise of whitewater paddling as a recreational sport, there was a resurgence of interest in this "Everest of river running".
In 1993, a Japanese expedition put in to the Tsangpo, but quickly withdrew after losing a team-mate to the river. In 1998, an expedition funded by the National Geographic Society attempted to run the gorge, only to lose a team-mate, Doug Gordon. Finally, in 2002, an expedition funded by Outside magazine successfully ran the Upper Gorge. Even they, though, quickly and wisely gave up on their original plan of running the entire gorge. The Lower Gorge, they declared, is unrunnable. This team finally came away with a special prize - a photograph of Hidden Falls, the mythic 100 foot waterfall in the heart of the gorge - after their expert mountaineer Andrew Sheppard rappelled down to stand at the edge of it. Read all about this expedition here and see the photograph of a lifetime here.
And so, as my textbook said long ago, "In Tibet, the Brahmaputra is called the Tsangpo".
Infinite Improbability Drive, San Francisco Edition
Just got home from an exhilarating drive. We had just re-entered the city from a Northward excursion to buy moving boxes (and that's a story for another post). As we turned left on Bay from the Marina, eastbound traffic ground to a halt.
We were treated to a rare sight in this laid back town. Row after row after row of police officers on motorcycles, riding in formation down the westbound lanes. Something unusual was surely afoot. As traffic in my lane inched forward, the street was suddenly lined with people. The gnomes in my head spun gears furiously, and came up with the answer: The Olympic torch! Today is its day in San Francisco.
As if to confirm this, a large bus turned left onto Bay from Van Ness, and a couple of athletes holding an unlit torch got out. They were clearly the next leg of the relay. As soon as they had taken position on the street, groups of protesters converged just feet away from them. All peaceful, but holding banners with "Free Tibet" written in foot-high letters, or holding the Tibetan National Flag.
Traffic inched forward, and very soon all we could see was SFPD blue as the City's finest put on their best effort to smooth the flame's passage. I must mention in passing that I had no idea San Francisco had this many officers. The crowd lining the street started getting restive, and all eyes were converging on a spot further up Van Ness. Drivers ahead of us gave up all pretense of wanting to make progress, and soon we were all standing in the street, craning our necks up the street.
For that extra bit of surreality, a gentleman popped out of the car next to ours and pulled out a large picture of the Dalai Lama seemingly from thin air. And a minute later, the Olympic flame, surrounded by SFPD officers in formation reminiscent of a Roman phalanx, passed by less than 6 feet away from us. The crowd was cheering the flame, and simultaneously waving dozens of Tibetan flags. Only in San Francisco!
And what a contrast from five years ago, when I saw the Olympic torch in downtown San Jose. Then, a crowd of a few dozen cheered, as an athlete flanked by two police officers carried the flame through downtown. Today, in contrast, felt more like a seige. And yet, seeing the Olympic flame on its way is something to be glad about.
Upon arriving home and getting online, I discovered that we had been more fortunate than we thought. The original 6 mile route across San Francisco that had been charted out for the torch was abruptly truncated to 3 miles. And yet, we got to see the flame - controversy, glory and all - because of a split second choice to drive home along the Marina instead of the highway. We did cross the Golden Gate bridge earlier, where all is quiet today, after this excitement yesterday.
Today, more so than most days, Tibet has vocal friends in the city by the bay.
We were treated to a rare sight in this laid back town. Row after row after row of police officers on motorcycles, riding in formation down the westbound lanes. Something unusual was surely afoot. As traffic in my lane inched forward, the street was suddenly lined with people. The gnomes in my head spun gears furiously, and came up with the answer: The Olympic torch! Today is its day in San Francisco.
As if to confirm this, a large bus turned left onto Bay from Van Ness, and a couple of athletes holding an unlit torch got out. They were clearly the next leg of the relay. As soon as they had taken position on the street, groups of protesters converged just feet away from them. All peaceful, but holding banners with "Free Tibet" written in foot-high letters, or holding the Tibetan National Flag.
Traffic inched forward, and very soon all we could see was SFPD blue as the City's finest put on their best effort to smooth the flame's passage. I must mention in passing that I had no idea San Francisco had this many officers. The crowd lining the street started getting restive, and all eyes were converging on a spot further up Van Ness. Drivers ahead of us gave up all pretense of wanting to make progress, and soon we were all standing in the street, craning our necks up the street.
For that extra bit of surreality, a gentleman popped out of the car next to ours and pulled out a large picture of the Dalai Lama seemingly from thin air. And a minute later, the Olympic flame, surrounded by SFPD officers in formation reminiscent of a Roman phalanx, passed by less than 6 feet away from us. The crowd was cheering the flame, and simultaneously waving dozens of Tibetan flags. Only in San Francisco!
And what a contrast from five years ago, when I saw the Olympic torch in downtown San Jose. Then, a crowd of a few dozen cheered, as an athlete flanked by two police officers carried the flame through downtown. Today, in contrast, felt more like a seige. And yet, seeing the Olympic flame on its way is something to be glad about.
Upon arriving home and getting online, I discovered that we had been more fortunate than we thought. The original 6 mile route across San Francisco that had been charted out for the torch was abruptly truncated to 3 miles. And yet, we got to see the flame - controversy, glory and all - because of a split second choice to drive home along the Marina instead of the highway. We did cross the Golden Gate bridge earlier, where all is quiet today, after this excitement yesterday.
Today, more so than most days, Tibet has vocal friends in the city by the bay.
Sunday, April 6, 2008
hello world
"Let's write a blog!"
"Cool! Let's."
"Okay, then. What shall it be about?"
"Um..."
Welcome to the wonderful world of the random walk. Embracing
wholeheartedly the dictum that it is better to travel
hopefully than to arrive, this blog will stagger from point to
interesting point, a whirl of topics knit by no thread
other than our various fascinations.
So, who is this "us", I hear you cry. SitaramIyer (the space
is silent) is paid by Google to support his hacking habit.
Abraham Thomas is retired and threatens to write his magnum opus
any day. Nisha Pillai is a geek in suit's (what else?)
clothing. And Martin DeMello works for a startup in between
bouts of being distracted by something shiny.
Welcome to Polytopia, and off we go.
"Cool! Let's."
"Okay, then. What shall it be about?"
"Um..."
Welcome to the wonderful world of the random walk. Embracing
wholeheartedly the dictum that it is better to travel
hopefully than to arrive, this blog will stagger from point to
interesting point, a whirl of topics knit by no thread
other than our various fascinations.
So, who is this "us", I hear you cry. SitaramIyer (the space
is silent) is paid by Google to support his hacking habit.
Abraham Thomas is retired and threatens to write his magnum opus
any day. Nisha Pillai is a geek in suit's (what else?)
clothing. And Martin DeMello works for a startup in between
bouts of being distracted by something shiny.
Welcome to Polytopia, and off we go.
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