EuroEnglish

Here is a funny take on irregular spellings in English. By irregular spelling, I mean, the mismatch between spelling and pronunciation in English words. Of course the German negotiators take it one level further.

"The European Union commissioners have announced that agreement has been reached to adopt English as the preferred language for European communications, rather than German, which was the other possibility.

As part of the negotiations, the British government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a five-year phased plan for what will be known as EuroEnglish (Euro for short).

In the first year, "s" will be used instead of the soft "c". Sertainly, sivil servants will resieve this news with joy.

Also, the hard "c" will be replaced with "k". Not only will this klear up konfusion, but typewriters kan have one less letter.

There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year, when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced by "f". This will make words like "fotograf" 20 per sent shorter.

In the third year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible.

Governments will enkorage the removal of double letters, which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horible mes of silent "e"s in the languag is disgrasful, and they would go.

By the fourth year, peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" by "z" and "w" by " v".

During ze fifz year, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou", and similar changes vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters.

After zis fifz yer, ve vil hav a reli sensibl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubls or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand each ozer.

Ze drem vil finali kum tru ! "

-Unknown Author

Iterative structures

Seemingly complicated forms arising out of simple iterative structures is more than just intriguing. Traditional Euclidean geometry is just incapable of identifying the regularity in these structures. Ironically nature is predominantly composed of such iterative structures, what we call as "fractals". Fractal geometry to a good extent can represent these structures mathematically is quite satisfying.

Apparently, scaling in nature seems to happen in "fractals". While the traditional examples of ferns, blood vessels, corals, mountains, trees, etc., perhaps best represent these fractal structures in nature. I stumbled upon this documentary where scientist studying "rain forests" in Costa Rica, seem to have extended this a little further. What they claim is that the distribution of width of the branches of a single tree matches the distribution of the width of the trees in the forest. In medicine, apparently it can be used to identify cancers at an early stage. The idea being, the networks of a blood vessel in a healthy person is different from that of a network that usually accompanies a tumor.

I can't help but wonder how the same principles could be used to study brains. Perhaps the seemingly complicated personalities, which if I may assume are products of thought processes, could be mathematically represented using fractals. After all thought process, in simple terms, itself is just a product of neural feedback system. Of course this would require phenomenal mapping of sections of brain along with their synapses.

Spain's tri-umphs?

2008

Spain wins Euro '08

Nadal wins his first Wimbledon title.

Carlos Sastre wins Tour de France

2010

Nadal wins his second Wimbledon title

Spain wins World Cup

A Spanish rider (possibly Contador) wins Tour de France again???

Will there be a spanish hatrick this year? That will be interesting.

Spain's victory is quite expected. Muller's "Golden Boot" , Forlan's "Golden ball" award, all well deserved. I wish there was a "most despicable player" of the tournament in place. Mark Van Bommel will win it hands down.

Zzz Germans

Watching the German team play is more than just a delight, call it inspiring. Great team work, precise execution, unselfish play makes it all the more compelling to watch them. Their Euro '08 campaign still lingers in my memory. They had shades of brilliance just enough to reach the finals, even though I don't recall a very consistent performance. Lahm and Podolski were impressive young players then.

Just when you think a team couldn't get young anymore, Germany surprised everybody with more fresh faces for the World cup (read it as kids).

Mesut Ozil - I can't believe Roger Cohen from NYTimes stole my thoughts on Ozil !

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/02/opinion/02iht-edcohen.html?_r=1&ref=rogercohen

Thomas Muller - Very few people make debut goals in World cups. He has got four of them. Not to mention some of his assists.

As much as I would like to see them win the World cup, the inexperience of some of the younger members could in fact count against them in such a big stage. Now that they have reached the semifinal of the world cup which is an achievement by itself, the sheer height of achievement can make you dizzy and make your nerves jangle.

Can't wait to see their semi-final clash with Spain. Spain is a favorite to win. Xavi, Iniesta and David Villa could prove a little too much for the Germans. Let's see !

I would hate to see the Dutch holding the World cup for some reason. They lack the calibre that the Spaniards and Germans display. I have seen little of Uruguay to comment.

Dizzying levels of "............. "

Such phenomenon is rarely seen that linguists ( or lexicologists ) decided not to bother people with another adjective. Even writers, in their imaginative world, couldn't have nearly conceived of a person, who clearly doesn't fit in this world.

Grigori Perelman, an obscure Russian mathematician, who solved a century old Poincare conjecture, declined to accept two of the prestigious awards in Mathematics, the Fields Medal and most recently the Millennium prize for the same.

All he had to say

"I'm not interested in money or fame. I don't want to be on display like an animal in a zoo."

"I'm not a hero of mathematics. I'm not even that successful, that is why I don't want to have everybody looking at me."

Please... I just can't take it. After performing an imaginary version of "We're not worthy" ritual similar to one from "Wayne's World" , I proceeded to look for similar people, who seem to jump out of fairy tales.

Two people stand out,

Lê Ðức Thọ - Apparently declined his Nobel peace prize in 1973, stating that there was no peace in his country then(Vietnam)

Jean Paul Sartre, declined his Nobel Prize for literature, stating "A writer must refuse to allow himself to be transformed into an institution, even if it takes place in the most honourable form."

Thankfully these people failed miserably in their efforts to be unpopular.

Sylvia Nasar and David Gruber weave an interesting story in "The New Yorker" with events surrounding the proof of Poincare conjecture. It's a must read !

Project Tuva

Well, Thanks Bill Gates for project Tuva !

http://research.microsoft.com/apps/tools/tuva/

Rued for being rude

The line that divides the act of being honest and being rude is a thin one. Recently I trod this skinny line and flagrantly strayed out on the wrong side. Blame it on a moment of madness or a complete misunderstanding of other person's ability to handle my surfeiting dose of honesty or truth. In the end, it's completely shattering to have hurt someone, especially if you consider them as a good human being, perhaps better than yourself.

Since my deft at handling situations, especially the sensitive ones, seem to have had hit a rock bottom, I needed some serious postmortem. Unfortunately, postmortems can be equally killing and the fear of being cast as a villain by your own self inhibits your ability to make a fair judgement. And mind is a great trickster, it tends to rationalize your act as a face saving measure.

You could say I fell for the trick. Nevertheless looking back at it, it feels right to have been truthful than to have patched the situation by conjuring up a lie. Of course the guilt factor of having been hurtful still lingers. I didn't have the ability to stomach it. Perhaps handling the situation tactfully, could have lessened the guilt, though it wouldn't have completely freed me from it. I guess the remnant guilt is a debilitating byproduct of a confused brain, struggling to be at peace with its left and right halves.