Please understand me

If I do not want what you want, please try not to tell me that my want is wrong.

Or if I believe other than you, at least pause before you correct my view.

Or if my emotion is less than yours, or more, given the same circumstances, try not to ask me to feel more strongly or weakly.

Or yet if I act, or fail to act, in the manner of your design for action, let me be.

I do not, for the moment at least, ask you to understand me. That will come only when you are willing to give up changing me into a copy of you.

I may be your spouse, your parent, your offsping, your friend, or your colleague. If you will allow me any of my own wants, or emotions, or beliefs, or actions, then you open yourself, so that some day these ways of mine might not seem so wrong, and might finally appear to you as right -- for me. To put up with me is the first step to understanding me.

Not that you embrace my ways as right for you, but that you are no longer irritated or disappointed with me for my seeming waywardness. And in understanding me you might come to prize my differences from you, and, far from seeking to change me, preserve and even nurture those differences.

Source: http://keirsey.com/ (Excerpts from Please understand me II)

Artificial Life

A Frankenstein figure lifted me off my feet, half-a-metre from the ground and looked into my eyes savagely and said, You! Dumb Ass. Can't you even play the basic level in a car game and you call yourself intelligent. I woke up with a sweat. Wondered if I have been watching too many Hollywood movies, aliens, predators, terminators. Well! Not exactly. I had the opportunity of attending lectures by two giants in the realm of Artificial Life.

Dr.David Goldberg of University of Illinois is considered the Michael Corleone of Genetic Algorithms. (He is so eminent that I have heard of him despite not working on anything even remotely GA). Genetic algorithms are a particular class of evolutionary algorithms that use techniques inspired by evolutionary biology such as inheritance, mutation, natural selection, and crossover.

David and his team have come up with the next generation of Genetic algorithms (basically because he has been able to increase the speed of computation about 173 times). Though I must admit that some of his lecture went right over my head, it wasn't all too bad. I especially liked his use of 'supermultiplicity'. Well! Now that is SUPERINTELLIGENT.

The second speaker, Dr. Mark Bedau of ProtoLife was no less brilliant. His area of research is the creating of Artificial cells in a lab. Wet life, he said, as against soft life which is where GA's come into play and hard life where Robots come into the picture. It goes beyond mere cloning or gene-manipulation. The whole cell is designed and manufactured in a lab with available chemicals and possibly with some MEMS (which is Micro Electro-Mechanical Systems). Science Fiction. Nope! Research of the future.

On the whole, an eye-opener. To the infinte possibilities of life. Natural or artificial.

Goblet of fire - after the movie

Harry Potter and The goblet of fire rocks. It fared much better than what loyal Harry Potter fans are bound to dread in a big-screen adaptation of what many claim their favourite of the Harry Potters.

The movie did have its disappointing moments. Many disappointing moments.

The first task with the dragons was a major letdown. It was disheartening to see Harry hardly worried about his imminent death in the tasks. It was as if he knew that he was the hero of the story and nothing could happen to him. Where is the shock at being called the fourth champion, where is the fear when Hagrid shows him the dreaded dragons and where is the desperation to find something, just anything to make him survive the nightmare.

Why doesn't Steve Kloves understand that "Cheap thrills maketh no movie good". Harry Potter is not a wizard 'Spy kid' with cool spells instead of cool gadgets (even the 'magic' part of it was not emphasised enough).

Another major grievance; why is it that nobody no longer gasps when Harry enunciates Lord Voldemort's name (Remember even Luciuc Malfoy is scared to utter or even hear his name). Why is there no fear, no terror? And when Dumbledore declares that the cause of Cedric's death was murder, everybody just turns around and say, Yeah Right! Whatever! No Aahs! No tears!

Hermione is right! We don't care about other magical creatures. S.P.E.W. and House-Elves Liberation Front are necessary. What happened to Dobby and Winky? Dispensable, are they? Agreed you have severe time constraints. Still, what happens to Mr. Crouch (Sr.) who is shown unconscious in the forest and then nothing happens. Harry doesn't even mention it to Dumbledore (which is why he comes to his office in the first place). Could have dispensed with it as well.

Criticisms apart, I think the comic moments in the movie were tickling-had the hall laughing loud. The Yule ball was grand, the Quidditch World Cup fleetingly brilliant and Harry's flirting attempts with Cho Chang, amusing. And the confrontation with the Dark Lord was intensely, darkly vivid. Perhaps the best part of the movie.

I am eternally indebted to Ms. T who is the friend of Ms. K, who is the friend of Mr.A, who is my friend, for standing in an interminable queue for an hour to get the tickets. (And for the company - always feels good to watch a HP movie with people who have read the books and enjoy them as much as you do)

Subtlety, that was what the film lacks. And magic.