The Germans are coming

Tip to commentator: Do not, I repeat do not say, "The German attack is advancing. They have been threatening all day. The German raid is unstoppable. They are about to strike". 

An 80 year old man in Alsace who turned on his Philips pocket transistor, clutched his heart, keeled over and died.

- context: Germany thrashed Brazil 7-1 at the 2014 World Cup

Sapio-philia

I find intelligence the most attractive trait in friends/ prospective partners. I get a hard on whenever someone impresses me with an amazing insight, intellectual ability or their scientific prowess. (Example: I saw this incredible comic exposition of the cosmic inflation that blew my mind today). I like people who are passionate about their work... and they are rare. Even among PhDs you tend to find few. Nothing is better than a long, very stimulating conversation that challenges my thinking. 

I was discussing my sapiosexuality with a like-minded friend. She described that the brain is likely the biggest sexually selected organ and that there is some scientific evidence that it purely evolved due to sexual selection (See earlier post). 

She needled me with a "What about all the other people that do not have the same reaction, but still do have a brain?". I kinda made a faux pas by saying that obviously there is no evolutionary advantage to having everyone be attracted to the same thing. I don't know if the "obviously" is what stuck her nerve but she countered my pronouncement with "The hypothesis of Fisherian run-away does exactly ask this and several studies show that there can be an advantage to being attracted to the same thing. Just think if a large brain means you are better at solving problems and thus finding food and securing a territory this will certainly increase your reproductive success". 

This friend was doing her PhD in evolutionary biology with a particular focus on sexual selection and my knowledge of evolutionary biology, given my engineering background, is limited to that one time I read Richard Dawkins during a long layover in Singapore airport. I was getting schooled (and I was loving it).

Ah! the plot thickens.

I defended myself that it is good from an evolutionary point to be interested in a variety of traits. Vague terms like Biodiversity, evolvability, and genetic variability come to mind. But to give a layperson example, I'd have thought that if all women were interested in nerdy guys who have never done a push-up in their life and the gene becomes dominant overshadowing all the gym-nut types, what would we do when there is a zombie upraising that requires some folks with muscular genes to run and drive stakes and cross-bow hunt them zombies. Oooh! bad example. That is essentially me saying that you are better off dating a muscular guy instead of me (Yes, I was hoping to date an evolutionary biologist). Terrible example. Strike that. Let's suppose that brawny-ness won the gene-survival fight and all the single nerdy men and women took their high IQ genes to their grave, what would we do when the computers develop consciousness and want to enslave the human race. Who will press Ctrl + Alt + Del.

And that boys and girls, is how it is done.

Update: Despite my charm, I didn't get a date with her. But that was mainly because she was an exchange student and has already left our shores for Europe. 

Meanwhile, some 3 million years ago

Some evolutionary psychologists have theorised that from a macro-evolutionary perspective, the human brain fits the profile of sexually-selected ornaments, like peacock feathers. Which suggests that way back in the paleolithic era geeks were sexy.

Regulation

The Abbott government is releasing a Guide to Regulation. I had a sneak peak and this is breaking news people. Inside it was scrawled in red crayons "relugation = bad" and "bisness = good". Also a stick figure with giant blue penis. True story.

Wrestling pigs

You: Blah blah blah!!!! I am right!
Me: Sorry. That didn't sound logical. Could you explain?
You: You think one way; I think another way
Me: True. But it still doesn't make sense. Not all truths are equally true, you know
You: You are being impractical
Me: Sure, I am still in university. And yes I read books. Still, I don't think pragmatism changes anything in our blah! blah!
You: BLAH BLAH BLAH!!! YOU ARE WRONG!!!!!
Me: OK. Let's not argue. Forget about it. Let's just watch TV
You: I WON!!!! I WON!!! I AM A BRILLIANT THINKER WITH PROFOUND IDEAS THAT NO ONE IS ABLE TO CONTEST. [in a Stewie from Family Guy voice]I LOOK BRILLIANT, DON'T I? I DO! I DO!

Tongue-tied

Observation: I am an uninteresting person. I have nothing to say. Nothing.
Seinfeldian inference: Talk about how there is nothing to talk about

What's cooking?

It is always an enriching experience seeing an Engineer cook. What makes one an Engineer is a different thing. Not everyone with a piece of paper that says they graduated with a Bachelors in Engineering qualifies to be called an Engineer. They are atmost engineers. Well! I am talking of this breed of 'engineer superiori' a.k.a. Engineers whose lives and the air they breathe reek of engineering. I have the misfortune of having surrounded my life with engineers and Engineers (and very few of the other endangered species).

I meant to talk of an enriching experience, so forgive me my circumlocution. It all began when I was at this friend's place, and believe me when I say he is a rank exhibit of Engineers. With a capital E.

My friend offered to cook for me to showcase his cooking skills. Apparently, he wanted to convince me that he was ready to get married. I usually enjoy cooking and would have offered to help but seeing how much it meant to him, I let him cook and satisfied myself with the role of the observer.

What struck me the most immediately was the preciseness of his cooking. If the recommended ratio of rice and water was 1:2, it was "1:2". Water was measured to an accuracy of plus/minus 5ml. Allowances would have been given to the hardness or softness of the water but for want of reliable data about the variation of quantity of water to the hardness of water (imagine an excel chart with hardness on the x-axis and quantity of water on y-axis with coloured dots throughout). It was better to be on the conservative side and use the standard specifications. 'City of cooking' might be used as a proxy for the hardness value but day-to-day variation of water quality were unaccounted for.

Another important factor affecting the ratio is the quality of rice. Recent literature survey points out, there is a dearth of measures, qualitative or quantitative for the quality of rice as related to water required to cook it. Region-specific and brand-specific measures are at best ad-hoc alternates. At this point, no other factors were known to affect the ratio in a significant manner. These are ascribed for future research work.

Next, he was emboldened by the unqualified success of the 'Rice experiments' to try out a Gulab Jamun mix. And I think it was around this time that it stopped being funny and became sad.

The readiness of sugar syrup was measured by the viscosity of the aforementioned syrup. Loose definitions of "as thick as oil" are severely frowned upon. There are oils belonging to a wide spectrum of viscosities and the precise nature of the oil is paramount to preparing required consistency. Cook for five minutes meant... wait for it... yeah! you guessed it right, cook for 300 seconds. When time reached 290, his hand was in position, on the knob to avoid any time lag. Similarly instructions on the packet require that the dough be fried at 165 degrees. Since there were no reliable temperature measuring devices in the kitchen (since, after about 80 degrees, hand was not a reliable device and returned only a totally inadequate "unbearably hot" response), a small quanity of dough was dropped into the frying pan. If it became golden brown, it meant that the oil was ready. However, maintaining the heat at this precise temperature poses a problem. Keeping the stove ON would, obviously increase the temperature but it is believed that the loss function due to the transfer of energy to the dough would compensate for it. The exact setting of the stove knob has to be determined empirically, depending on the diameter of the dough balls and the number of balls simultaneously fried.

At the end of the day however, I have to admit, the food was delicious.

To all Engineers... you make life livable.