Tagdeath

So after posting about how he doesn't like his blog persona becoming public, the Nonbass Chief Devil has posted 8 things about himself which seem, at first glance, to be highly personal. Is this an attempt at irony? I wonder.

Apparently this tag is meant to make you post 8 things about yourself. This is of course intriguingly vague. Why 8 things? Why not a nice round 10? Was the originator a fan of binary? And things about me? Like what? I guess things that other people may atleast be able to pretend to be interested in, otherwise people would have even less interest in reading this blog than they already do. Which is not losing much of course, since the readership of this blog seems to be around three people, optimistically.

Enough of the gas, forward to the fertilizer --->
1. My mom's a Tamil prof., and I can barely read Tamil, let alone write it, to her eternal shame. This was brought about by a combination of studying in Canada for a year and completely forgetting Tamil, and some really bad Tamil teachers who put me off the subject at a tender age.
2. We had 4 kittens in our flat when I was in the 10th. My mom is quite convinced (probably accurately) that they were responsible for me standing 4th in my batch. From the bottom. I got 98 in Tamil though. Out of 200. The only good that resulted was that there was no objection to me switching to French.
3. I used to play in my flat from 3:30pm to 6pm with one set of kids, and from 5:30pm to 8pm with another. I was therefore expected to flunk badly by the majority of the Mothers' association. Somehow scraped a seat in AU after 12th and had the last laugh.
4. I was and still am an introverted geek. I can hold my end of a good conversation, but starting one is way beyond my means.
5. I was part of a group which set off to KudreMukh on Oct 2nd, 2004. We ended up in a bad accident with a yellow lorry at a place called Chennarayapatna a few kilometers from Hassan. Two of my colleagues died on the spot. One was in a coma for a few months. A few others had fractures and assorted bruises. I escaped with a small scratch on my forehead. I will never travel on the highway by private vehicle at night again.
6. I read more than almost anyone else I know. Hard SF is my poison. I am an information addict - if I'm not reading, I'm browsing the 'Net.
7. I'm a confirmed Atheist, and I've grown out of baiting others. Usually. Ok I didn't really. I just stopped baiting others because their arguments got repetitive and boring.
8. I argue a lot. I usually prefer a good argument to conversation. I thought "The Argumentative Indian" was a biography of me by Amartya Sen. No I'm not usually this big-headed. Pig-headed I am usually. As the quote goes "Arguing with an Engineer and wrestling with a pig in mud are similar. After a while you realise the pig is enjoying it".

That was not too bad I suppose. And my targets are, Goli, Chander, Madhan (whose blog is dead I think), Lokesh, Arka, and Kapil.

Spider, spider

Do you fear spiders?

If you do, then this is not for you!

Some extremely graphic pictures, and the description is none too neat either.

And as a result, I am going to be much more careful around spiders from now on.

On a side-note, my house is infested with 'kambili-poochi'. Don't know what the English term is, let me see if google turns it up.... For once google has not been very helpful, I don't think 'hairy caterpillar' does it any justice :-).

However perseverance leads to this, and this. The second page has a picture of a "Gypsy Moth Caterpillar" which is what the Kambili poochi in my house look like...
Don't have too many spiders here though. Wonder if these caterpillars and spiders fight.

On a personal note.. Work is Worship :-). And at this rate I'm going to be sainted, there's so much WORSHIPWORK that I have. Let's see where this rabbit-hole leads, Alice!

Heim's theory

The Wikipedia entry on Heim's theory has been considerably enlarged since when I posted about him. Well worth checking out!