Or how I spent a Saturday afternoon.

Nanoblock kits are a great alternative to Lego kits if time and space are constraints.

I’ve put up a few more pictures here.

GOOD Magazine has an interesting article that elaborates on the fall in Colombian coffee output from 12 million bags to 7.8 million bags - the country’s lowest yield in 33 years; makes for depressing reading.

It was 2005 when Baker “started to think seriously that climate change was not just about the future but was already happening.” Today, the signs are plentiful. Average temperatures have risen nearly 2 degrees in some areas over the past 30 years, “especially nighttime minimum temperatures,” says Baker, “a tell-tale signature of [man-made] climate change.” Hotter, rainier weather nourishes pests and disease, particularly coffee rust, a fungal plague that’s ascended Colombia’s mountain peaks, which were formerly too chilly for the organism. Heavy rains damage Arabica’s delicate blossoms—the same blossoms that eventually turn into coffee cherries, whose seeds are coffee beans. As heat and pests climb Colombia’s mountains, “the lower limit at which coffee is grown is starting to go up,” says Baker.

…

While climate change’s harshest effects won’t be felt for two or three more decades, “it would not surprise me if one of these years we get a fairly serious drought” in a major coffee-producing country like Brazil, Baker says. “That could cause coffee scarcity for quite a prolonged period.” Coffee production will continue to experience booms and busts, but Baker asserts that “in the long run, people will have to get used to drinking a bit less coffee.”

The last time I read anything by Arundhati Roy was The Algebra of Infinite Justice back in college. If it’s any consolation, my Communist tendencies have taken a beating since then. However, after having read her new collection of essays,  Broken Republic, I’m starting to think that she’s either misunderstood or  intentionally misinterpreted by her detractors. There’s no question that she’s a Maoist sympathizer but certainly not the traitor she’s made out to be.

She’s also quite aware of the inherent ridiculousness of party ideologies.

Each faction believes itself to be the only genuinely revolutionary Marxist party or political formation. Each believes the other has misinterpreted Communist theory and misunderstood history. Anyone who isn’t a card-carrying member of one or the other group will be able to see that none of them is entirely wrong or entirely right about what they say. But bitter splits, not unlike those in religious sects, are the natural corollary of the rigid conformity to the party line demanded by all Communist parties. So they dip into a pool of insults that dates back to the Russian and Chinese revolutions, to the great debates between Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin, to Chairman Mao’s red book, and hurl them at each other. They accuse each other of the ‘incorrect application’ of ‘Marxist-Leninist-Mao Zedong Thought’, almost as though it’s an ointment that’s being rubbed in the wrong place.

While I had problems with her rather accommodationist views on Naxal extremism, Broken Republic was quite an interesting and enlightening read.

I’m reading Douglas Hofstadter’s tremendously engaging book, ‘I Am a Strange Loop‘. If you’re the kind that understood (or like me, pretended to understand) Godel, Escher, Bach, I cannot recommend it enough.

Devotees will recall that I’ve been trying to get better at coding in MATLAB. Here are a couple of z^2+c fractals I plotted thanks to an unusual spike in interest which will most likely vanish after this post.

Also, getting Octave/GNUPlot to work on MacOSX wasn’t as straightforward as I’d have liked.

Shamelessly borrowed stuff from here, here and here.

I’m trying to write more regularly, so expect some rambling.

We used to watch a lot of Star Trek: TNG back in the day and there was this one episode I’m sure my parents were a little uncomfortable with - ‘Justice’. After around 10 minutes of watching the half-naked inhabitants of Rubicon III indulge in guilt-free sex and other pleasures (and my mother’s glares), we were asked to leave the room  (damn you, understandable but misplaced fears).

I finally watched the episode last night, 16 years later. It was pretty silly but thematically more substantial than I recall. The USS Enterprise makes contact with a planet whose peaceful inhabitants live in fear of their god, an advanced alien being kicking it out in the planet’s orbit. When Wesley Crusher breaks a trivial rule, the Enterprise has to prevent his execution and this isn’t easy considering they’re sworn to the Prime Directive. The reason I prefer TNG over the original series is because of the former’s obvious moral core.

Anyway, Captain Picard saves the day with a speech.

I don’t know how to communicate this, or even if it is possible. But the question of justice has concerned me greatly of late. And I say to any creature who may be listening, there can be no justice so long as laws are absolute. Even life itself is an exercise in exceptions.

Let me digress, but only slightly. The IT law overhaul in India is clearly a bad idea but shouldn’t we be worried that there are people out there making arguments like this?

While flipping through a tattered copy of Benjamin Kunkel’s Indecision this morning, I found out I’d scribbled ‘shit’ next to these lines 5 years ago.

…and wondering whether in similar irony, that Abulinix would force me to decide that my entire personality boiled down to neurochemistry, and I only flattered myself in believing that I possessed a free will in need of regular exercise. Then why would I do anything at all? Once you decide you’re only an animal, how do you keep from becoming a vegetable?

So far, it’s been an interesting day; after spending over an hour at passport control, we caught a cab to our hotel – Hotel Central. The owner has decided to call us ‘Indians’ and brings up Sridevi, Shammi Kapur and Amitabh Bhachan every chance he gets. We nod politely and sometimes manage an uncomfortable laugh.

Highlights so far: cafe au lait, Rick’s Cafe.

In less than a day, I’ll be on a flight to, of all places, Morocco. I honestly can’t recall how the three of us decided on Morocco but it happened and needless to say, I’m excited.

I’d briefly considered starting a new blog for the trip but decided against it considering I haven’t written anything substantial in a while and I may have forgotten how it’s done. As much as we’d have loved to wing it the entire two weeks of our trip, we’ve planned out in (uncharacteristically) excruciating detail, where we’ll be every single day. There’s Casablanca, Marrakech, Fez, Tangier, Mekenes and a 3 day trek across the Western Sahara. Oh, and there’s a two day stint in Dubai on the way back.

There will be drunken revelry, belly dancing, sightseeing, fezzes, sand, hookahs and confusion.

[Crossposted on The Original Poseur]

The thing about being in your twenties is that you can barely keep track of the years as they whiz by. I mean, it’s been nearly 12 years since The Matrix came out. (Yes, ‘Whoa!’ is the appropriate response.)

I’ll be the first to admit that I haven’t been writing as much as I’d like. Hopefully, that’ll change this year. If things go as planned, there will be traveling and meeting up with old friends and family.  And as always, there are bound to be complications, awkward epiphanies and unexpected adventures.

I’m going to ring in the new year like I do every year – with extra helpings of cheese and an overwhelming sense of dread.

Also, I have a tumblelog now. Apparently, all the cool kids are doing it.

Damp earth Mutilated id
Murky waters Forgotten vows
Pungent air Unfinished sentences
Colorless skies Broken resolves
Old bromides are new again Now that
Lines long aligned Diverge once more