My flirtation with Wikipedia

While I have been keeping very busy, and am unlikely to post anything substantial for some time, I thought, I would provide link to my Wikipedia user page (click) that I had developed after lot of effort without any real knowledge of HTML. Of course back then, I had been able to develop it only by analyzing a lot of others' users pages, and tweaking them through trial and error.

Also, almost unknown to many of you, I had been a very avid contributor (click) to Wikipedia articles. But had to tear away myself from that web site, especially editing it, only since it was so very addictive and hampering my studies (not unlike blogging ;) ).

There is an article I had created and brought to its current status almost entirely on my own, including making several diagrams. On searching for 'polyclonal response' on major search engines, that article is the first result one gets. Here (click). It enjoys the status of a 'Good article' on Wikipedia, which means by quality and reliability as judged by a stringent peer review, it is 1 among every 403 articles.

Also, I had singlehandedly created an article on a very important topic called 'lymph', which a year back used to get almost 700 to 1000 hits in a day, or more! Same with articles on 'B cell' and 'lymphatic system', to which I had made significant contributions.

It has been more than a year I have made any significant edits to Wikipedia, and was feeling nostalgic. And not to forget, once a Wikipedian is always a Wikipedian. :) So, I wanted to share these things with a few readers who visit my blog. Somehow though contributing to Wikipedia has not brought me any glory or provided with career boost, I feel very content to have added something to the World's knowledge-base. I have used Wikipedia extensively, and have always felt deeply indebted to those anonymous contributors who have been enriching my life through their knowledge and writings, with no material rewards in return, except for the satisfaction of sharing their knowledge systematically.

If any of you feel you are an expert/well read person in anything under the Sun (and beyond), please do share your knowledge through Wikipedia. :)

Tales of Bruno and Galileo: The art of saying semi-sorry after thinking for REALLY, REALLY LONG! Like, 359 years!

Here is an article dealing with related issues of psychology, some history, arguments for existence of god(s), and their refutation :)

Why Atheism? (click)

It is easy to understand, devoid of rigorous philosophical jargon, but very lengthy.

One horrifying thing was the manner in which Giordano Bruno was executed in 1600 (click) for holding ideas that were contrary to the Church's.

Having read of many such executions, I was not affected much. What suprised me in the Wikipedia article, however, was that like modern 'professionals'--reality show judges, there used to be inquisitors! While, the former decide if a contestant deserves to win, largely based on their whims, the inquisitors would, if a person deserved to live, and if not, what kind of exemplary murder would be suitable. But, totally based on whims!

All this to what end? To shield the humanity from truth.

Truths like, Jupiter's moons orbited it, that the Earth revolved around the Sun, and not vice versa!

Galileo in 1633, when 70, was made to retract his verification of Bruno's ideas that went against Aristotle's two millenia old 'truths', which the Church had adjudicated to be, well, 'absolute truths'. Of course, citing the precedent they had set of Bruno's 'fate' only helped further.

But the reason I write is the fact that I would never lay down my life thus. I would rather take the easy path and give in to arbitrary coercion. I feel somewhat ashamed to be that way, but more importantly, dwarfed by the likes of Bruno who had in them to give up to that end, the only thing a man ever truly owns--his life, with nothing to gain in return.

Through this post I just wish to remind that each time we discard naturalism in favor of supernaturalism, what a great sacrifice we frown upon despite continuing to hypocritically savor former's fruits, e.g., reading this post! Okay I concede, some might now precisely curse Bruno for that!

Thankfully, because of God we have some humor (click)! ;)

EXACTLY 17 years back (click), the Church realized Galileo had been right all along!

A divorce... that could not last.

They had been married ever since they could remember--more than 20 years now. They did not even remember if it was out of love, or was it arranged. They were so young, it was called an infant marriage! It was thaaaat long.

They always viewed things from different perspectives, yet somehow always managed to focus on where their views overlapped.

Wherever one went, the other had to go. They even woke up together. And no doubt, slept together. But, sleeping together never brought any excitement. :( They had grown sick of the other. Totally sick.

You go your way. I'll go mine.

[Angrily, without a thought] As you wish. And don't you dare follow me. Huh!

So for the first time ever, they went their own separate ways and darted in opposite directions. But they felt intensely dizzy (click). They could not stand it, they had to unite. They realized, their fate to stay together was sealed, not by something flimsy as love, but PPRF!

<--*-->

Okay sorry folks for this crap, which I am sure even medicos would find crappy!

It is on simple eyes that mammals possess. Meaning, they always manage to look at the same object of focus, but from different angles. Yet, the brain fuses the two images into one. PPRF is one of centers involved in controlling horizontal eye movements.

Eyes show many types of involuntary and voluntary movements for proper functioning.

Saccades are jerky movements generated mainly in response to changes in visual field (what the brain 'sees'), e.g., a moving target or sudden appearance of something new in the field--a fly falling in your soup! ;) They bring the 'pursued' object just about to the center of visual focus.

Smooth pursuit movements perform the same function as saccades, but are better coordinated, with constant adjustments in direction and velocity of eye movements based on feedback from muscles moving the eyes as well as the images formed by the retinae.

The fast phase of a nystagmus is brain's attempt to keep eyes still with regard to axis of the head when eyes get 'distracted' (the slow phase of nystagmus), say following head movement, saccades or sudden pursuit movements. So nystagmus could be normal, but occurs whenever eyes try to simultaneously look at different things! ;)

Google God, this is not fair! :(

See, how Google God is misguiding my prospective-readers-and-even-more-prospectively-about-to-turn-followers into believing that my blog is not about what they want to find on the World wide Web! :(

[CLICK 'GOOGLE GOD'S VAGARIES' ON TOP RIGHT OF THIS PAGE.]

No wonder, I keep on finding excuses to try to popularize my blog through shrewd, but inefficient means. And all it manages to do, is remain a Neglected Serendipity (click)

CLICK

And since my wishes do not get fulfilled, I find excuses to turn and remain an atheist, by emotionally blackmailing myriad of purportedly True and Supreme Gods.

CLICK

&

CLICK

Aargh some angels I worshipped, also did not help me in my NobelNoble endeavor! :(

CLICK

But this once, yet again I hope, the newly suprematized Google God would take notice that this marginalized blogger is perverseperseveres, and show mercy upon his deviantdivine blog, showering it with readers and their illogicaleulogical comments.

DO NOT CLICK

So here goes a piece of sycophancysick-o'-fancy-verbiage, hence short prayer.

Google Gog is goog
CLICK

Extraordinarily Ordinary Post: stretching a 'dabba' phone to its limits!

This might be an ordinary-looking post, and the more ordinary it looks, the more extraordinary, in fact it is!

I use a simple Java-based phone (click) for web access to e.g., publish many blog-posts and comment on blogs.

Today however, I wanted to try Mail2blogger (click), a Blogger-service which enables users to simply email a blog-post to a specific address to get it published.

The whole affair is very simple till this point! But my complications begin now! Not a single browser on my phone fully supports Java script or flash (I hope I am getting the terminology right!) required to effect Rich text formatting (RTF) (click) to make characters, bold-faced or italicized, for example. So, the emails I send render only in plain text. Not just that, even submitting clickable links (click, what else!) would not be possible! The only email accounts I had been using were of Yahoo! and Gmail. Previously Yahoo! used to support viewing HTML source while editing, but that feature probably stands discontinued.

I use three mobile browsers--two versions (4.2 and 5.0 beta) of Opera mini (click), and Bolt (click) of late. Opera gives away the identity of my device as a phone, and thus Yahoo! by default allows me access only to their mobile service called Yahoo! Go, which does not support RTF. Whereas, Bolt supports the web-version of Yahoo! Mail, but not RTF! :(

So I had to find an email service allowing me to input plain text with HTML markup, and yet rendering it in RTF. I found my savior in Rediff! :)

Also, I'd downloaded the .xml file of this template to upload it for another experimental blog (click) I just started. Also for the first time, I used blog-import and export features.

So finally, this post would be simultaneously published at the other blog also without my actually accessing Blogger--all from an ordinary phone! I just hope both the posts turn out ordinary enough!

Rambling, as if in dreams!

I have no idea if any of the readers go through the sidebars of my blog, but there is a lot to explore there, probably more than my posts also, and much more interesting, too! ;)

On the bottom left, you will find a link to a web site that comes up with a daily miscellaneous list of ten things (usually).

Today's list is 10 More Amazing Facts about Dreams (click). It in turn, as expected, links to another original list of equally amazing facts about dreams.

I have yet not gone through the latest list, but while going through the original one, I was quite amazed by how the observations made by Sigmund Freud (click) about nine decades ago, have still held true. I have had the fortune of reading initial parts of the English translation of The Interpretation of Dreams, and the first time I had read it, I was dumb struck by the intelligence of that person. And on reading about his ground-breaking ideas (apart from those on dreams) of psychoanalysis (click), ego-defense mechanisms (click) and psychosexual development (click), I was totally floored! Each time I read about him, I only wonder, how could a person feel, observe, analyze, document, and subject to verification so much in one lifetime! No wonder, I was not surprised in the least when I came to know through some obscure web site (of questionable reliablity) that his IQ was tagged at 160!

And from the very same web site: Einstein--165, Newton--175, Darwin--180, Kasparov--180, and well the most intelligent public figures were Sharon Stone--150, Hillary Clinton--140, and Madonna--140 ;)

Here (click) is a list of IQs of famous people with figures quite different from what I have quoted in this post, but interesting (and equally dubious) nonetheless.

Those are HUGE numbers! In all likelihood, the most intelligent grown up you would have ever personally known would have it less than 160!

As you could see I have rambled a lot, leaping from one idea to the next remotely connected one. But then I had to justify post's title, also! ;)