Rohit > Recent Status Updates

In order read :
Story of Your Life
Tower of Babylon
Understand
Division by Zero
The Merchant and the Alchemist 's Gate
The Life cycle of Software Objects (on going)

1/12
No. 4: What if exposure to an alien language forever changed our perception of time?

I don't remember the movie in detail but I vaguely remember being impressed by it. And I remember telling others about the movie. I think I did understand it at the time. Even so, I remember how it still felt like there was more to be understood and I missed that. That's mostly why I picked up the book and jumped right into it.

Animal Farm done. Was a really short read, though I took my time. Brilliantly written. Also, a wake up call that I don't yet know enough world history. Had to google to understand many of the allegories and the people.

I am only 3/4th into this delightful book and I still dare proclaim Tharoor as a genius. Hope he can manage to pull out a majestic conclusion worthy of this. I am really taking my time reading this, enjoying each page as much as I can. :D

The starting was excellent but it kinda loses the pace now.

Don't understand what's with these quotations that open a chapter. Sometimes I spy a word that is used somewhere in the story and that's about it. Story is good but just like the previous edition, this would be more enjoyable to the British/European reader who might be familiar with the landmarks being mentioned.

Yes death is the star.. Bras is simply the canvas

3-> About constants not being really constant
4-> Cold fusion
5-> Well, life
6-> The Viking probe to detect life on Mars
7-> ET says Wow!
8-> Something bout a virus being huge
9-> Death, yeah I knew it was an anomaly all right.

Eye catching drawing.. the story line is not yet clear. Is it about the unpredictability of the inevitable phenomenon called death?

Douglas Adams' narration is terrific. First time listening to an audio book, and enjoying it. I think I might never've read this book all by myself.

2-> Pioneer probes 10 and 11, intended in part as a test of Newton's law of gravitation, exhibited an anomaly by veering 8000 miles away from their intended trajectory each year. Three decades of investigation later, the anomaly still lacks an explanation. Considering the painful nature of investigation, I think NASA should've just sent another probe in a similar fashion with better diagnostics.

Point 1->We don't know what most of the cosmos is. Yet we know that there must be something more than we know. Universe is suspected to be so big that what we can account for makes up a mere 4% of it. The enormity of the unknown cosmos alone serves t remind us that science hasn't figured everything out yet. Astonishingly, the author admits there may be limits to what can be known.

Point 1->We don't know what most of the cosmos is. Yet we know that there must be something more than we know. Universe is suspected to be so big that what we can account for makes up a mere 4% of it. The enormity of the unknown cosmos alone serves t remind us that science hasn't figured everything out yet. Astonishingly, the author admits there may be limits to what can be known.

So this is how it all began!

Vladek Spiegelman is an unlovable man. His son, Art Spiegelman is also so, albeit in a far lesser degree. Like Persepolis, this is a voice from the upper echelons of society and does not avoke sympathy in me. Perhaps that will be a good thing, for it may be better to look at this objectively, rather than with a prejudice. Plus, it's funny how the girls in the stories always seem to chase the one narrating the story.

Why haven't we invented visual enhancers that would enable our brain to "see" past the currently-visible spectrum of light?
Why are there are no upgrades available for our ears for ranges outside the now-audible range?
I seem to remember Calvin asking Hobbes some questions like this and I must admit that I am as disappointed with human beings as he is.

Shelving it as To read for the time being

Was keeping it here in the hope of finishing it soon. may be it's time I moved this to the To read shelf

Wrestling with a giant's theory about shrinking space and dilating time. Here's the key to the whole verbiage.
->Time is what a clock measures
->Distance is usually stated from the point of view(pov)of a stationary observer
->Space appears to shrink for someone travelling at high speeds(moving observer's own pov)
->Time for a moving observer appears to slow down from the pov of a stationary observer.

Here's what I have understood so far. There's a liquid that can run uphill. The entire human race would fit in the volume of a sugar cube,provided you can take out the empty space in atoms first. An atom can in many different places at once. Every breath you take contains an atom breathed out by Marilyn Monroe,though I don't see how the atoms from a breath can be uniformly scattered throughout the atmosphere.

Eye sores, headaches, neck pain, loss of sleep hours and direwolf dreams. That's what this book has given me so far. Still I find myself enjoying the ride and excited for more.