I cancelled hosting with my old ISP - Yahoo domains and then tried to transfer to my web host - Bluehost. I couldnt. I let the domain expire, but it still shows as unavailable, even though its in my name. Weird huh?
Meanwhile I have taken a break to ponder about the meaning of life, and where i want the whole blog direction to go …
Thanks for stopping by, and thanks for bearing up with me..

- Lakshmi

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JRR Tolkien’s ‘The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun’
The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun by JRR Tolkien was published earlier this week. The 500-stanza poem which has never before seen the light of day was loosely based on a collection of Norse myths. These were named Elder Edda and were preserved in a 13th-century manuscript which he had cherished.

Agriculture enlightened: a modern Japanese sage brings “do-nothing farming”
The principles of Fukuoka-style natural farming are no tilling(cultivation), no fertilizers, no pesticides, and no weeding -practically a ”do-nothing method of natural farming.” What he does do is manipulate habitat to favor the crops he wants to grow. He works within the laws of ecology to tilt the ecosystem in favor of the plants he wants. Then his crops virtually invade and grow like weeds.

What makes his work truly unique, however, is that to Fukuoka, farming is a spiritual path.“Natural farming is not just for growing crops, it is for the cultivation and perfection of human beings.”

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Download Free Repeat Patterns

Another pattern Site.. Very nice too

(tags: design resources textures webdesign)

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My earliest Irish encounter was “An Irish Airman Forsees His Death” by W B Yeats, and the swashbuckling adventure Moby Dick by Herman Melville.  Ever since I have held a rosy view of Ireland.  Then the 80s brought to light the Irish independence struggle. My viewpoint changed a little.  My next interaction of Ireland was through my friend David Airey. I had a viewpoint shift.  But through the works of Roddy Doyle, I have had a whole new understanding of Ireland, and its emerging culture.

In the book, The Deportees and Other Stories, Doyle leads us through a journey of stories laced with  ‘Spuds’, reactions to ‘Riverdance’ and ‘Danny Boy’ and are interspersed with flavors of modern day Ireland.  In his collection of short stories, Doyle has caught the little nuances that transports the reader to everyday Ireland.  The thing that strikes us the most is that the characters in the story could be anywhere.  The very sense of familiarity helps the reader identify with the characters in each story.  The topic of  of racial bigotry, has been handled in a sensitive, quirky humorous fashion, and displays superbly, Doyles sensitivity and understanding of human nature.

Without acting as a spoiler alert, some excerpts:
Guess who is coming for dinner:
It had been a week of politeness, smiles and heavy silences. He could hear cutlery on the plates for the first time in years. He tortured himself for things to say, nice things that would prove he wasn’t a bigot.

The Deportees
He typed one handed into his laptop. ‘Brothers and Sisters, Welcome to Ireland.  Do you want the Celtic Tiger to dance to your music?  If yes, the World’s Hardest-working Band is looking for you.  Contact J. Rabbitte at 089-22524242 or rabbittej@banjo.ie.  White Irish need not apply.’

Altogether a must read book!

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Pic Courtesy: Wikipedia

Read My message to Ang Suu Kyi

She is frequently called Daw Aung San Suu Kyi; Daw is not part of her name, but an honorific similar to madam for older, revered women, literally meaning “aunt”.[7] Strictly speaking, her given name is equivalent to her full name, but it is acceptable to refer to her as “Ms. Suu Kyi” or Dr. Suu Kyi, since those syllables serve to distinguish her from her father, General Aung San, who is considered to be the father of modern-day Burma.

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991. The decision of the Nobel Committee mentions:[73]
“ The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided to award the Nobel Peace Prize for 1991 to Aung San Suu Kyi of Myanmar (Burma) for her non-violent struggle for democracy and human rights.

…Suu Kyi’s struggle is one of the most extraordinary examples of civil courage in Asia in recent decades. She has become an important symbol in the struggle against oppression…

…In awarding the Nobel Peace Prize for 1991 to Aung San Suu Kyi, the Norwegian Nobel Committee wishes to honour this woman for her unflagging efforts and to show its support for the many people throughout the world who are striving to attain democracy, human rights and ethnic conciliation by peaceful means.
”

— Oslo, 14 October 1991

Aung San Suu Kyi was given Honorary Canadian citizenship by the Government of Canada in 2007. She is only the fourth person in history to receive this honour.

Courtesy Wikipedia

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I found an interesting sentence generator app at http://sentence.bigparadox.com/. I especially liked their chat application, where you could chat with a bot [robot!]
The work here was commendable, but since the interface was so schoolbookish, i got bored fast, not to mention that I had to scroll horizontally! [I know! What were they thinking? ] This site reminded me of Google, where the back-end was better than the UI.. [Its reverse with a microsoft app!]

Both these apps are part of a field of study in linguistics called machine Translation.

Machine translation, sometimes referred to by the abbreviation MT, is a sub-field of computational linguistics that investigates the use of computer software to translate text or speech from one natural language to another. At its basic level, MT performs simple substitution of words in one natural language for words in another. Using corpus techniques, more complex translations may be attempted, allowing for better handling of differences in linguistic typology, phrase recognition, and translation of idioms, as well as the isolation of anomalies.
source:wikipedia.org

The above examples serve as fun tools but have broader usage. Some good uses would be obviously language translation using software. Yahoo BabelFish anyone? I used this site and find its okay for basic translation but is not a good tool for absolute translation.

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So I promptly read his article and really enjoyed reading it. 

For someone who earns a living through consideration of outbreaks of The Future, it’s all useful information, but that’s all it is. For the parsing and condensation of that information into knowledge, it seems we still need the structure of print publishing, a form that insists on time to think, digest and present. While I will write about things that relate to Wired UK’s fields of interest in the coming months, for this first issue it’s worth standing outside in the cold away from the internet and consider why print and newspaper/magazine structures still exist. Because reporting and editing are honest-to-God actual fucking jobs that don’t get taught at the Huffington Post and the Daily Beast, and because all those faceless blog-networks infesting the Bay Area like tongue herpes have no interest in their minimum-wage blogmonkeys thinking about anything bigger than their hitcount.

It did get me thinking, about the wars that are waged between creative types and the bottom line types [money, advts, hits..] They are interdependent.. Without an article written to attract, there would be no hits etc.

Today has been a day of firsts.  First it was Warren’s article, then I discovered Daniel Silva the author.  I am so enjoying reading his book. , “The Secret Servant“. Yes I know its unpolitical and old-fashioned to read a book. I cannot visualize myself using a Kindle in the near future either! Coffee and a book! Thats the life.. 

Have you noticed that anything well done needs time be it a a baby or a house or a book or even an article? While geekdom for the sake of geekiness is fine, what really turns me on is well written prose. 
Without giving away too much, here is an excerpt from the book..

It was a day to engage in what the Dutch so fondly refer to as gezelligheid, the pursuit of small pleasures: an aimless stroll through the flower stalls of the Bloemenmarkt, a lager or two in a good bar in the Rembrandtplein, or for those so inclined, a bit of fine cannabis in the brown coffeehouses of the Haarlemmerstraat.

Both Warren and Daniel, evoke pictures in your head with their prose.  Daniel Silva can be poetic in the midst of a thriller, and Warren can be quirky while stating facts :)  Writing at its bloody best!

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