Brown Motion

I love trains.  I will seek out a train journey in a land I visit just to experience the sound of the local clickety clack and often marvel at the ingenuity and engineering that made that trip possible. Terrain often plays the most critical part of rail design and therefore of the maximum speed that the train can travel along the route.  The actual locomotive and source of power determines the other crucial component of this arrangement. Rail gages are the width between two rails and determined by the above two factors and some other criteria. I have had the pleasure of being on a variety of these combinations including what are known as cog rails where the gradient makes it necessary to add a third gear /rail to allow the locomotive to chew into the teeth and gain altitude without slipping. The fastest trains I have been on are inevitably run on dedicated tracks that are by and large laid on flat terrain with minimal curves along the route.  By designing the entir...

Described as courageous behavior or character.  It was on full display when our child decided to go to school.  Let me explain. In America violence using firearms has always been business as usual.  When that starts happening where the perpetrator is a minor it becomes alarming.  When it is omnipresent as part of school culture you know there is something fundamentally wrong with the morality of the nation. So it happened that a threat to kill people at our local school was posted on a child's locker.  Police came in and did their thing.  The principal sent out communications to all parents indicating that the situation while disturbing was under control. In the age of social media the boards lit up.  For a 3,000 person campus the high school was gripped by fear.  More I think the parents of the kids than the kids themselves who seem to have acquired an unusual immunity to this type of social aberration. The parents blamed the principal f...

Gun violence in American schools has reached epidemic proportions.  The gun lobby and the anti-gun are finding it out from capitol hill to local counties.  Amidst all this the media as usual is having a frenzy with meaningless and thoughtless commentary on a regular basis. Their favorite BS terms include or selectively exclude - Active shooter on campus - What the bleep is an 'active' shooter?  As opposed to what? Comatose?  Jaywalking?  Also what is a 'shooter'?  Is he or she wearing a sign?  Or is it a label assigned to a person with a gun?  Is campus security wearing a firearm considered an active shooter?  I am sure he is or can be.  Terrorism - this term got used a lot during the heyday of the war on terror.  Which was itself confounding.  Now that the offending parties seem to be from all religious background and ethnic origin the pundits and politicians cannot decide what to call it?   Fire arsonist w...

An amazing documentary.  Simply wonderful to watch and listen.  Directed by a joint team of Pakistani and American directors, the former an Academy Award winning woman and the latter in his directorial debut this film won rave reviews when it released in 2015 in America. It is a story of older generation Pakistani, classically trained musicians who while extremely talented are stuck in a society that has no recognition of their caliber.  The documentary narrates the loss of great talent due to misguided policies and politics of Pakistan in the 1970s where religious zealots ruled and discarded the amazing music treasures to a pile of rubble. Searching for a good life and trying to make a living the assortment of talent finds home when a inspired and optimistic London based music producer, Izzat Majeed gathers the somewhat motley crew in Lahore and goes to work.  With what could be considered true vision and passion for music he puts together a number of recording...

Compared to much of the planet's options to relieve oneself, in my limited experience America has had the most generous access.  By that I am referring to access to clean, free, safe bathrooms.  Whether it was a public library or a concrete structure at a beach or along the freeway in the form of a rest stop there has always been some form of basic urinal or toilet for a traveler or visitor to access. This is part of the critical infrastructure that describes progress in the form of basic human dignity and availability by virtue of smart business decisions or public welfare.  In case of the former providing the access means less of it ends up on the roadside or a public place and therefore enables business to thrive.   Also a relieved person is a better customer than one pissed off about not finding room to (piss off). Public policy in the US has perhaps embraced this one facet although in recent times the state of the city of San Francisco makes me wonder ...

So how come people in this world are still enamored with the idea of King and Queen?  Go gaga over their children getting wed to non royals.  How is it that Britain of all places can hoodwink an entire globe to gawk at the planned wedding of one of their errant brood finding holy matrimony? Why pray are there are kings and queens in the first place (no pun intended)? Americans for their part seem gullible and excited because the bride to be is from America.  Not sure what that has to do with anything but that is what the media has us believe. I heard this afternoon that some of my colleagues actually plan to wear their pajamas and sit in front of their respective idiot boxes and sort of have a bollywood moment watching two people in expensive clothes say 'mein wada karta huun' (I do) ceremony.  This because the mahoorat (local time) of said wedding in England translates to late night on the west coast of the US. There is also chatter on the web already about...

There was once a movie made about Howard Stern but this blog does not refer to that.  This is about the idiosyncratic English language.  The very fact that such an arrangement of words exist and that it signifies something specific is to me ludicrous and reeks of hypocritical nature of man. According to famous dictionaries the term 'private parts' refers to a person's external reproductive or genital organs.  Aka genitalia. Now when there is a perfectly coined term or word to describe the external organs of a human used for reproduction why go around coining additional verbiage?  To sound politically correct.  This from a species that otherwise has no compunction about raping other humans physically or verbally or spiritually; being otherwise disgusting in behavior including some entrusted with the religious duties, and yet these same humans want to appear sacrosanct when describing organs created by biology? Then it begs the whole argument of what is pri...

It is about getting in the last word. Literally.  As in this case one's obituary.  This  fantastic movie by director Mark Pellington (of erstwhile cheesy Jerry Maguire fame) is a comedy drama with Shirley Maclean in the lead role.  Shirley's character is a former ad exec and a woman scorned.  As in hated by all those around her, divorced from what was a caring husband and someone who does things her way, being a control freak, in the opening sequence of the film. She goes looking for a writer that will pen her obituary so as to highlight her life in the most impressive way possible.  That journey takes her to a newspaper obit writer (played by a not my favorite actor Amanda Seyfried) in town who automatically is repulsed by her behavior and holier than thou attitude even when asking a favor. Shirley's character sets out to frame 'her last words' or getting in the 'last word' as it were ensuring that her true character sees light of day...

Three hours worth.  A workshop on conscious bias that I sat through (without bias I might add).  Conducted by a consulting company it seems to tout the need to coach executives who apparently may have some.  Bias that is and not be aware of it.  Now merely having one to me does not signify anything meaningful.  Its like drawing attention to the fact that you have a colon.  Or an amygdala.  In fact the amygdala, a small gland in the matter that constitutes our brain plays a protagonist role in the whole concept of biases. It seems our instinct for snap judgement comes from this little gland secreting a bunch of chemicals and helping with decision making.  That decision is a result of some deep seated bias.  When we see a bunch of solidly built dudes without a shirt one might think biker gang member or a street tough.  Add tattoos to the mix and our brain further goes on high alert.  These are examples of bias. The whole point of...