go illini

WE DID IT!!!!
the fighting illini basketball team made it to the Final 4. And boy, did we make it in style. we wiped out a 15 point disadvantage in the last 4 minutes to take the game into overtime. At the end of the game, we proved why we ARE number 1.
Here is an article about what illinois has achieved in one game
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/27/sports/ncaabasketball/27rhoden.html

As we say in illinois: GO ILLINI!!!

sweet

Life is brief.
Fall in love, maidens,
before the crimson bloom fades from your lips,
before the tides of passion cool within you,
for those of you who know no tomorrow.

Life is brief.
Fall in love, maidens,
before your raven tresses begin to fade,
before the flames in your hearts flicker and die,
for those to whom today will never return

--Ikiru (To Live) --a japanese poem

craigslist in space

the well known apartment hunting service craigslist is being beamed into space. awesome. Here is my take on it
As soon as this message was intercepted, residents of the giant planet circling the death star put off plans to invade earth. "A 1-bedroom apartment in NY costs more than 1200 bucks. holy shit. we can do much better on a larger planet" said one of its 700 foot tall residents. so they have decided to invade jupiter instead. never mind that its all gas. or the fact that it is shit cold most of the time.

seriously, we as a species need better things to do. maybe we should start building mad killer robots. we can wage war against them and not even feel guilty about zapping a few. two problems solved in one stroke: no more boredom and no more guilt over war.

richard clarke visits uiuc

I attended a lecture by richard clarke, the author of "against all enemies" and more importantly, the counterterrorism expert during sept 11. I found him to be a very effective and analytical speaker. I have never heard a social scientist (i dont know how else to classify him) speak in a manner similar to engineers. The crux of his argument: we are fighting terrorists and bush is botching things up royally (or presidentially....i guess royally is an unfair and incorrect adjective in a democracy).
The part that i liked the best: his answer to why he named his book "against all enemies". Apparently, when the president takes the oath to office (which, btw is almost the same oath, plus or minus a few lines, as the one taken by new american citizens), s/he promises to protect the constitution against all enemies. I find this stunningly different from india's pledge, which I and many other kids used to mouth every morning before class. In India, you pledge to protect the freedom and integrity of the country (whatever that means), to protect the people of the country and affirm that in their well being and happiness lies your prosperity. The beauty of the circular logic employed in the american oath is by making the constitution supreme, you make people fight for their own rights. Afterall, the constitution is nothing but a bunch of rights and thou shalt nots.

obit: Hans Bethe

Hans Bethe, one of the biggest names in theoretical physics died this week at 98. If you havent heard about him or know his story, try reading it up. I admired him along with Robert Oppenheimer for steadfastly standing up against Edward Teller and his plan for developing the hydrogen bomb--the most senseless weapon of all time.
Hans was a german emigre who was part of the Manhattan project. After the war he worked on how to enable warheads to re-enter the atmosphere without detonating its payload (for the interested--this is called ablation theory and has found interesting applcations in many areas). Hans staked his career to stand up against using the a-bomb on civilians (he was part of a team of scientists who wanted a demonstration over the skies of tokyo instead of on civilian population). Later he stood up against the blind development of thousands of warheads and also against the crazy ass loons in the Reagen administration who wanted star wars. He also was a voice advocating moving away from oil to nuclear energy as a source of energy. Other than all this, he was a consummate scientist and research advisor, presenting his last major paper at the age of 91.
Hope there are more like him, especially now, when morality is being decided by religious nuts instead of humanists and scientists.