Life is all about trying new things and repeating the good ones.

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More such relative comparisons of scale that I really like:

• Powers of Ten — Zooming out (and then in) by a magnitude of 10 every second.
• Scale — What if other planetary bodies orbited the earth at the same distance as the moon?
• How Far is it to Mars …if the Earth were 100 pixels in diameter?

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Reminded me of the short film Dilli. It has a similar narrative, but from the perspective of the aspirational labour class residents instead of the contemporary middle-class. (Trailer)

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A traditional science instructor concentrates on teaching factual knowledge, with the implicit assumption that expert-like ways of thinking about the subject come along for free or are already present. But that is not what cognitive science tells us. It tells us instead that students need to develop these different ways of thinking by means of extended, focused mental effort. Also, new ways of thinking are always built on the prior thinking of the individual, so if the educational process is to be successful, it is essential to take that prior thinking into account.

Most of us have undergone this multiple times over the course of our lives, but we’ve probably not been aware of the process in conscious details.

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Sciences describe the world. As far as I see, there is no way to describe the world absolutely; there is no description without language. Language is relative, language is contextual, language is human, language is faulty.

Any language is faulty. Even math, or better: maths, since there is not one math. There are many maths. Math is a mess. Math is as much a (basis of) natural science as it is (a basis of) a human science. Math describes us as much as it describes what we try to understand.

Which, again is a pretty wild claim that will make a lot of people angry. Not only scientists. But let them get angry while we move on to even more outrageous things.

Picking up right where we left off (wondering about objectivity in subjects) comes this provocative thought from Oliver Reichenstein — there doesn’t exist a clear separation between the subject and the object.

Or, this wonderful simplification:

“We do not see things as they are; we see things as we are.”

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At first I didn’t understand. What did she mean by “too much moisture”? She explained that the film looked too wet, that it was always raining, that there was… too much moisture. I didn’t [know] what to say.

Baradwaj Rangan has a “Bodhi-tree burst of enlightenment” that makes me ponder — can art ever be consumed objectively? Can anything?

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The city of Delhi sometimes reminds me of an onion, imperfectly taken apart - many layered, veined and maimed. The layers are not coherent or even tightly packed - scattered stray wisps forlornly curl at the edges in some corner, many centuries lie bunched together in another. Yet within them lie hidden vapours of many pasts, rising unbidden to sting you into an awareness of a different time.

Delhi has an extremely rich heritage, but ever changing hands from one disparate ruler to the next, it has never been one to linger on its past. Yet ignored as they may be, some traces do remain; faintly in the city’s culture but very visibly in its monuments.

An ordinary man, covering many kilometres in suffocatingly crowded public transport, does not retain the will to perceive former Delhis, smothered in the pursuit of the Delhi of today.

Which is a pity and ultimately, a great loss. Why not “[integrate] these former Delhis into the Delhi of today”, urges Anisha, while suggesting a plan for just such a process.

(via Dilli Dallying)

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It is fascinating to see a movie such as Hugo come from the director of Taxi Driver and The Departed. I remember Rakesh once making a remark that these directors (then referencing Steven Spielberg) are just kids who now have the skill and resources to play out their fantasies in the grandest way possible. Hugo personifies that more beautifully than I can explain.

A Paris railway terminal (which the camera takes full advantage of) and the nostalgic 1900s time period would itself make for compelling backdrops to any movie, let alone one with an orphaned kid as the protagonist. So you would be forgiven for assuming that is what the film is all about after watching its misleading trailer. The real beauty of Hugo however, lies in its story. That fundamental human trait of curiosity, the joy of making things, tinkering, creating and storytelling all bound together beautifully (if a little indulgently) with the history of cinema itself. Hugo makes you fall in love with cinema, twice over again.
(Official Site | Wikipedia | Apple Trailers)

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