Be your own governore

"Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives."

-- James Madison

"Truth brings joyous tranquility"

Iblis asked, "Can you tell a lie from the truth,
you who are filled with illusion?"
Mu`awiyah answered, "The Prophet has given a clue,
a touchstone to know
the base coin from the true.
He has said, "That which is false troubles the heart,
but Truth brings joyous tranquility."
- Rumi

گفت چون دانی دروغ و راست را
ای خیال اندیش پر اندیشه ها
گفت پیغمبر نشانی داده است
قلب و نیکو را محک بنهاده است
گفته است الکذب ریب فی القلوب
گفت الصدق طمأنین طروب

The question of what is truth and what is lie, what is right and what is wrong, what is bad and what is good, all are in the same group I guess. Although Rumi (he is better known as Mawlana in Iran) says that we have a simple clue or touchstone (Benchmark?) to figure out what is what, I dare say it is nothing easy at all and it is everything that can make one spiritually happy and prosperous or miserable and lost.

There is a funny thing in the translation, it says Mu`awiyah is answering to Iblis (devil), but in the original Persian verses there is no reference to Mu`awiyah. May be this is a follow up of a different part from which the translator deduced that devil is talking to Mu`awiyah. (Mu'awiyah was the founder of the Umayya dynasty of caliphs. He is famous for his clashes and war with Imam Ali and he and his son are the symbol of ultimate evil in Shiite Islam.)

ice cream

"I love to be among the little children, sir! How I love to hear their prattle and their little voices lisping merry rhymes! Oh, sir! Can you think of a more innocent way of earning a living, than to sell good ice-cream at modest prices to little children, after so many years of selling tricks to dirty old men. Why, each day in that white, well-scrubbed, shining ice-cream parlour was a positive purification! Don't you think sir, that in heaven we shall all eat nothing but ice-cream?"

from : Nights at the Circus by Angela Carter

Blue, Gray, Black

That is the name of a Persian poem by Hamid Mosaddegh. I simply love this poem, both the prologue and the main part. Here are some parts of it:

...
باز کن پنجره را
من تورا خواهم برد
به سر رود خروشان حیات
آب این رود به سرچشمه نمی گردد باز
بهتر آنست که غفلت نکنیم از آغاز
باز کن پنجره را
صبح دمید
...
...
در من این جلوه اندوه ز چیست؟
در تو این قصه پرهیز که چه؟
در من این شعله عصیان نیاز
در تو دمسردی پاییز که چه؟
حرف را باید زد
درد را باید گفت
سخن از مهر من و جور تو نیست
سخن از متلاشی شدن دوستی است
و عبث بودن پندار سرورآور مهر
آشنایی با شور؟
و جدايي با درد؟
و نشستن در بهت فراموشی
یا غرق غرور؟
سينه ام آینه ای ست
با غباری از غم
تو به لبخندی از اين آینه بزدای غبار
آشيان تهی دست مرا
مرغ دستان تو پر می سازند
آه مگذار که دستان من آن
اعتمادی که دستان تو دارد به فراموشیها بسپارد
آه مگذار که مرغان سپید دستت
دست پر مهر مرا سرد و تهی بگذارد
من چه می گويم، آه
با تو اکنون چه فراموشیها
با من اکنون چه نشستنها، په خاموشیهاست
تو مپندار که خاموشی من
هست برهان فراموشی من
من اگر برخیزم تو اگر برخیزی
همه بر می خیزند.

Benchmark

"An inaccurate measure of computer performance. “In the computer industry, there are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and benchmarks.” Well-known ones include Whetstone, Dhrystone, Rhealstone (see h), the Gabriel LISP benchmarks, the SPECmark suite, and LINPACK. See also machoflops, MIPS, smoke and mirrors." [The Jargon File]

Reading the above definition from the Jargon File, I feel a bit ashamed of saying this, but that is what I'm supposed to work on these days, benchmarking, grid benchmarking to be precise. Though it is not as bad as ESR says, we are not all 100% liers, believe me! ;)

Those who do and those who take credit...

"There are two classes of people, those who do and those who take credit. My advice is to be a member of the first class; there is much less competition."

-attributed to Dwight Morrow, J.P. Morgan partner.

Northwestern European Programming Contest 2006

The ACM/ICPC-NWERC 2006 is held this weekend at the KTH's main campus. I can't wait to go and see how they hold their contest. I've already talked to the head judge and I'd be helping out as a staff I guess. I hope I'd be able to finish up the homework due this weekend in time to be able to actually go! I bet Par Austin and the other memebers of the Three-Headed Monkey will be there as well! :) Will write more about it later!

OMII-Europe project’s month 6th all-hand meeting

I have recently joined PDC at KTH as a part time programmer and started working on the Open Middleware Infrastructure Institute. As a result I had a trip to Southampton, UK for the OMII-Europe project’s month 6th all-hand meeting which was held on 9th and 10th of November.

There are some 16 partners in the project from all around Europe plus US and china, funded mostly by the European Union and working on building a grid infrastructure for the three widely used grid middleware in Europe, i.e. Globus, glite and Unicore, plus CROWN which is developed and used by Chinese.

The meeting was organized in an interesting way. The first morning was comprised of very short progress reports from the different activity groups. Then the meeting was continued with parallel meetings for each activity group. KTH is mostly engaged in three Joint Research Activities (JRAs), namely Accounting, Security and Benchmarking. The later is quite an interesting topic which I personally like to work on. During the meeting the project manager, a guy from university of Southampton, was quite enthusiastic about benchmarking and he mentioned that there could be some PhDs funded through this activity (sounds quite tempting, doesn’t it?)

Anyway, it was quite a good and valuable experience. I mean if you come to think of it in terms of the scale and influence of the project and everything, you’ll see why I say it was a valuable experience. I hope the actual work would also be as fun as it sounded on the paper and during the presentations!

Erlang User Conference

The 12th International Erlang/OTP User Conference is held here in Stockholm on November 9-10.

I'm going to miss it since I have to go to the OMII-Europe's project meeting :-(. Why is it always like this that good events happen at the same time so you only got to choose one of them?

Passion

"The Greeks didn't write obituaries, they only asked one question...did he have passion?"

(A line in the movie: Serendipity)

First Snow

It has started snowing here in Stockholm, do you believe it? It is autumn for God's sake and we are -4 degree Celsius!

Leaves are still on the trees and yet everywhere is covered in snow. Although it is cold and it has made going out a bit hard, but the scenery is amazing as well.

Life for Rent

I haven't ever really found a place that I call home
I never stick around quite long enough to make it
I apologise that once again I'm not in love
But it's not as if I mind that your heart aint exactly breaking

It's just a thought, only a thought

And if my life is for rent and I don't learn to buy
Well I deserve nothing more than I get
Cos nothing I have is truly mine

I've always thought that I would love to live by the sea
To travel the world alone and live more simply
I have no idea what's happened to that dream
Cos there's really nothing left here to stop me

It's just a thought, only a thought

And if my life is for rent and I don't learn to buy
Well I deserve nothing more than I get
Cos nothing I have is truly mine

And if my life is for rent and I don't learn to buy
Well I deserve nothing more than I get
Cos nothing I have is truly mine

While my heart is a shield and I won't let it down
While I am so afraid to fail so I won't even try
Well how can I say I'm alive

if my life is for rent and I don't learn to buy
Well I deserve nothing more than I get
Cos nothing I have is truly mine

if my life is for rent and I don't learn to buy
Well I deserve nothing more than I get
Cos nothing I have is truly mine

nothing i have is truly mine...

(A wonderful song called "Life for Rent" by Dido)