Do you have a mirror?

I was reading a blog the other day when I came to a post quoting a part of Milan Kundera’s Immortality:

"Just imagine living in a world without mirrors. You'd dream about your face and imagine it as an outer reflection of what is inside you. And then, when you reached forty, someone put a mirror before you for the first time in your life. Imagine your fright! You'd see the face of a stranger. And you'd know quite clearly what you are unable to grasp: your face is not you."

It reminded me of a chat I had with a very good friend of mine sometime ago. Somehow we came to a point where I started retelling a part of a movie called The Never Ending Story, which is actually one of my favorites. I won't go through the overall story of this movie, just bits that are relevant here. however if you haven’t seen the movie, I'd suggest you try it).

Anyway, in a part of the movie the here who is a little boy named Atreyu and who is on a mission to find a way to fight The Nothing and save Fantasia, has to pass through two gates to reach the Southern Oracles. Here are parts of the script from his talks with Engywook, who is a scientist and acclaimed expert in Southern Oracles:

Atreyu (looking at the Sphinxes): Is that the Southern Oracle?

Engywook: No, it's the first of the two gates you must pass through before you reach the Southern Oracle, and get me the final information for my book! Of course, most people don't get that far...

Atreyu: Why?

Engywook: The Sphinxes eyes stay closed, until someone who does not feel his own worth tries to pass by.

So the first gate is a really though task, Atreyu watches the lost attempt of a knight who tries to pass through, but is instantly burnt by flashes from Sphinxes eyes. But since he is determined to carry out his mission, gathers all his confidence and courage and manages to pass.

But the really interesting part comes next, which is more relevant to the point I'm trying to make. After Atreyu passes through the first gate, Engywook comes back to Falcor (the luck dragon) to give him the news:

Falcor: I knew he would be safe.

Engywook: none sense, you don't understand anything. The worst one is coming up; next is the magic mirror gate. Atreyu has to face his true self.

Falcor: So what? That won't be too hard for him.

Engywook: Oh, that's what everyone thinks. But kind people find that they are cruel, brave men discover that they are really cowards; confronted with their true selves, most men run away screaming….

I won't say what happens next, not to spoil it for those of you who may like to go and see the movie.

Now why did I bring this up, especially after that quote from Milan Kundra? What interests me most in both of them is their reference to a magic mirror, the one that would have shown you your true self, the one that if revealed, people would have run away from it screaming. References to this mirror are replete in the literature. There is The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde that doesn't directly refer to a magic mirror, but tells the same story that the picture of one's true self could be monstrous. And many more.

I believe that is something worth reminding ourselves of. We are inclined to create a nice and beautiful mental image of ourselves, and shove all the dirtiness and cruelty under the rug. May be you say your mental image of yourself is not that nice and beautiful, but that doesn't change a thing, as long as you are not having an image close to the reality of your true self. It may seem easy in the beginning but is one of the greatest challenges of life I believe, and I dare say it could be one of the keys to happiness and spiritual prosperity.

Anyway, why was I telling all this to my friend? I wanted to reveal yet another revelation of mine; that I believe among different things that could help you find your true self is a good friend who could act as the magic mirror. A good friend would get close enough to your inner self and reflect your goods and bads as they are, revealing all the things that you are trying to suppress with the help of your mental image. As all the great assets in the world are, true friends are rare, hard to find and even harder to keep. If you have one, count your blessings.

Past and Future

What is gone, is gone; and what is to come, so where is it? So make the most of the chance you have between the two naughts.

Use C, or not use C, that is the question

Use C, or not use C, that is the question:
Wheter 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The flags and warnings of a rude compiler,
Or to take arms agains a sea of errors,
And by debugging, fix them? To code, to hack,
No more; and by a hack to say we end
The type-check and the thousand other checks
Pascal is heir to, 'tis a compilation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To code, to hack;
To hack! perchanse to test: ay, there's the rub;
For in that hacker's bliss what bugs may come,
When we have written out this awful code,
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes development of such long life.

-- Wes Munsil

(I've taken this nice piece from Richard Levitte's journal)

Come, let me tell you how vast is my loneliness...

I have a nice friend who is a very good poet. I really love the way she plays with words and draws beautiful and sometimes shocking images with them. The imagery in her poems is just fantastic and the way she takes advantage of the inherent ambiguity of some words astonishes me. I love two of her poems in particular: The Game and Dual (I'm not sure if that is the right translation for its Persian title "دوگانه"). I'll quote the second one here:

دوگانه

بر فراز تپه ایستاده‌ای
بی‌خیالِ بی‌خیال؛
و سایه‌ات افتاده بر خاک
دستش بر دامنِ من.

تو بگو!
غرور قامتت را باور کنم
یا خواهش سایه‌ات را؟

----
Well, the relevance of the title of this post is that she had posted something new called The Fishes which reminded me of two poems by Sohrab, To the Companion’s Orchard and the Message of the Fishes both of which I love very much. There is an acceptable translation of the first one available if you care to take a look at.

...
Within the space of this silent age
Lonelier am I than the test of a song
Within the scope of the alley’s conception
Come, let me tell you how vast is my loneliness?
My loneliness didn’t predict this ambush of your stature
And this is the characteristic of love
...

It's truley a great gift, being a poet. I sometimes envy that.

JRA3/JRA4 Workshop, Stockholm

We had a day and a half workshop for joint research activity 3 and 4 of the OMII-Europe project here in Stockholm (hosted by PDC/KTH). The JRA4 sessions went quite well and although we are all quite concerned with the short time we have to prepare the milestones and the deliverable for month 12 of the project, we made a good review of the current state and draw a rather acceptable and manageable outline for the remaining 11 weeks.

I presented a survey of existing approaches to Grid Benchmarking in the first session, which in spite of my being nervous and rather unprepared went acceptable (nobody shouted at me afterwards at least). The interesting conclusion after this brief review was that you can hardly design something as a Grid Benchmark that would really comply with the definition of classic Benchmarking, since we are trying to measure a moving target here! So we should come up with a new definition for Grid Benchmarking, one that would take into account all the complexities and peculiarities of the Grid Infrastructure.

Anyway I guess we have some hectic weeks ahead of JRA4, there is the month 9 all hands meeting in Bologna, Italy and there is still lots to do. I hope this won't deviate me from my course works, the semester starts tomorrow and I really should find a balance between the classic studies and more interesting and intriguing work of this project!

if sought...

There is nothing lost, but may be found, if sought...

-- Edmund Spenser (The Faerie Queene)

I'm lost...

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! ;)