Musings

amit September 29th, 2005

"We have evidence that a Flying Spaghetti Monster created the universe. None of us, of course, were around to see it, but we have written accounts of it. We have several lengthy volumes explaining all details of His power. Also, you may be surprised to hear that there are over 10 million of us, and growing. We tend to be very secretive, as many people claim our beliefs are not substantiated by observable evidence. What these people don’t understand is that He built the world to make us think the earth is older than it really is. For example, a scientist may perform a carbon-dating process on an artifact. He finds that approximately 75% of the Carbon-14 has decayed by electron emission to Nitrogen-14, and infers that this artifact is approximately 10,000 years old, as the half-life of Carbon-14 appears to be 5,730 years. But what our scientist does not realize is that every time he makes a measurement, the Flying Spaghetti Monster is there changing the results with His Noodly Appendage. We have numerous texts that describe in detail how this can be possible and the reasons why He does this. He is of course invisible and can pass through normal matter with ease.

I’m sure you now realize how important it is that your students are taught this alternate theory. It is absolutely imperative that they realize that observable evidence is at the discretion of a Flying Spaghetti Monster. Furthermore, it is disrespectful to teach our beliefs without wearing His chosen outfit, which of course is full pirate regalia. I cannot stress the importance of this enough, and unfortunately cannot describe in detail why this must be done as I fear this letter is already becoming too long. The concise explanation is that He becomes angry if we don’t.

You may be interested to know that global warming, earthquakes, hurricanes, and other natural disasters are a direct effect of the shrinking numbers of Pirates since the 1800s. graph"

Excerpt of the OPEN LETTER TO KANSAS SCHOOL BOARD from the "Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster".

I have finally found the answer to the quest of my life.

When in the sequence of creation or evolution was the midget created??
When by whom??

It amazes me how people get stuck in details ignoring the larger picture. Why would you care if it was evolution or creation?

The Spaghetti Monster said
Let there be a mountain … and there was a mountain.
He said Let there be a tree … and there was a tree.
And then He said Let there be a midget … and there was a midgit.

Now I am enlightened. And by the grace of the Spaghetti Monster you too shall be enlightened.
- Ramen

Like any self respecting pastafarian I cannot ask you to believe - the truth my friend is revealed to the seeker through logic. I implore you to please consider these arguments and evidences put forth by esteemed academics.

Tags: eureka

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amit September 26th, 2005

The tailgate lowers, the clatter of the CASA 212 twin-turbine aircraft intensifies. The light bulb next to the door starts flashing green and in matter of seconds half of the people in front of me are gone. I gingerly step towards the door, prodded along by my instructor, John Lyman. At the door I behold the spectacular, panoramic view of mother earth, somewhat desecrated by two figures tumbling right below me. I curse, for no apparent reason - maybe at myself? I am a little apprehensive, but now is not the time for fear. We count to three, I take a deep breath and we plunge into nothingnes.

Plummetting at 120 miles per hour, I fight for control as the wind howls incessantly. I finish my COA (Circle of Awareness) and glance at the altimeter. I see a needle ticking as fast as the second hand. It reads 12000 ft, I have used up 2000ft of precious altitude. There is a sense of urgency to my assigned maneuvers, 360 degree turns, both clockwise and anticlockwise, by 8000 ft I am done. It is time to find that cheap piece of plastic, the main release handle. I finish two practice touches, and before I can go for my third I hear Lyman shout “Pull!”. Per my last altitude check we are at 7000ft - 1000ft higher than the planned pull altitude - but I keep my head and heed the “Pull!”. I wave, pull and throw, releasing the pilot chute.

In a few seconds I feel a jolt and we stop falling. I look up and see a fully inflated, brightly coloured canopy fluttering in the sky. I always thought man could never match the splendor of nature, but beleive me, when you look up and see a “a fully inflated, brightly colored canopy fluttering in the sky” – its one of the most beautiful sights you will ever see.

Suddenly it’s peaceful and quiet, the clandor of the wind is gone. The air is cool and clean, cleaner than anything I have experienced before. There is a gentle breeze as we float in the sky. I hear Lyman say “Great jump!” and I look up as he hands me the toggles. He asks me to do a “steerablility check” and I fly this baby. She responds gracefully, a tug at the right toggle turns us to the right, a tug at the left toggle turns us back. I try a “flare”, pulling both the toggles all the way down, and we sort of hang in the air - no forward motion. Lyman helps me spot the drop zone and we head towards it. He instructs me to move clear of traffic, and to pull and hold the right toggle all the way down. This makes us spiral down in ever faster, tighter loops and I feel it in my stomach. Soon we are at a1000ft, below everybody else, and we ease into level flight. Lyman flies the landing pattern and brings us down gently.

That’s jump four and I am on my way to getting hooked to the sport. To this point I have made 10 jumps - both good and bad - all very exciting. I now understand what I read somewhere “If riding in a plane is flying … then riding in a boat is swimming”. I intend to fly.

Some pictures of my first jump.

Tags: outdoors, sports

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amit September 25th, 2005

Let me first acknowledge the tools that I used to build this site. A little bit of googling revealed such gems that I could not resist trying them out and putting up a blog of my own.

The first thing I needed was a decent design, that I could easily modify to suit my taste. I stumbled upon Open Source Web Design, which has a huge collection. All well categorized by color schemes (light on dark, dark on light etc), html validations (html 4.0 strict, XHTML etc), frames (with or without), site types (business or personal) and use of stylesheets. I downloaded a bunch of designs that I liked and by the end of the day picked up enough skills and inspiration to come up with my own.

Next thing I needed was a blogging software, that used flat files for data storage and was amenable to look and feel modifications. I recalled my friend Nihar mentioning that he really liked Pivot and thought I would give it a shot. It turned out to be beautiful, decent features, flexible yet extensible and simple to set up.

So the easy part’s is done, now comes the real challenge … posting.

Tags: technology

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