More books

Book I'm reading

• Notes from Underground

Book to read

• Funny in Farsi

Book I've just finished

• Lullaby

Book recommendations

A friend of mine asked me about some book recommendations, here are mine in no particular order:

• A Tale of Two Cities
• Sophie's World
• The Stranger
• Nineteen Eighty-Four
• Animal Farm
• The Left Hand of Darkness
• The Dispossessed
• Veronika Decides to Die
• Memories of My Melancholy Whores
• The Little Prince

Proud to be a human

I was reading a robot story by Asimov in which a sophisticated intelligent robot is trying to become more and more like humans. Why do we think that we have the best physical bodies? Why would a robot not have wheels instead of legs? Why would they speak in human language instead of binary numbers?

My roommate is right. The only way intelligent machines might be interested in us would be as pets or as lab rats. (see "The Matrix")

Morals of "The Dark Knight"

1. It is alright to spy on people as long as you are looking for a bad guy.
2. It is NOT OK to share information about illegal activities with the public
3. You should give the people something to have faith in.
4. A priviliged few have the right to decide what is best for everyone
5. Cops are the good guys even if they sell your fiance to the bad guys
6. Bad guys do what they do without any reason
7. Guns are useless and fail a lot and metal detectors are nonexistant

Translation of a Persian poem

My Garden

Its sky is embraced tightly
by wet thick coat of clouds.
The leafless garden
is lonely night and day
in a sad innocent silence.
It has rain for an instrument and wind for voice.
Its garment is nakedness,
or if it needs any other garment
it has been woven from golden threads by the wind.
"Let them grow or not grow, anyone anywhere it wants or does not want"
There is not a gardener or a passer by.
The garden of the hopeless
is not waiting for a spring.
If there is no warm glow in its eyes,
and if no leaf of smile grows on its lips,
who says the leafless garden is not beautiful?
It is telling the story of the hight up in the sky fruits which are now buried in the lowly coffin of the soil.

The leafless garden
Its smile is tear and blood.
Forever trotting on its long haired yellow horse in it is,
the king of seasons, Autumn.

Politics

Although I am neither a politician nor a philosopher, I do have a political stance. I can classify myself as a libertarian socialist. I like Noam Chomsky's political views. I found a few nice videos of his talks and interviews on Google Video.

Fucking Åmål

This is the best movie I have seen in the last few months. Highly recommended.

Theory vs. Practice

In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. But, in practice, there is.
--Jan L. A. van de Snepscheut

How far are you willing to go to pass the buck?

Can you see the similarity between Binding of Isaac and Milgram experiment?

Movie on campus

I saw The Fountain in the movie theatre on campus today. It was not as good as I expected

Nevertheless it reminded me of the saying Every fear is fear of death. But after a little thought I found a counterexample: suicide.

Are you afraid of death?

Natural Language

Natural language is a fascinating thing. Some ancient philosophers defined humans as talking animals. It is a means of communication that enables humans to use each others experiences and do things that no individual can do.

Yet it is interesting that there are so many different languages in the world (Maybe in the future there will be only one). Natural language is misleading in many occasions as it is not possible to perfectly share feelings with words.

Also the language is dependent on our perception of the world and on our physical body. For example I have no idea how a color blind interprets this sentence Her face turned red.

We do not dream in any language. We just feel the situations in our dreams. I wonder if natural language with all it's deficiencies can be blamed for the problems of mankind....

To work or not to work?

When I have nothing to do I always look forward for work. When I have actually some work to do I always postpone it until the last moment. Is this natural?

The birth of every new child

...tells us that humans are not yet desperate of themselves.

The question is...

The ends justify the means. (I am not sure but let's assume that it is true). The question is what justifies the ends?

Draw me a sheep!

The Little Prince is my favourite book.

There is a Persian translation and audio adaption of this book by Ahmad Shamlou (Persian: احمد شاملو).

Most Underreported Story of 2006

See this YouTube video.

A comment reads: It's not that the good guys win, it's that the winners are the good guys.

Strong AI

I personally believe that we will be able to create Turing test passing strong AI in the next 50 years (That is in my expected life span). Pretty much anything one can dream of in todays sci-fic.

But I have an ethical problem. I will never create something that can suffer. See: Why I will never have a child.

News for nerds, Stuff that matters

I discovered slashdot a few month ago. It was exactly what I was looking for.

There are polls in this site like: What kind of music do you code to?. I personally listen to Rock and Metal music while coding C++.

A comment under Blogging in Iran Takes Courage reads: we're all so much freer and safer, and Iraq is a beautiful paradise! Hey, why don't you book your next vacation for Baghdad, we could use a few less blathering idiots voting in the states.

And two comments under Drinking Alcohol May Extend Your Life read: I still find it interesting that at 18 you're allowed join the military and die but you're not allowed to drink alcohol. and To alcohol, the cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems!

There is still hope

Right now I have decided not to give up. So I will try my best to:

• Remain healthy and young
• Contribute to the society
• Do my best to make myself and everybody around me happy
• Believe that finding true love,though hard, is not impossible.

Yeah

Major Depression 2

The earth is a mass grave in which 6 billion people are buried alive