The Ball and the Cross

By: Chesterton

• According to the introduction, this book is an allegory to the author's long written discussion with an atheist about the existence of God.
• The two main characters are an English atheist and a Scottish stanch Catholic who want to have a duel after the later broke the shop's window of the first one because the atheist had published a blasphemous article against the Virgin Mary.
• Throughout the book they try to fight but are always stopped by the police and other people who consider them mad.
• They run away for so long and talking so much while trying to find a place to fight, that they end up loving each other.
• By then end of their trip they land in a madhouse, which seems to be being run by the devil who has somehow managed to convince the world that anybody who takes the existence of God seriously (i.e. The duel of these two men) must be mad. Thus, all the people who have come in contact in one way or the other with our two characters during their flight, are put into the madhouse as well.
• They manage to create a revolt, make the devil run (with his helpers whom he kills soon afterwards) and destroy the madhouse. The only thing is left after the burning of the house are the two swords with which they had been trying to kill each other which they found lying on a cross position.

BookNo.: r014

 

March of the sandbots

IEEE Spectrum
Issue April 2009
Pages 26 onwards

Until now many robots have been created which can move efficiently on or in many different surfaces: water, climbing, roads, etc. But none is able to move efficiently on all, nor any one is able to move on sand.

Even our vehicles are not able to move well on surfaces which haven't been paved, imagine automated robots.

In 2001 some robots were sent for the rescue work at World Trade Centre, and in no time they were not able to continue due to the tough surface conditions. In 2006 some robots were sent to a rescue mission in a collapsed mine... they made it 700 meters until they were totally stucked in mud. Thus it is required to get robots to move efficiently on various different tough surface conditions.

The team of researchers authoring this article made a robot SandBot which is 6 legged with some sort of flippers that turn to give the forward movement. They are testing movement on sand. But sand does not yet have a good mechanical model. Thus they have been studying the movement of beings such as lizards, crabs and snakes to imitate their skills.

We are also looking below ground inspiration. Using high speed X-rays, we are now studyng lizards called sandfish that can burrow into sand in the blink of an eye and then "swim" through the material underground... With nature as our guiid, we expect that robots will soon master some incredible new abilities.

The World is Flat. Chapters 5 to 9

Book Title: The World is Flat. A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century
Author: Thomas L. Friedman
Edition: Published with updates 2006
First edition: 2005
Publisher: Penguin books

Section: America and the flat world

After he has given support to "prove" his hypothesis that the World has gone flat, Tom goes on to analyze what's the position and what should America do to thrive successfully in this new world.

America has all the qualities to thrive, including the edge of being the most powerful economy and the right kind of people to do so. However, America is in "crisis", a quite crisis which is not being noticed but which is making them loose ground to other economies.

The people who will succeed in this world are those he calls untouchables. they are people who are able to adapt themselves to new situations, to update themselves often and quickly, always improving and always looking for new edges, thus they are untouchable because they never become obsolete.

He gives the example of a lady, who even though she dropped College and never went back, she went on adapting herself, always seeking new things to learn so that, the moment her job became not needed any longer, she would be able to give a leap before falling into unemployment. Thus, she was a great adapter.

America's problem is that they aren't educating their people to be that untouchables which they require to be. Their system is not good because of lack of basics; because they have too many lawyers and too few engineers and mathematicians. is no tjust that of course, but certainly is a problem in education.

He ends by saying that "this is not a test". America is loosing ground and ahs to wake up soon to the reality and start working for it.