Julia in Rongshui, June 8-10, 2014

Quotes by Winston Churchill

“My tastes are simple: I am easily satisfied with the best.”

― Winston Churchill

http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/4297-my-tastes-are-simple-i-am-easily-satisfied-with-the

If you're going through hell, keep going.

Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.

Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.

Continuous effort - not strength or intelligence - is the key to unlocking our potential.

To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.

Now this is not the end.  It is not even the beginning of the end.  Bit it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.

Socialism....the equal sharing of misery.

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/w/winston_churchill.html

Photos from India take 2

India take 2: blog about Mumbai

Blog by Bijay Gautam about Mumbai, posted July 26, 2013.
We returned July 25th and this hits the nail on the head about the roads and the weather.

Mumbai is the most populous city in India, and the fourth most populous city in the world, home to total population of approximately 20.5 million and one of the most populous urban regions in the world including the Greater Mumbai region of Navi Mumbai and Thane.

Apart from commercial capital of India it is also the wealthiest city in India, and has the highest GDP of any city in South, West or Central Asia. Mumbai has been ranked 6th among top 10 global cities on billionaire count, ahead of Shanghai, Paris and Los Angeles.

Maddening Traffic Jams

Mumbai alone contributes to large surplus of India’s GDP. With all the growing population, city suffers with poor infrastructure. On the other hand India's national capital Delhi has transformed itself with excellent roads, word class metro rail service, world’s largest cng bus service. Despite of being a commercial capital Mumbai struggles big time not just with basic amenities such as transportation, sanitation, green spaces and pollution. Southern block of the city which is also termed as SoBo, where real estate rates are sky rocketing and is one of the most expensive spaces in the world. SoBo is where the money minting population resides unlike Suburban Mumbai which is dominated by the upper to middle class population is more densely populated with expensive property rates.

Mumbai has three major train routes, western, central and harbour. All these three routes look primitive, unsafe. One of the world’s largest sub-urban rail systems is also defamed for many deaths as commuters fall from train or die while crossing the tracks or even while boarding as they slip from foot board. While public equally is careless about hazards, but keeping serfice and safety in mind Mumbai urban train which is known as “Local” needs massive makeover.

City of Holes

There is also an unending saga of pot holes.Its rare to see an area in Mumbai where men are not in progress. Once the BMC gets road cleared, in just about few days some other authorities like Electricity, Mobile operator, Gas connection will be spotted digging in middle of the day ignoring complete mayhem caused. Mumbai rush hour stars 730 am and goes till 1030 am, during this hour passing through these patches can be a nightmare especially if you are late for interview or flights.

Mumbai beaches bleed their own sorrows, plastic and entire wastage appear floating and the smell may just give you sickness. Despite of all, the view that it offers is magnificent, wish it was clean, it would have been an urban heaven.

Famous Mumbai Monsoon saga brings life to stand still as commuters find hard travelling and due to poor transportation management, people suffer a lot. Even the major roads will have millions of pot holes, water logging due to poor drainage system. Authorities do not realise what this city is going through, with other cities progressing Mumbai’s development has paced at the speed of tortoise.

SubUrban Rail System "Local"

Now, let me also talk about the auto-rickshaws, which is a life line for suburban commuters. There is no system or governance; everybody is a king of their own. Service is merely in existence and all looks a pure business. Drivers deny on your face about going to a destination and it can get nerve wrecking at times. Similar stories with the taxiwalas but they are better off than the autowalas yet not a smooth sail.

Mumbai is yet strong, determined and beautiful but it certainly deserves so much more. This city is expensive, what people pay here to rent a studio apartment could even be half of their pay cheque, still this city is full of dreamers, dream-makers, dream-pavers and winners in their own league of life. But standard of life needs to improve.

I and millions other love this city but It gives me pain to watch this city suffering in this manner, not sure for how long this city can bear the negligence and exploitation. It needs a change, change not to diminish the authenticity but to preserve its aura and charm. Mumbai is not less than New York or London but these western cities are much ahead, Mumbai needs to catch up before it dies its own slow death.

Quilt number 2

Summer of Stained glass windows

First 'The Flowering Tree' in Oxford.

See website http://www.rogerwagner.co.uk/work/stained-glass.html

 

 

Followed by Chagall windows in Tudeley near Tonbridge Wells

See website  http://www.tudeley.org/welcome.htm

 

 

And then Burne Jones windows, which are apparently all over the place including Christchurch, Tonbridge Wells

  

 

St Mary's, Spelding,

 

and even St Mary's, Ealing (but not a good picture)

 

 

 

The chances of random design and the problem with absolute relativism

See website http://wasdarwinwrong.com/kortho46a.htm for original article by Gert Korthof
10 Oct 1999 (updated 19 Oct 2009) from which the following are taken:

 

Hoyle is definitely not ignored in the evolution literature. The following stories circulate in the literature: Panspermia, Hoyle's famous Boeing-747 story, his cosmological design argument and the Archaeopteryx forgery (1). In this overview I will focus on the Boeing-story:

A junkyard contains all the bits and pieces of a Boeing-747, dismembered and in disarray. A whirlwind happens to blow through the yard. What is the chance that after its passage a fully assembled 747, ready to fly, will be found standing there? (2).

The actual statement was originally in a radio lecture in 1982. It may have been a wild guess, but "A colleague of mine worked out that a yeast cell and a 777 airplane have the same number of parts, the same level of complexity" (3). (The Boeing 747-400 has 6 million parts). Hoyle uses the Boeing-747 argument to prove the impossibility of the natural origin of life.

Few writers about the origin of life fail to mention Hoyle's Boeing-747 analogy. However, Hoyle is absent from university textbooks on evolution. All creationists accept the Boeing-747 argument as a disproof of the natural origin of life, and evolutionists reject it as such. Yockey is the only writer who improves the argument. A definitive answer to the Boeing-747 argument is not yet possible. Just as Maxwell's demon has set a puzzle that is still not fully resolved. A convincing rebut is nothing less than the solution of the problem of the origin of life. As long as science doesn't have a satisfactory and complete theory of the origin of life, science cannot answer Hoyle's Boeing-argument.

 

Hoyle's Boeing-747 is an anti-spontaneous-origin-of-life-argument. The argument uses logic and probability. Hoyle did not publish the argument in scientific journals.

 

1. F. Hoyle and C. Wickramasinghe(1986) Archaeopteryx, the Primordial Bird - a Case of Fossil Forgery, Christopher Davis. A detailed account can be found in: Paul Chambers (2002) Bones of contention. The Archaeopteryx Scandals, chapter 13.
2. Fred Hoyle(1983): "The Intelligent Universe", page 19. The Boeing 747 metaphore is reported in Nature, 294 (1981), p.10. I need to check this reference (quoted in S.J. Freeland (2008) 'Could an intelligent alien predict earth's biocehmistry?' in: J.D. Barrow et al (2008) Fitness of the Cosomos for Life, note 11.
   According to Greg Reinking, Zuckerman's article ("Extraterrestrials - Where Are They?" Nature, Vol. 294, Nov. 5, 1981, pp. 10-11) does not mention the Boeing 747 analogy. [8 Jun 2009]
3. Elliot Meyerowitz of Caltech quoted by Gail Vines, New Scientist 2 Dec 2000 p36-39.Hubert

Yockey (1992): Information theory and molecular biology, p.247,248.