Epics of India

This week's last words will be more famous than the last of course! So this past week was pretty slow, and it seemed like nothing was actually due or urgent, so I relaxed a bit and did a lot of nothing. This was a mistake, as now I need to do a bunch of stuff by Wednesday and Friday of this week that I could have finished a week ago. This is a common pattern in my semesters at OU - first determine how much I can slack off, and then once it starts to heat up, stop slacking and meet the demand of class. So this week I will need to be more proactive and not as lazy. Speaking of avoiding work, I was in robotics the past week adding little pictures to our circuit boards. That way they will look cool when they (don't) work. Here is an example of me adding the Sooner Competitive Robotics Logo to one of our team's printed circuit board designs:   SCR logos on a PCB, one good way to waste some time. Personal Photo. This past week in classes was very straightforward and...

Tech Tip: Countdown Widget I chose to add a countdown timer to my blog so I can look at how long I have to decide on what graduate school to go to. I've been accepted into 4 programs so far, and I need to make a decision by April 15th. Since I am applying for a masters degree, it is a pretty difficult decision to make, as funding is not very forthcoming unless you are very committed to doing a PhD. So this timer will remind me that I need to be thinking about this important decision some more in the coming month. It also sits nicely next to my weather widget that I added last week!   Countdown timer on my blog's sidebar

The Builders The builders work from dawn til dusk, covered in grease, dirt and sweat. Constructing a bridge across the sea, so the prince may not get wet. The Magic Ambulance In times of trouble, the ambulance made its rounds. In the mountains afar its magic wares were found. Along its route it made a stop to guarantee its stock. But the peculiar thing with this old truck was it carried the whole big rock. This Hanuman statue depicts our hero carrying the mountain to save his friends from death. Definitely to scale - Source: PDE Ramayana Author's Note: I wanted to experiment with writing poems as microfictions, and chose to re-tell two stories from part D of the Ramayana. The first, The Builders , is based on the story about the monkeys building a stone land bridge between the mainland and Lanka. I told this as a two sentence story, because I wanted to condense it further while showing the hard, thankless work done by the monkeys in that part of the story.  In m...

Ramayana Online: Public Domain Edition from M. Dutt , R. Dutt , Gould , Griffith , Hodgson , Mackenzie , Nivedita , Oman , Richardson , and Ryder . Notes for Part D #61 In this Ramayana story, we learn about a great feat of engineering - building a bridge from the mainland to Lanka (reminder from the previous reading note, this bridge must be at least 345 miles long) entirely out of stones. I thought it was cool to find out that this is an actual place! The real life version is much shorter than 100 leagues long, but it is a former land bridge that was good for crossing. When the Ramayana was written, it probably was the purpose to explain such a land bridge, and the motivation behind building it. Monkey engineering at its finest, building the bridge to Lanka. Source: PDE Ramayana #65 Hanuman has to save the army by getting the medicinal herbs mentioned earlier when Rama and Lakshmana were thought to be dead. Using his jumping ability, Hanuman goes to the Himalayas, ...

Ramayana Online: Public Domain Edition from M. Dutt , R. Dutt , Gould , Griffith , Hodgson , Mackenzie , Nivedita , Oman , Richardson , and Ryder . Notes for Part C #49 After learning about Sampati, Jatayu's brother, we get to learn more about him. Sampati lost his wings because he and Jatayu flew too close to the sun, and to save his brother, Sampati shielded Jatayu with his wings. Sampati sacrificed himself for his brother. This story has parallels with Icarus flying too close to the sun, but doesn't end in the death of Sampati. A common theme in the Ramayana is redemption, and it seems like Sampati might get his chance at that by helping Rama. It is interesting how much of the story is set up for Rama to meet all these cursed people and creatures, especially those who are told to wait for someone similar to Rama. It seems like time passes but everyone lives a really long time, and they are all waiting and waiting for Rama to restore them. #50 So now we come to the p...