The most touching scene in the Harry Potter books is the death of Snape.
"Look…at…me…" Snape whispered.
The green eyes found the black, but after a second, something in the depths of the dark pair seemed to vanish
Snape wanted to look into Harry's eyes because Harry had Lily's eyes,the woman he's loved in life and in death. I was lucky to get this the first time I had read the "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows" book and with his dying wish, I was able to better appreciate Snape's bravery and his character.
This is a recommendation for my fellow geeks who enjoy sci-fi series.
You should check out Sliders. The premise of the story is that a
college genius invents a machine that gives him the ability to travel
between dimensions. There are infinite number of worlds and there are
an infinite number of story-lines to go with it. With his friend Wade
Wells and Professor Arturo, Quinn (the college genius) decide to take
a spin round the universe and due to some accidents, they are not able
to get back to their home.
We see universes where alternate outcomes to world changing events
have happened and things are different from what they are "back home".
The pilot episode deals with the possibility where communist ideology
has won the cold war.
One of the episodes that I enjoyed was "Eggheads". This is a world
where intellect is prized and nerds are heroes. You have billboard of
Einstein modeling for Gap in khakis, and a sports guide written by
Stephen Hawking. The best part of this episode were the "bad guys",
who threatened using Latin phrases!
I am still on Season 2 (netflix disk 1). Go check it out.
I have been thinking that sometimes personalities of the speaker
affects the way I perceive his ideas. i.e. if the speaker has a
pleasant personality, and presents his ideas with a calm demur, I will
be more agreeable with his point of view and I will take in his
evidence with an open mind. However, if the speaker is unpleasant or
if he is not calm and confident while presenting his ideas, I
sometimes dismiss his ideas and evidence as unworthy of my attention.
I think I might have found a workaround for this issue. Whenever I
find myself strongly agreeing or strongly disagreeing with someone's
ideas, I would do a "vice-versa" on the speaker's personality and see
if I still agree with the evidence. What this means is, if I find
myself strongly agreeing with someone, I will imagine him presenting
his facts and ideas at the top of his voice or in a very shaky voice.
Similarly, if I find myself strongly disagreeing with someone's ideas,
I will imagine him talking in a calm manner and in a strong voice.
The idea here is to try and subtract out the effect of personalities
when listening to new theories and ideas.
This image really touched me. In my mind's eye, I can see the image of a dog waiting for his end and looking around to find someone he trusts to console him and not finding him there for him. If I had a pet and if I had to euthanize him, I would have left the room too, as it would have been hard for me. However, after seeing this pic, I am sure I will not leave. I am a great believer in keeping trust and "being there" for family, friends and people who trust me. Leaving the pet alone when he is about to die would be a selfish decision and a breaking of the trust a pet has for his owner.
Today morning I came across this piece of writing -
Does GPL still matter?. The whole article is based on a few anecdotes
from CEOs and marketing droids. They have gotten quite a few points
wrong in the article.
GPL is a developer friendly license. The basic premise of the GPL is
that the user should not subtract from the freedom he gets when
redistributing software. GPL is not restrictive. It merely insists
that whoever takes from the common pool must contribute back to the
pool.
I would like to point to these 2 articles in support of GPL -
