White noise is a random signal (or process) with a flat power spectral density. In other words, the signal's power spectral density has equal power in any band, at any center frequency, having a given bandwidth. White noise is considered analogous to white light which contains all frequencies.

Who am I?

Neo-hippie cinephile. Follower of the great Jim Morrison who once said "If the doors of perception are cleansed, everything would appear to man as it truly is, infinite."

Thursday, November 01, 2007

Shaken Not Stirred

Off late, California has been in the news for all the wrong reasons - first the crazy forest fires in SoCal (as people from there like to call it, making it sound like a capsule you would take for indigestion or some such ailment), then the hurricane again down south, and now finally the mini-quakes that have caused sympathetic vibrations here in the Bay Area. While I don't particularly care about the first two incidents (mainly because I am a localist), the third matters to me since it affects me directly.

The religious among us would ascribe it to the wrath of God, the superstitious would ascribe it to too much sun, and subsequently, sunscreen, but I smell a conspiracy here. Those of you who have seen the Simpsons' movie that was released recently will remember that the President of the country was my near-namesake Arnie. Arnie, having not much to do at work, saw it too and quite liked the idea of him doing the most laid back government job in the country. My theory is that Arnie has a secret pact with the cosmos. His relationship with her goes back a long way to the 70's when he was crowned Mr. Universe. In fact, it is believed in some political circles that he is the illegitimate child of her and the omnipresent and popular Mr. Steroids.

Please note that he has not made any announcements of his candidacy to run for the Office with the other good ol' white Republican boys. I wonder why, oh yeah, that's right, because he is not one of them! He is playing The Protector of all Californians right now, and thus by extension of all Americans since California represents quintessential American anyway - bad traffic, great taxes and a large number of illegal Mexicans, and will swoop in to the Presidential Race right before Judgment Day in the wake of lack of strong (not just physically) Republican candidates.

The people of California are reacting to the quavers in different ways. Stressed out middle-aged Asian software engineers combating the combined forces of the waning of close-range vision and mid-life crisis feel it is good stress relief and provide reasons to laugh (as a colleague told me today). Illegal immigrants from south of the border who have hit puberty are using fear as an excuse to put their unwanted, yet hard-working genes to good use by passing them on. When the author of this post used his two semesters of college Spanish and spoke to the average such specimen on the street, what filtered through the translation was an allusion to the proven theory that man, when threatened with extinction only thinks of continuing his race. It is a corollary to the Survival of the Fittest Theory. I, not being a middle-aged Asian software engineer or a horny illegal immigrant, am definitely shaken, but not stirred, and no, not from the quakes, but from my near-namesake's chess skills. After all, isn't life just an extension of the addictive board game?

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

i spotted a few intended/unintended puns! haha apps...did you know that silicon valley will be hit by a major quake anytime in the next 50 years?
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9351829/

ArSENik said...

Hmm...interesting. If this happens somewhere closer to 2057 than now, the it's cool since Si Valley would be useless by then anyway, just like Detroit today vis-a-vis the auto industry.

Anonymous said...

I went through all the recent posts and I could see the transformation, maturity and confidence in your recent 'abijabi' writing, which I consider exemplary, punctuated with humor(which is very important). I am also happy to note that you are making time to write everyday about day to day things, however insignificant they might be.I must tell you this is really very very good stuff. I really liked it. The more you write, the more authentic words you use and more fluidity you will achieve and soon, you will find writing becomes a piece of cake.

Of the latest posts, 'Late' was one of the best and the one on BapiDa was amongst the most humorous (in which you need to correct the spelling of Bengalee). I could not understand whether the post on Anurag Kashyap is positive or negative. The film criticism was very short, may have been deliberate, but I think you are maturing into a good writer and should continue to write as it will give you a very intellectual pleasure which you will not get in any form of the game in a personal level.

ArSENik said...

Thanks. The No Smoking post had no sarcasm and was positively positive. The criticism was short as the reviews have proven to be boring for most readers off late.

Mala said...

For a while I stopped watching the local news - all they talked about were the fires. I'm not saying I'm not sympathetic or that the news channels should not do an extensive coverage - but repeating the same scenes over and over again in 2 sec intervals is not my idea of extensive coverage and neither are the smoke filled personal videos they air. I mean there ARE other things going on around the world (apart from US troops in Iraq). I hate the news channels here. Anyhoo, I think I went off on a totally different topic! :)

ArSENik said...

C'mon Mala, let's not be naive. The American news channels air only the most important news in the world, which, as everyone knows, is Iraq and wildfires, basically anything affecting America, Fu#$ yeah! :)

Mala said...

amen to that!