The sory of Eagle - Worth Reading to boost innerself

 

 TIME DECIDES WHOM YOU MEET IN LIFE

 

YOUR HEART DECIDES WHOM U WANT IN LIFE

 

BUT YOUR BEHAVIOR DECIDES WHO WILL STAY IN YOUR LIFE

 

Our lives are not determined by what happens to us but by how we react to what happens,  Not by what life brings to us, but by the attitude we bring to life.
A positive attitude causes a chain reaction of positive thoughts, events, and outcomes.
It is a catalyst, a spark that creates extraordinary results.
Let’s change to make a change!!! 
 
When it rains, most birds head for shelter;

the eagle is the only bird that, in order to avoid the rain, starts flying above the cloud. ...

 

                   Winners win by pushing their limits until their limits become the norm.

Apostrophe'O magazine

The last few weeks carried very few news items worth paying attention to, one of which was undoubtedly the consummation of scientist-entrepreneur Craig Venter’s project of creating life in the lab, or to be fair, the very first steps toward artificial life. In this edition, we get to know a little more about the man of the moment, with a very clean profile of the very controversial Venter by our science writer Mila Mitra. As expected, the journalistic community pounced upon this scoop, and perhaps in their excitement ‘over-reported’ the news. In the throes of inane headlines like ‘Man Plays God’, and ‘Man Creates Life’, writer Nikhil Pawar provides a much needed balance, and points out the flaws in scientific journalism, a form of reporting that generally tends to be exaggerated. Passing the baton to our science writer Preshant Jagannathan who talks about how the Grand Unified Theory remains an unlikelihood. Finally, to lighten the tone a bit, we have a brand new and thrilling science fiction, or as the afficionados would call it, SF, by our fiction writer Aruna Rao.

Moving further from the scientific theme and carrying on, our feature writer Suhas Munshi sketches out the history of political cartooning and the use of humor as a revolutionary tool in his insightful essay. And we end the features with an argument in support of pornography, and that too not just for onanistic purposes.

Author and RJ Ujjwal Bhattacharya continues his enlightening series of literary essays on Rabindranath Tagore with his second installment from a three part series on the poet.

Visions and Perspectives showcase a wonderful painting feature on the fairer sex by Shubnum Gill, a unique perspective of a filtered world and a world bathed in moonlight by our lensmen Sunny Lamba and Atish Aman.

Articles and essays embellished like always with witty and appealing graphics and paintings by the very talented Niharika Singh, Sumit Sond, Raghav Arumugam, Rupesh Dutta, Shubnum Gill and Anarya.


this issue contains
Creating Life, Playing God by Nikhil Pawar


The Maverick Genius – Craig Venter by Mila Mitra


Liberty And Libido – A Case for Pornography by Vineet Gill


That’s Not Funny – The Art of Political Cartooning by Suhas Munshi


Fiction: The Journey’s End by Aruna Rao


Tagore: Seeking God in Pursuit of Self by Ujjwal Bhattacharya


No GUTs No Glory By Preshanth Jagannathan


An Artistic Perspective – Tender to Touch by Shubnum Gill


A Filtered Perspective by Sunny Lamba


Moonlit Nights by Atish Aman

I m L O S T...

RECAP

Fans who tuned in to the “Lost” series finale hoping to get all their questions answered may have been disappointed. Those who hoped for a believable explanation to the alternate-reality dilemma ... well, for them disappointment doesn’t even cover it. But if, on the off chance, some pined for a partially satisfying, partially infuriating end to the twisting mystery, Sunday’s episode was a winner.

It began as the last installment ended, with a newly Jacob’ed Jack standing in the river. Though he didn’t feel any different, he seemed to know exactly what he needed to do. So he called his troops — Sawyer, Hurley and Kate — into action. Sawyer went off in search of Desmond, while Kate and Hurley followed Jack to the heart of the island.

Sawyer’s search ended before it even began. Rather than finding everyone’s favorite electromagnetically resistant pal, he found Smokey and Ben ruing their similar plan over an empty well. Sawyer hightailed it back to Jack after guessing Smokey’s new destroy-the-island-using-Desmond platform and left Smokey and Ben to continue their own search.

As for Desmond, he enjoyed the company of his rescuers — wait for it — Rose, Bernard and perhaps the most missed castaway of all, Vincent the dog! OK, sure, it felt as if the long lost trio were sort of shoehorned into the scene as a final nod, but it’s Rose, Bernard and Vincent, so who cares?

Did it answer everything you wanted resolved? What was your favorite reveal? Are you satisfied with how it ended? Share your thoughts, and we’ll publish a selection of the best.

As if to explain their complete absence from all things plot related, Rose informed Desmond that she and Bernard broke their cardinal rule by rescuing him. The rule basically consists of staying out of everyone else’s drama. And if they thought they broke it by helping Desmond, the arrival of Smokey threatened to show them just how broken it could get.

It wasn’t long before Smokey threatened to kill the old familiar faces if Desmond didn’t follow him to the glowing source. Needless to say, Des obeyed.

Soon Jack and his gang, once again joined by Sawyer, met up with Smokey, Ben and Desmond. Though an epic battle seemed the logical choice of action, Jack didn’t see the need for it. Instead, he, Smokey and Des made a trip to the heart of the island.

It seems Smokey’s plan to destroy the island meshed pretty nicely with Jack’s plan to destroy Smokey, so they decided to cooperate instead by helping Desmond down into the light in the cave.

Once down there, Desmond somehow knew to pull a stone cork out of a shimmering pool, which turned off the all-important light and triggered a load of earthquakes.

The result left a smug Smokey believing he was the winner. It left Jack believing it would be a great time to attack Smokey. So he did.

Apparently there was one big perk to turning off the island’s light — it also turned off its magic. Smokey was now flesh and blood, emphasis on the latter. He could be hurt. The epic battle was back on.

While the island shook and rumbled and they skies ripped open in storm, Jack and Smokey carried out their attacks along a cliff side. Jack attempted to choke his foe. Smokey stabbed Jack. Kate, appearing out of nowhere, shot Smokey.

What? Yep, just as the fight really got going, Kate stepped in and cut it short. In Jack’s victorious defense, he did get one last kick in — the one that sent Smokey plummeting over the cliff to his death.

But there was still work to be done. If the island was ever going to stop rumbling, someone needed to put the cork back into the source.

Jack volunteered. He urged his friends to leave. After all, Frank Lapidus (who was somehow still alive), Richard Alpert (who was somehow still alive) and Miles planned to fly away on the plane. Sawyer and Kate decided to go, but Hurley and Ben — despite his back-and-forth-baddie status — stayed with Jack.

Just before Jack plunged into the same depths he sent Desmond to, he prepared a special muck-water drink for Hurley. It was the big guy’s turn to be the new Jacob, or Jack-ob. Either way, the dude would protect the island, and thanks to his kind nature, Ben would get a second shot at being the leader’s right-hand man. That’s trust. Crazy trust, but trust all the same.

Once at the bottom of the source, Jack spotted Desmond and helped him to safety before grabbing the cork in one glorious, if equally odd, form of self-sacrifice.

1.Filling the hot-guy void ‘Lost’ leaves behind
From the classic good looks of Jack and Jin, to the sex appeal of Sayid and Sawyer, no other show on TV packs nearly as many hot men.
2. Survival guide to the end of ‘Lost’
3. Imagining a world without ‘Lost’
4. Tale of Hurley: Making of ‘Lost’s’ unlikely hero

The end.

Not really.

It’s a shame, too, because had that been the end, viewers could have cherished it. It would have made for a respectable closure to all that island action. Sure, fans would always wonder about that pesky alternate reality they saw glimpses of all season long, but there are fates worse than wondering — like finding out the answer, for instance.

Well, that sounds a bit gloom and doom, doesn’t it? In fairness to the alt-world, it had its moments. A sugary-sweet, rapid-fire series of “aha” moments, but still, they were anticipated and welcomed by all but the cold-hearted.

There was the moment Juliet administered Sun’s ultrasound and thereby triggered the Kwons other-life memories. Sniff. Or when Sayid attempted to rescue a seemingly random woman only to touch her and instantly know she was none other than his lost island-love, Shannon. Sniff. Or when Kate helped Claire deliver Aaron and suddenly knew everything, and then Claire touched Aaron and remembered everything, and then Charlie touched Claire and … you get the idea. Sniff, sniff, sniff.

Locke had his own somewhat less tear-jerking solo flash after Jack completed his operation. A wiggle of the toes brought to mind another lifetime of mobility.

Of course the big mind-reunions were saved for members of the island’s old love quadrangle.

For Sawyer and Juliet, it was simply a shared meaningful moment by the glow of a vending machine. They went from strangers to passionate lovers in seconds. (Note: Anyone who didn’t cry when Sawyer pulled Juliet to him after he remembered her dying in his arms on the island has a rock where their heart should be. Just FYI.)

Then there was Jack, who despite multiple flashes of the other world just kept trying to push back the memories. He even saw something when Locke had his own moment, but perhaps Locke’s insistence that Jack’s son, David, didn’t really exist inspired some denial for the doctor. But you know what he couldn’t deny? A little contact from Kate.

Although he still wasn’t ready to fully accept his former life, just a touch from Kate was enough to get him to tag along to the big group get-together she and the other folks had planned down the rabbit hole, er, at the church.

Not just any church, either. This was the church where a very tardy Oceanic Airlines finally delivered Jack’s father’s remains. So while Kate joined her pals in the pews, Jack decided to have some private time with his dad’s coffin. Only — and this should come to no surprise to anyone who’s watched a single episode of “Lost” — Jack’s father wasn’t in the coffin.

Did the ending satisfy, or were you thoroughly disappointed?

Empty coffins and Christian Shephard go together like peanut butter and jelly. Still, while that part was predictable, what followed wasn’t.

While Jack mourned, Christian, soon to be known as Exposition-man, stood by waiting for his big moment.

Sometime after his “Hey, kiddo!” and Jack’s understandable “What-the-what?” reaction, the silver fox explained precisely what the alternate reality was — a place Jack and his past pals created to have one giant, post-mortem meet up.

That’s right. It wasn’t a different thread of reality created by the time-changing blast Daniel Faraday suggested. That makes too much sense. Instead, it was all just some oddly plotted excuse for everyone (minus Michael, Walt and loads of other characters) to get together after their respective deaths but before they moved on to whatever follows.

What was the point of everything before that? What about all that alt-action? The alt-escapes? The alt-killings? The alt-family members who don’t really exist? (Sorry, David! And sorry anyone else who paid attention to your now meaningless story.) There weren’t any.

The end.

Really this time.

Those who spent the better part of the last six seasons wondering where in the heck the sometimes frustrating, almost always entertaining mystery could possibly go finally got their answer. If they can make sense of it, that is.

In the end, the electromagnetically charged mystery island gave way to a hug-filled waiting room leading to a pan-spiritual afterlife, led by the aptly named Christian Shephard. Whew!

It’s a daring way to end “Lost” — leaving plenty of questions unanswered and winking out on what has to be its least satisfying twist to date.

At least no one can say they saw that coming.

Do You Have To Be Rich To Collect Art?

I think that it's high time that I speak out about this.

There is such a strong perception out there that you have to be wealthy to collect art. Of course, being rich certainly helps and poor people who can barely put food on the table probably aren't thinking about their next art purchase.

The connection between wealth and art collecting is so tight that it'll probably never be unraveled. That's such a shame because ultimately the entire "artworld" suffers. The perception creates so many barriers. Living artists suffer because people who aren't rich, but who love art are often too intimidated to even walk into a gallery!

Why look at things that only "rich people" can afford? It's like dangling a carrot stick in front of your own face! Consequently, many people don't even see artists' work, which in turn, doesn't sell. Some struggling galleries often charge high prices (which only the rich can afford) to pay expenses and of course, make money. The perception that only rich people can afford art creates a very small target audience. Everyone has to make money, galleries included.

It's such a sad cycle. What's sadder is that this is happening during a time when contemporary art sales are hot! But guess what? In most cases, it's not the "Average Joe" who is buying art. However, if the "Average Joe" did buy art, even two paintings a year, that would send art sales through the roof! Artists and galleries wouldn't be able to keep up with the demand!

So, how can we get "Joe" to buy? Let's count the ways:
1. I think artists need to get better at promoting their own work. Let's face it folks, we're living in the age of self-promotion. If you don't get out there and promote your own product, who will? Galleries? Yes, but they can't sell everything all at once! Also, when you're showing your work, TRY to be warm and friendly! Dark and moody may work while you're working the canvas, but not when you're working potential buyers.
2. I think artists also need to get better at putting prices on their work and be willing to negotiate just a little. Most people are NOT going to spend even $500.00 on a painting, but perhaps they'll pay $250.00 for something else an artist may have. Artists can simultaneously create "high-end" works and more "affordable" works for people who love art, but aren't rich. Take a cue from designers like Todd Oldham. Again, let's face it, there are too many other things out there competing for "Average Joe's" money. Ipods, cellphones, laptops and flatscreen televisions are mighty tempting!
3. The artworld needs to open up. It can be very insular and snobbish. This keeps MOST potential buyers away. The last thing someone wants is to be snubbed in a gallery after mustering up the courage to visit in the first place! Trust me on this one.
4. People can only buy what they SEE. Visual connection is the key element of desire. I can only want something if I've seen it first! We need to get art on display EVERYWHERE. Galleries, art fairs and websites cannot do it alone. People should be able to see the work of living artists not only in galleries, coffee shops and bookstores, but also in restaurants, hotels, airports, sports arenas, government buildings, hospitals, music halls, public cafeterias, train stations, MALLS ... places where captive audiences gather. Place where REAL people gather. I can only want it if I've seen it first. Then, people would say, "Hey, look at that! I must have it!"

Could this all work? Maybe, maybe not. Isn't it worth a try?

Whenever I tell people that I collect art, I usually get the same response. You must be rich! Or, "How much money do you make?"

We've got to change that, people. There's too much living art to be sold to far too many "Average Joes" who just need a little encouragement. Let's get creative.

Bihar - Madhubani Arts

Madhhubani - Rural Art

Traditionally this art was practiced by women only to decorate their huts during religious and important occasions. Nowadays men have also taken up this art form and paintings are done on paper, cloth, canvas etc. But even though women in the villages around Madhubani have been practicing their folk art for centuries, the world at large has come to know about these women and to consider them to be "artists" only in the last thirty years. Even now, most of their work remains anonymous. The women, some of them illiterate, are in any case reluctant to consider themselves individual producers of "works of art" and only a few of them mark the paintings with their own name.


The colors used were traditionally derived from natural sources like plants, charcoal soot, ochre etc. Black color is obtained by mixing soot with cow dung.Yellow color is obtained from turmeric or pollen or lime and the milk of banyan leaves. Blue from Indigo. Red from Kusum flower juice, red sandalwood or rose. Green from the leaves of apple trees, White from rice powder, Orange from palasha flowers.


Madhubani paintings mostly depict nature and Hindu religious motifs, and the themes generally revolve around Hindu deities like Krishna, Rama, Shiva, Durga, Lakshmi, Saraswati. Natural objects like the sun, the moon and religious plants like Tulsi are also widely painted, along with scenes from the royal court and social events like weddings. Generally no space is left empty ; the gaps are filled by paintings of flowers, animals, birds and even geometric designs. Objects depicted in the walls of kohabar ghar (where newly wed couple see each other in the first night) are symbols of sexual pleasure and procreation.Legend says that this artform originated during the time of Ramayana when King Janak commissioned artists to paint pictures of his daughter Sita getting married to Rama.



A Madhubani painting in the Godana style by Chano Devi, depicting a scene from the myth of God Salhesa. (right) A painting of Goddess Kali in the Bharni style by Krishnakant Jha.

MITHILA, the birthplace of Sita of the Ramayana, lies in the state of Bihar, bounded by the Himalayas in the north and the rivers Kosi, Ganga and Gandak in the east, south and west respectively. Over centuries, the people of Mithila have developed their own tradition of art, popularly known as Madhubani painting, named after a district and a town in the region. What is unique about this tradition - which dates back to the 7th century A.D., and is prevalent even today - is that it is the women who mastered and practiced it.

In their earliest form, Madhubani paintings appear as aripana (floor paintings) and kohabar (wall paintings), done by the women of the Brahmin and the Kayastha castes. Painters today do it on paper. An exhibition of such paintings, titled "Mithila Paintings", was held in Kolkata from January 3 to January 12. It was curated by Neel Rekha, an art historian, whose dissertation on the women painters of Mithila titled "Art and Assertion of Identity: Women and Madhubani Paintings" is to be published shortly.

Traditionally, Madhubani paintings were made on the eve of certain rituals and ceremonies, such as pujas, vratas, or weddings. According to Neel Rekha, who has stayed with the painters and traced the roots of the folk art tradition, these paintings may have had their origins in tantric rituals. Mithila has from time immemorial been a seat of the tantric tradition, with strong leanings towards the Saiva and Sakti cults. The tradition found expression in domestic rituals, and that is perhaps why the art form was once restricted to women. But that did not stop the artists from transcending the domain of practical utility in order to create something exquisite from an aesthetic point of view.

Agile Methodology

What Is Agile?

Agile methodology is an approach to project management, typically used in software development. It helps teams respond to the unpredictability of building software through incremental, iterative work cadences, known as sprints. But before discussing agile methodologies further, it’s best to first turn to the methodology that inspired it: waterfall, or traditional sequential development.

Where Did Agile Come From?

In 1970, Dr. Winston Royce presented a paper entitled “Managing the Development of Large Software Systems,” which outlined his ideas on sequential development. In essence, his presentation asserted that a project could be developed much like an automobile on an assembly line, in which each piece is added in sequential phases. This means that every phase of the project must be completed before the next phase can begin. Thus, developers first gather all of a project’s requirements, then complete all of its architecture and design, then write all of the code, and so on. There is little, if any, communication between the specialized groups that complete each phase of work.

It’s easy to see how this development agile methodology is far from optimized. First of all, it assumes that every requirement of the project can be identified before any design or coding occurs. Put another way, do you think you could tell a team of developers everything that needed to be in a piece of software before it was up and running? Or would it be easier to describe your vision to the team if you could react to functional software? Many software developers have learned the answer to that question the hard way: At the end of a project, a team might have built the software it was asked to build, but, in the time it took to create, business realities have changed so dramatically that the product is irrelevant. In that scenario, a company has spent time and money to create software that no one wants. Couldn’t it have been possible to ensure the end product would still be relevant before it was actually finished?

Why Agile?

Agile development methodology attempts to provide many opportunities to assess the direction of a project throughout the development lifecycle. This is achieved through regular cadences of work, known as sprints or iterations, at the end of which teams must present a shippable increment of work. Thus by focusing on the repetition of abbreviated work cycles as well as the functional product they yield, agile methodology could be described as “iterative” and “incremental.” In waterfall, development teams only have one chance to get each aspect of a project right. In an agile paradigm, every aspect of development — requirements, design, etc. — is continually revisited throughout the lifecycle. When a team stops and re-evaluates the direction of a project every two weeks, there’s always time to steer it in another direction.

The results of this “inspect-and-adapt” approach to development greatly reduce both development costs and time to market. Because teams can gather requirements at the same time they’re gathering requirements, the phenomenon known as “analysis paralysis” can’t really impede a team from making progress. And because a team’s work cycle is limited to two weeks, it gives stakeholders recurring opportunities to calibrate releases for success in the real world. In essence, it could be said that the agile development methodology helps companies build the right product. Instead of committing to market a piece of software that hasn’t even been written yet, agile empowers teams to optimize their release as it’s developed, to be as competitive as possible in the marketplace. In the end, a development agile methodology that preserves a product’s critical market relevance and ensures a team’s work doesn’t wind up on a shelf, never released, is an attractive option for stakeholders and developers alike.

The Scrum methodology of agile software development marks a dramatic departure from waterfall management. In fact, Scrum and other agile processes were inspired by its shortcomings. The Scrum methodology emphasizes communication and collaboration, functioning software, and the flexibility to adapt to emerging business realities — all attributes that suffer in the rigidly ordered waterfall paradigm.

business realities — all attributes that suffer in the rigidly ordered waterfall paradigm.

Scrum Methodology

For many developers in the software industry, the agile methodology is nothing new. Most folks know that agile was a direct response to the dominant project management paradigm, waterfall, and borrows many principles from lean manufacturing. In 2001, as this new management paradigm began to pick up momentum, agile was formalized when 17 pioneers of the agile methodology met at the Snowbird Ski Resort in Utah and issued the Agile Manifesto. Their manifesto is now considered the foundational text for agile practices and principles. Most importantly, the manifesto spelled out the philosophy behind agile, which places a new emphasis on communication and collaboration; functioning software; and the flexibility to adapt to emerging business realities.

But for all of the strides the Agile Manifesto made in revising a philosophical approach to software development, it didn’t provide the concrete processes that development teams depend on when deadlines — and stakeholders — start applying pressure. As a result, when it comes to the nuts and bolts of running a team with agile every day, organizations turn to particular subsets of the agile methodology. These include Crystal Clear, Extreme Programming, Feature Driven Development, Dynamic Systems Development Method (DSDM), Scrum, and others. At my organization, we use Scrum and I’ve found it to be an incredibly effective management methodology for everyone involved, including developers and stakeholders. If you’re interested in learning about the other agile methodologies, there are plenty of resources out there. This blog is designed to provide some essential background for those who are new to Scrum.

What’s Unique about Scrum?

Of all the agile methodologies, Scrum is unique because it introduced the idea of “empirical process control.” That is, Scrum uses the real-world progress of a project — not a best guess or uninformed forecast — to plan and schedule releases. In Scrum, projects are divided into succinct work cadences, known as sprints, which are typically one week, two weeks, or three weeks in duration. At the end of each sprint, stakeholders and team members meet to assess the progress of a project and plan its next steps. This allows a project’s direction to be adjusted or reoriented based on completed work, not speculation or predictions.

Philosophically, this emphasis on an ongoing assessment of completed work is largely responsible for its popularity with managers and developers alike. But what allows the Scrum methodology to really work is a set of roles, responsibilities, and meetings that never change. If Scrum’s capacity for adaption and flexibility makes it an appealing option, the stability of its practices give teams something to lean on when development gets chaotic.

The Roles of Scrum

Scrum has three fundamental roles: Product Owner, ScrumMaster, and team member.

• Product Owner: In Scrum, the Product Owner is responsible for communicating the vision of the product to the development team. He or she must also represent the customer’s interests through requirements and prioritization. Because the Product Owner has the most authority of the three roles, it’s also the role with the most responsibility. In other words, the Product Owner is the single individual who must face the music when a project goes awry.

The tension between authority and responsibility means that it’s hard for Product Owners to strike the right balance of involvement. Because Scrum values self-organization among teams, a Product Owner must fight the urge to micro-manage. At the same time, Product Owners must be available to answer questions from the team.

• ScrumMaster: The ScrumMaster acts as a liaison between the Product Owner and the team. The ScrumMaster does not manage the team. Instead, he or she works to remove any impediments that are obstructing the team from achieving its sprint goals. In short, this role helps the team remain creative and productive, while making sure its successes are visible to the Product Owner. The ScrumMaster also works to advise the Product Owner about how to maximize ROI for the team.
• Team Member: In the Scrum methodology, the team is responsible for completing work. Ideally, teams consist of seven cross-functional members, plus or minus two individuals. For software projects, a typical team includes a mix of software engineers, architects, programmers, analysts, QA experts, testers, and UI designers. Each sprint, the team is responsible for determining how it will accomplish the work to be completed. This grants teams a great deal of autonomy, but, similar to the Product Owner’s situation, that freedom is accompanied by a responsibility to meet the goals of the sprint.

Courtsey : Scrum Methodology