Wednesday, May 24, 2006

May it Be

It's the month of May, nothing else with the title. May is named after the Greek goddess Maia, the eldest of the Pleiades and the goddess of fields and fertility. As usual, Greek mythology is intimately connected with astronomy. Pleiades is a beautiful and probably the brightest open star cluster visible in the night sky. Maia is the brightest. The beauty of Pleiades also lies in some of the detailed features such as a Reflection Nebula, which is a cloud of dust appearing bright thanks to reflection of light from nearby bright stars. Edwin Hubble gave a simple formula that relates the angular size of the reflection nebula to the Apparent magnitude of the nearby star. The hi-res image of the reflection nebula was my wallpaper for quite some time.
This month has been moderately eventful. My results have not been something I can particularly write about, it's always better to pretend contentment and avoid cribs. I've been doing a lot of browsing, it has become my favourite pastime. My Schedule has been quite awkward, but I suppose I have been upto some creative work. I have also got in touch with many of my old classmates. It gives this goody feeling. Another good event is that I just finished watching Ghost in the Shell : StandAlone Complex and I'm quite impressed with the overall storyline, but not much with the individual episodes. The character/concept of The Laughing Man is just beautiful. The 2nd series, 2nd Gig, is better. Even better, I suppose are the movies, Ghost in the Shell and Ghost in the Shell 2 : Inocence. I was impressed by practically everything in the movies, the animation(the blending of CGI into the cel animation), the story, the quotes & references, the background music, subtleties in the plot, the list goes on. The only drawback I can say is the accentuated anatomy(to be euphemistic), which can be understood by the fact that the creator of the original Manga, Masamune Shirow is also a hentai artist.
I have been enjoying my extended stay in Madras, I suppose not many people miss me. It is great to live in neglect. Loneliness has its unique beauty(and I'm not a Narcissist - this is especially for POTA, if you're reading this post). I'm now looking forward to another month of joblessness, random thoughts and then the inevitable and all-important home visit. Which reminds me, I can't yet see my home in GoogleMaps, but I got this good a view. The black square is roughly where my house is.
The green patch near it is a ground adjacent to our street.

5 comments:

Mohan K.V said...

Whoa, that Pleaides reflection pic was awesome!

Hmm.. I didn't know you liked GitS so much, have to see it still..

Mahesh Mahadevan said...

@KV:
Do you have an RSS feed to my page, or are you SO enthu to read it?

After reading a lot about the Laughing Man, I've become a truly big fan of GitS.

Mohan K.V said...

Both!

Anonymous said...

Arabian Marasmus
Your name still makes me laugh...
nice :)
Will keep an eye on your blog...

wolverine said...

write more on stars and the related greek mythology.. it was getting interesting when you digressed...