Planet ISKCON

And now for a review of the various hardware features that make an Apple Macbook notebook computer stand out. All these are reasons to purchase a Macbook or Macbook Pro instead of a standard, run-of-a-mill PC.

No viruses or spyware: no need to run a virus scanner, spyware removal tool, or third-party firewall. Macs just don't get computer viruses (note: they might in the future, but for the moment there are zero viruses on the Mac platform).

Super-fast dual core processor: no slow down. By far the fastest computer I've ever used. Two processors means that while the computer is busy doing a processor intensive operation, there is no interface slow-down. The other processor turns on and helps out. The net-effect is a computer that is nearly double as fast as an older laptop equipped with the Pentium-M processor (which often still retail for around the same price as Macs). According to systemshoot, my 2.16 Ghz MacBook Pro is equivalent to a hypothetical 5.2 Ghz Pentium 4 processor. Don't be fooled by the Mhz-myth. Higher clock-rate number does not necessarily mean faster computer. Don't be ripped off by last year's significantly slower processor technology.

Front-row remote control: a tidy, simple, 6-button, infrared remote control comes with the Mac. It can be used to remote control presentations, music playback, DVD playback, show photo slideshows and adjust the volume. A special enlarged interface flies out from the screen at the press of a button, so you can see all the controls from across the room.

Sudden motion sensor: in built-gyroscope that detects if the computer is dropped and secures the hard drive in mid-air to prevent any damage or data-loss.

In-built iSight camera: high-resolution built-in video camera that can be used for video chat over the Internet and taking pictures of oneself (with Apple's fun little Photobooth application). It also works surprisingly well in low light. Much better than any other webcam I've used.

ATi Mobility Radeon X1600 graphics card: a super-powerful graphics card that can easily drive the nice 3D graphic effects of the operating systems. It can also easily drive a 30-inch external display (resolutions up to 2560 x 1600 pixels). It can also handle any modern, graphics-intensive game you can throw at it. Downside of all this power is that the graphics card eats battery power. If Apple had gone with a less powerful graphic card, the computer would probably last an hour longer when running on battery.

MagSafe power connector: the power connector attaches magnetically. Just move it near the edge of the computer and it snaps into place by itself. Much better than any clumsy plug-in connector. It also removes just as easily, so accidentally tripping over the power cord won't send the computer flying off the table. It also has a little light on the connector that tells you instantly if the battery is still charging, or fully charged.

Power supply cable ties: two little "feet" flip out from the power supply and can be used to wrap the power cord up quickly and tidily.

Slot-loading DVD drive. Just push the disk in and the drive sucks it in. No breakable pop-out tray to take care of. No delicate laser lens to get smudged.

Ambient light sensor: A sensor under the speaker grills detects the amount of ambient light and adjusts the screen brightness accordingly. The computer won't blast you with an ultra-bright screen if it's not necessary, saving both your eyes and battery life.

Bright screen: the screen is really clear, crisp and bright.

Instant sleep and restore: close the lid and the computer reliably goes to sleep. Open the lid and two seconds later the computer is read to use again, wireless Internet working, music playing, etc. It just works. The system also automatically saves the contents of the memory to disk (hibernate / safe-sleep) in case the battery power runs out, or someone removes / swaps the battery.

Magnetic / disappearing latch: the MacBook Pro has a disappearing latch. No ugly hook on the top of the lid, the latch retracts into the case when not in use. The MacBook takes this even further: it has no latch whatsoever, but secures the lid using a magnet. No moving parts to break (the latch is one of the things that frequently breaks on laptops).

Silent operation: makes almost no sound. Even when the fan comes on it is quieter than my old laptop running without its fan.

Hot swappable battery: put the computer to sleep by closing the lid, flick the spring-loaded levels on the bottom of the laptop and remove the battery. Put in a replacement battery, open the lid, wait a few seconds and continue working right where you left off. No need to save work, no need to reboot. Each battery also has a little read-out that displays how much charge it carries, so one can check the state of a battery without plugging it in.

Scrolling trackpad: using two fingers on the trackpad allows one to scroll the window. This may not sound like much of a feature, but is really useful. It's very intuitive to just scroll with two fingers. No more hunting for the tiny scroll bar on the side of the window.

Built-in microphone: a microphone is built in to the case somewhere, so audio chat just works, without the need for an extra external mic. Very good quality, too. Apples own iChat application even does perfect echo cancellation, so one does not even need a headset for audio chats. Unfortunately, Skype has not yet figured out how to do this, so chatting using that is not quite as perfect an experience.

Bluetooth (2.0) that actually works: a friend's IBM laptop has bluetooth, but it doesn't actually work because Windows messes up the driver. Bluetooth headsets, bluetooth mice, bluetooth keyboards, bluetooth phone synchronization (so you can, for example, write text messages on the Mac and send them using the phone, or go online through the phone's wireless connection); it all just works. Extra bonus is version 2.0 of bluetooth gives three times faster data transfer rates, better battery life and stereo audio support (though Apple has not yet implemented that feature).

Wifi: good wireless range in spite of the metal case and super easy configuration on any wireless network. The wireless antenna is on the hinge connecting the display to the bottom-case, which greatly improves reception from the previous generation Apple Powerbooks.

Firewire port: to plug in digital video cameras and download films directly onto the computer. Most PCs don't have this connector.

Optical 5.1 audio in/out: headphone and mic input that support up to 6 channels of simultaneous audio.

Good keyboard: nice responsive keyboard with sturdy keys that don't appear like they're about to fall off at any moment (unlike my old Dell laptop).

Works well with the iPod: synchronizes flawlessly and quickly with the iPod MP3 player.

Single hinge design: the entire back panel of the computer is one continuous hinge. No cheap plastic hinge that can break off easily (something that has happened to me on every other laptop I've owned).

Attractive durable case design: the MacBook Pro's aluminum case looks very beautiful. Great design. No frankenstein-like case with ports, buttons and connectors jutting out of everywhere. There is not even a visible fan air exhaust hole in the case. Apple has cleverly hidden the cooling fan slots under the display's hinge, making them all but invisible. The casing is also more durable than the typical plastic case. Metal doesn't tend to chip, split, scratch, or crack. The MacBook is made out of polycarbonate plastic (the same stuff that bullet proof glass is made out of), making it even more resilient than the MacBook Pro.

Super thin: only one inch thin. Every other laptop looks fat and clunky in comparison. The Macbook Pro is at least an inch thinner than most competing laptops.

Ultra-light weight: at 5.6 pounds (2.54 kg) the MacBook Pro is about 1 kg lighter than the equivalent Dell laptops. It is surprisingly lightweight for the size of the machine.
Gigabit ethernet: wired LAN networking that has 10 times faster file transfers than the usual 100 megabit network that is standard on most PCs.

Potentially low EMF radiation: the all metal body may reduce the EMF radiation emitted by the computer, though I have not been able to test this as of yet.
Stable: hardly ever crashes. No random restarts. No performance degradation over time. The Mac OS X operating system keeps itself in running order without user intervention.

Good tech support: Apple support is rated the best in the industry (and Dell isn't doing too well lately). You can also walk into any of the world-wide Apple stores, or many authorized service provider shops and get support from the so-called "Mac Geniuses" there.

Automatic external display configuration: plug an external display or projector in and the computer auto-detects it and configures the correct display setting automatically.
Runs windows: can use a software called Parallels to run Windows XP in a window from inside the Mac operating system, or can use Apple's own free Boot Camp software (recently updated) to reboot into Windows and use the Mac just like any other (really fast) Windows computer (and, for those Unix hacker out there: it does Linux, too).

Runs Microsoft Office. Microsoft make Word, Excel and Powerpoint for the Mac operating system.

iLife: the best suite of digital lifestyle applications out there. iPhoto stores digital camera pictures, iMovie is a full-blown movie editor, iDVD makes making professional looking DVD film disks easy, iWeb allows easy authoring of websites, iTunes stores and organizes MP3s, GarageBand makes podcast production easy and is the perfect software for recording one's own band (and all these applications work together seamlessly).

iWork: the Pages word processor is faster and easier to use than Microsoft Word and allows one to produce much more stylish looking printed pages. The Keynote presentation software is in a different class altogether from Powerpoint. Much easier to use, professional looking slides and transitions and some unique, cool and useful features.

Easy to use, elegant, feature filled Mac OS X operating system. No other operating system even comes close. It's like night and day going from Windows to Mac OS X: it just works. USB devices recognized instantly, drag and drop works between every application, can zoom into a portion of the screen for magnified reading, or detailed editing, can tile each window using a tool called Expos?© to quickly switch between applications, near instant full-text searching of every file on the hard drive, a dashboard of useful little widget utilities (currency converter, language translator, dictionary, world clock, calendar, calculator, notepad, etc) can be called up at a touch of a button, built-in voice recognition (to control the computer by talking to it) and screen-reader, automatic as-you-type spell-checker in every application, the list of useful features and nice little touches goes on and on and on ...

Price: only slightly ($100 - $200) more expensive than a PC from HP or Dell with the same basic hardware configuration. Though, of course, those computers don't come with any of the extras I've just listed.

Negatives can be summed up in two issues: heat and battery life.

This thing gets hot, really hot. It may be because the metal case conducts heat more easily, it may be that the invisible cooling fan slots impedes airflow, it may be that the fan is set to come on at too high a temperature, or it may just be because the computer is so darn thin. Whatever the cause, the Macbook Pro (and, to a lesser extent, the Macbook) can be very hot to the touch / lap. It's fine when just writing emails, but as soon as the computer has to work hard at some calculation the temperature really becomes noticeable. Apple even warns: don't put the "laptop" on your lap. It might burn you.

Then there is battery life. The bright screen, powerful graphics card and speedy processor certainly take their toll on the battery. On top of that comes the super-thin case, which does not allow for a large hulking battery. So, while Apple is using the latest high-tech lithium-polymer battery, the battery life sucks! I get only 2 - 3 hours of battery power (wifi on, normal screen brightness, moderate use, no sound playing).

Unfortunately, some faults have occurred with this machine: the fan occasionally makes a ratcheting noise, like a piece of card being stuck in the spokes of a bike's wheel; the computer makes the infamous whining noise when on battery power (though that might now be solved); and my battery has died on me. However, Apple support was quick, friendly and forthcoming with repairs (apart from the whine - I'm still going to hassle them about that), so no hard feelings. Still, one gets the impression that there are still a few bugs to work out with the hardware.

All in all: I recommend the MacBook to everyone. In my opinion, there is no reason whatsoever that anyone should buy anything other than an Apple notebook computer. The MacBook Pro is the ultimate power-user machine. The MacBook is a really great deal (cheaper even than the equivalent dull Dell) and almost as powerful as the Pro.

(and here a picture gallery of the MacBook Pro)

And now for a review of the various hardware features that make an Apple Macbook notebook computer stand out. All these are reasons to purchase a Macbook or Macbook Pro instead of a standard, run-of-a-mill PC.

No viruses or spyware: no need to run a virus scanner, spyware removal tool, or third-party firewall. Macs just don't get computer viruses (note: they might in the future, but for the moment there are zero viruses on the Mac platform).

Super-fast dual core processor: no slow down. By far the fastest computer I've ever used. Two processors means that while the computer is busy doing a processor intensive operation, there is no interface slow-down. The other processor turns on and helps out. The net-effect is a computer that is nearly double as fast as an older laptop equipped with the Pentium-M processor (which often still retail for around the same price as Macs). According to systemshoot, my 2.16 Ghz MacBook Pro is equivalent to a hypothetical 5.2 Ghz Pentium 4 processor. Don't be fooled by the Mhz-myth. Higher clock-rate number does not necessarily mean faster computer. Don't be ripped off by last year's significantly slower processor technology.

Front-row remote control: a tidy, simple, 6-button, infrared remote control comes with the Mac. It can be used to remote control presentations, music playback, DVD playback, show photo slideshows and adjust the volume. A special enlarged interface flies out from the screen at the press of a button, so you can see all the controls from across the room.

Sudden motion sensor: in built-gyroscope that detects if the computer is dropped and secures the hard drive in mid-air to prevent any damage or data-loss.

In-built iSight camera: high-resolution built-in video camera that can be used for video chat over the Internet and taking pictures of oneself (with Apple's fun little Photobooth application). It also works surprisingly well in low light. Much better than any other webcam I've used.

ATi Mobility Radeon X1600 graphics card: a super-powerful graphics card that can easily drive the nice 3D graphic effects of the operating systems. It can also easily drive a 30-inch external display (resolutions up to 2560 x 1600 pixels). It can also handle any modern, graphics-intensive game you can throw at it. Downside of all this power is that the graphics card eats battery power. If Apple had gone with a less powerful graphic card, the computer would probably last an hour longer when running on battery.

MagSafe power connector: the power connector attaches magnetically. Just move it near the edge of the computer and it snaps into place by itself. Much better than any clumsy plug-in connector. It also removes just as easily, so accidentally tripping over the power cord won't send the computer flying off the table. It also has a little light on the connector that tells you instantly if the battery is still charging, or fully charged.

Power supply cable ties: two little "feet" flip out from the power supply and can be used to wrap the power cord up quickly and tidily.

Slot-loading DVD drive. Just push the disk in and the drive sucks it in. No breakable pop-out tray to take care of. No delicate laser lens to get smudged.

Ambient light sensor: A sensor under the speaker grills detects the amount of ambient light and adjusts the screen brightness accordingly. The computer won't blast you with an ultra-bright screen if it's not necessary, saving both your eyes and battery life.

Bright screen: the screen is really clear, crisp and bright.

Instant sleep and restore: close the lid and the computer reliably goes to sleep. Open the lid and two seconds later the computer is read to use again, wireless Internet working, music playing, etc. It just works. The system also automatically saves the contents of the memory to disk (hibernate / safe-sleep) in case the battery power runs out, or someone removes / swaps the battery.

Magnetic / disappearing latch: the MacBook Pro has a disappearing latch. No ugly hook on the top of the lid, the latch retracts into the case when not in use. The MacBook takes this even further: it has no latch whatsoever, but secures the lid using a magnet. No moving parts to break (the latch is one of the things that frequently breaks on laptops).

Silent operation: makes almost no sound. Even when the fan comes on it is quieter than my old laptop running without its fan.

Hot swappable battery: put the computer to sleep by closing the lid, flick the spring-loaded levels on the bottom of the laptop and remove the battery. Put in a replacement battery, open the lid, wait a few seconds and continue working right where you left off. No need to save work, no need to reboot. Each battery also has a little read-out that displays how much charge it carries, so one can check the state of a battery without plugging it in.

Scrolling trackpad: using two fingers on the trackpad allows one to scroll the window. This may not sound like much of a feature, but is really useful. It's very intuitive to just scroll with two fingers. No more hunting for the tiny scroll bar on the side of the window.

Built-in microphone: a microphone is built in to the case somewhere, so audio chat just works, without the need for an extra external mic. Very good quality, too. Apples own iChat application even does perfect echo cancellation, so one does not even need a headset for audio chats. Unfortunately, Skype has not yet figured out how to do this, so chatting using that is not quite as perfect an experience.

Bluetooth (2.0) that actually works: a friend's IBM laptop has bluetooth, but it doesn't actually work because Windows messes up the driver. Bluetooth headsets, bluetooth mice, bluetooth keyboards, bluetooth phone synchronization (so you can, for example, write text messages on the Mac and send them using the phone, or go online through the phone's wireless connection); it all just works. Extra bonus is version 2.0 of bluetooth gives three times faster data transfer rates, better battery life and stereo audio support (though Apple has not yet implemented that feature).

Wifi: good wireless range in spite of the metal case and super easy configuration on any wireless network. The wireless antenna is on the hinge connecting the display to the bottom-case, which greatly improves reception from the previous generation Apple Powerbooks.

Firewire port: to plug in digital video cameras and download films directly onto the computer. Most PCs don't have this connector.

Optical 5.1 audio in/out: headphone and mic input that support up to 6 channels of simultaneous audio.

Good keyboard: nice responsive keyboard with sturdy keys that don't appear like they're about to fall off at any moment (unlike my old Dell laptop).

Works well with the iPod: synchronizes flawlessly and quickly with the iPod MP3 player.

Single hinge design: the entire back panel of the computer is one continuous hinge. No cheap plastic hinge that can break off easily (something that has happened to me on every other laptop I've owned).

Attractive durable case design: the MacBook Pro's aluminum case looks very beautiful. Great design. No frankenstein-like case with ports, buttons and connectors jutting out of everywhere. There is not even a visible fan air exhaust hole in the case. Apple has cleverly hidden the cooling fan slots under the display's hinge, making them all but invisible. The casing is also more durable than the typical plastic case. Metal doesn't tend to chip, split, scratch, or crack. The MacBook is made out of polycarbonate plastic (the same stuff that bullet proof glass is made out of), making it even more resilient than the MacBook Pro.

Super thin: only one inch thin. Every other laptop looks fat and clunky in comparison. The Macbook Pro is at least an inch thinner than most competing laptops.

Ultra-light weight: at 5.6 pounds (2.54 kg) the MacBook Pro is about 1 kg lighter than the equivalent Dell laptops. It is surprisingly lightweight for the size of the machine.
Gigabit ethernet: wired LAN networking that has 10 times faster file transfers than the usual 100 megabit network that is standard on most PCs.

Potentially low EMF radiation: the all metal body may reduce the EMF radiation emitted by the computer, though I have not been able to test this as of yet.
Stable: hardly ever crashes. No random restarts. No performance degradation over time. The Mac OS X operating system keeps itself in running order without user intervention.

Good tech support: Apple support is rated the best in the industry (and Dell isn't doing too well lately). You can also walk into any of the world-wide Apple stores, or many authorized service provider shops and get support from the so-called "Mac Geniuses" there.

Automatic external display configuration: plug an external display or projector in and the computer auto-detects it and configures the correct display setting automatically.
Runs windows: can use a software called Parallels to run Windows XP in a window from inside the Mac operating system, or can use Apple's own free Boot Camp software (recently updated) to reboot into Windows and use the Mac just like any other (really fast) Windows computer (and, for those Unix hacker out there: it does Linux, too).

Runs Microsoft Office. Microsoft make Word, Excel and Powerpoint for the Mac operating system.

iLife: the best suite of digital lifestyle applications out there. iPhoto stores digital camera pictures, iMovie is a full-blown movie editor, iDVD makes making professional looking DVD film disks easy, iWeb allows easy authoring of websites, iTunes stores and organizes MP3s, GarageBand makes podcast production easy and is the perfect software for recording one's own band (and all these applications work together seamlessly).

iWork: the Pages word processor is faster and easier to use than Microsoft Word and allows one to produce much more stylish looking printed pages. The Keynote presentation software is in a different class altogether from Powerpoint. Much easier to use, professional looking slides and transitions and some unique, cool and useful features.

Easy to use, elegant, feature filled Mac OS X operating system. No other operating system even comes close. It's like night and day going from Windows to Mac OS X: it just works. USB devices recognized instantly, drag and drop works between every application, can zoom into a portion of the screen for magnified reading, or detailed editing, can tile each window using a tool called Expos?© to quickly switch between applications, near instant full-text searching of every file on the hard drive, a dashboard of useful little widget utilities (currency converter, language translator, dictionary, world clock, calendar, calculator, notepad, etc) can be called up at a touch of a button, built-in voice recognition (to control the computer by talking to it) and screen-reader, automatic as-you-type spell-checker in every application, the list of useful features and nice little touches goes on and on and on ...

Price: only slightly ($100 - $200) more expensive than a PC from HP or Dell with the same basic hardware configuration. Though, of course, those computers don't come with any of the extras I've just listed.

Negatives can be summed up in two issues: heat and battery life.

This thing gets hot, really hot. It may be because the metal case conducts heat more easily, it may be that the invisible cooling fan slots impedes airflow, it may be that the fan is set to come on at too high a temperature, or it may just be because the computer is so darn thin. Whatever the cause, the Macbook Pro (and, to a lesser extent, the Macbook) can be very hot to the touch / lap. It's fine when just writing emails, but as soon as the computer has to work hard at some calculation the temperature really becomes noticeable. Apple even warns: don't put the "laptop" on your lap. It might burn you.

Then there is battery life. The bright screen, powerful graphics card and speedy processor certainly take their toll on the battery. On top of that comes the super-thin case, which does not allow for a large hulking battery. So, while Apple is using the latest high-tech lithium-polymer battery, the battery life sucks! I get only 2 - 3 hours of battery power (wifi on, normal screen brightness, moderate use, no sound playing).

Unfortunately, some faults have occurred with this machine: the fan occasionally makes a ratcheting noise, like a piece of card being stuck in the spokes of a bike's wheel; the computer makes the infamous whining noise when on battery power (though that might now be solved); and my battery has died on me. However, Apple support was quick, friendly and forthcoming with repairs (apart from the whine - I'm still going to hassle them about that), so no hard feelings. Still, one gets the impression that there are still a few bugs to work out with the hardware.

All in all: I recommend the MacBook to everyone. In my opinion, there is no reason whatsoever that anyone should buy anything other than an Apple notebook computer. The MacBook Pro is the ultimate power-user machine. The MacBook is a really great deal (cheaper even than the equivalent dull Dell) and almost as powerful as the Pro.

(and here a picture gallery of the MacBook Pro)

I was catching a bus home from Sankirtana today. Well...it wasn't exactly sankirtana, as I'm still incredibly exhausted from all these illnesses I've had lately, but I tried my best. At the moment I still have a nasty cough which is keeping me awake at night. Anyway, I went to the bus stop to catch a bus, thinking that I would have to catch one to New Market, and another home from there, or something like that, something expensive. But just then I saw the 011 bus, which from memory goes right past our house. I ran to get on, and I asked the driver if I was right, if he did actually go down Mountain View Drive. He replied with a straight "Nope!". I asked him where it was that his bus went, and he replied with an angry "Ponsonby!". So, I was a little concerned, and I asked where it went on the way to Ponsonby. He got kind of upset about that question, and just sat there, ignoring me.

Anyway, I got on the bus anyway, and paid for 4 sections. I realised that this man wasn't trying to be mean actually, but I could see that he was really a simple character, and actually he didn't know personally where it was exactly that he was driving, what streets he was taking, he just knew where to turn, and when to stop. And because there was pride in his attitude he wasn't willing to admit that actually he didn't really know the names of the street he was taking, he just knew how to get there, and the fact that I was challenging his intelligence upset him abit.

It is surprising just how much humility it takes just to say the words "I don't know." I had to do it twice today, and both times it took me alot of endeavour just to get those words out of my mouth. I gave class this morning, my first time in a while, without preparing, which is rare for me. Afterwards Vamsidhari Prabhu asked a question about how to explain the concept of parampara to a philosophy student. I just couldn't think of a good answer at the time, and ussually I would just bluff my way through it, but I actually replied "I don't really know at the moment." Then, on the way out on sankirtana Balagopala asked me the meaning of a word, 'myopic'. Usually I take great pride in giving words meanings and definitions, but I actually didn't know the meaning of the word, and without speculating I had to say "I don't know". And at first, both times I had to say this, I actually felt my pride take a bit of beating. It was actually tuff.

I'm getting sick of having to battle with pride practically 24 hour's a day. I hope that one day I can actually bust through this anartha and get into real Vaisnava humility.

I was catching a bus home from Sankirtana today. Well...it wasn't exactly sankirtana, as I'm still incredibly exhausted from all these illnesses I've had lately, but I tried my best. At the moment I still have a nasty cough which is keeping me awake at night. Anyway, I went to the bus stop to catch a bus, thinking that I would have to catch one to New Market, and another home from there, or something like that, something expensive. But just then I saw the 011 bus, which from memory goes right past our house. I ran to get on, and I asked the driver if I was right, if he did actually go down Mountain View Drive. He replied with a straight "Nope!". I asked him where it was that his bus went, and he replied with an angry "Ponsonby!". So, I was a little concerned, and I asked where it went on the way to Ponsonby. He got kind of upset about that question, and just sat there, ignoring me.

Anyway, I got on the bus anyway, and paid for 4 sections. I realised that this man wasn't trying to be mean actually, but I could see that he was really a simple character, and actually he didn't know personally where it was exactly that he was driving, what streets he was taking, he just knew where to turn, and when to stop. And because there was pride in his attitude he wasn't willing to admit that actually he didn't really know the names of the street he was taking, he just knew how to get there, and the fact that I was challenging his intelligence upset him abit.

It is surprising just how much humility it takes just to say the words "I don't know." I had to do it twice today, and both times it took me alot of endeavour just to get those words out of my mouth. I gave class this morning, my first time in a while, without preparing, which is rare for me. Afterwards Vamsidhari Prabhu asked a question about how to explain the concept of parampara to a philosophy student. I just couldn't think of a good answer at the time, and ussually I would just bluff my way through it, but I actually replied "I don't really know at the moment." Then, on the way out on sankirtana Balagopala asked me the meaning of a word, 'myopic'. Usually I take great pride in giving words meanings and definitions, but I actually didn't know the meaning of the word, and without speculating I had to say "I don't know". And at first, both times I had to say this, I actually felt my pride take a bit of beating. It was actually tuff.

I'm getting sick of having to battle with pride practically 24 hour's a day. I hope that one day I can actually bust through this anartha and get into real Vaisnava humility.

For some reason, over my devotional life, I have really shyed away from giving much time to the Nectar of Devotion, and Krsna Book. So, my plan is to at least spend the four months of Caturymasya (and likely the rest of this year) making an extra effort to study these two books, and really develop a taste for reading them. The fact that the asrama in Wellington is about to start an indepth Bhakti-sastri study of the Nectar of Devotion is certainly going to help along with this.

For the last few months or so I have really been thinking about the scientific explanation of the stages of sadhana-bhakti given by Rupa Goswami in the Bhakti-rasamrta-sindhu (of which the Nectar of Devotion is a study guide). Rupa Goswami lays out the different stages concisely, so that we don't make any mistakes, and so that we can use his statement like a road map, we will always know where we are in the process if we are attentive. By knowing what lays ahead we can make a plan for our lives, we can make long term goals and see how, throughout our lives, we actually can stand a good chance of becoming Krsna conscious. It's actually important to do that, because it keeps us fixed in the right direction, determined to try our hardest. If we know where we are, and where we want to go, and what we need to do to get there, it is much easier to stay determined.

Anyway, looking at my life in the light of Rupa Goswami's directions to prema has increased my determination. One interesting thing I've noticed lately is that I have started feeling life to be like a marathon race. I don't know if anyone ever had to run a marathon, or a cross country run. I've never done a proper marathon, not one of those extended ones that you see on TV. But I do remember once taking part in a high school organised cross country run. I think it was a 3 hour run through the hills of Ohope Beach in New Zealand's Bay of Plenty. The thing about this run was that once you started, you really had to finish it if you were going to end up somewhere. I mean, you can't just stop halfway through the bush and give up. Even if you give up, you have to put in alot of effort just to get somewhere worthwile. You have to either walk all the way back, or all the way forward. And actually, if you did give up and just leave, not finishing, then you were bound to get a detention anyway, if not worse. For some strange reason I was determined to at least finish the race, regardless of the fact that I was the most unfit kid in the school. This is strange because I ussually just didn't even go to school on these kinds of days. I ran (walked quickly) up and down hills, through streams, over logs. Finally I made it back to the school, finishing 3rd to last...

The endeavour through the stages of Krsna consciousness can kind of be like that, except with a much better goal at the end. We have to put in the hard yards to make it. And if we do decide to just give up, we really have to put in the hard yards to get back into materialistic ways of living, and then we most certainly and seriously suffer the consequences.

Actually, it's sometimes described by my Gurudeva that the stage of anartha-nivritti alone is the mother of all battles. We've started on this path, this fact alone is glorious, as stated by Krsna in the Bhagavad-gita (2.40), and if we keep going we are guaranteed the most glorious prize giving ceremony ever. But it means determination, and struggling through tough situations. And we do have a time limit, in a sense, this one life-time. I personally don't want to risk not making it. Certainly we can restart where we left off in our next life, but that doesn't give that much insurance. For example, Bilvamangala Thakura attained the stage of Bhava in his previous life, but still he ended up very much attached to a prostitute, so much so that he actually went through some of the worst conditions possible for her association. He suffered so much because of his lusty desires that he decided to pluck out his eyes with a pin to solve the problem. Sure we can quickly reach our previous attained spiritual qualities, but not without the suffering of material distress and not even with any certain guarantee that we won't make the same mistakes next time.

I have an incredibly long way to go yet, since I'm struggling enough to keep to the platform of bhajana-kriya, carrying out devotional service...but I know that with enthusiasm, determination and patience I can make it through. By the strength of Srila Prabhupada's books, Gurudeva's instructions, devotee association and the Holy Name, it's very much possible to make it through the mother of all battles and actually really revive ones love for Krsna in this on lifetime. Anyway, please wait for me at the finishing line. I promise I'll make it there, sometime.

For some reason, over my devotional life, I have really shyed away from giving much time to the Nectar of Devotion, and Krsna Book. So, my plan is to at least spend the four months of Caturymasya (and likely the rest of this year) making an extra effort to study these two books, and really develop a taste for reading them. The fact that the asrama in Wellington is about to start an indepth Bhakti-sastri study of the Nectar of Devotion is certainly going to help along with this.

For the last few months or so I have really been thinking about the scientific explanation of the stages of sadhana-bhakti given by Rupa Goswami in the Bhakti-rasamrta-sindhu (of which the Nectar of Devotion is a study guide). Rupa Goswami lays out the different stages concisely, so that we don't make any mistakes, and so that we can use his statement like a road map, we will always know where we are in the process if we are attentive. By knowing what lays ahead we can make a plan for our lives, we can make long term goals and see how, throughout our lives, we actually can stand a good chance of becoming Krsna conscious. It's actually important to do that, because it keeps us fixed in the right direction, determined to try our hardest. If we know where we are, and where we want to go, and what we need to do to get there, it is much easier to stay determined.

Anyway, looking at my life in the light of Rupa Goswami's directions to prema has increased my determination. One interesting thing I've noticed lately is that I have started feeling life to be like a marathon race. I don't know if anyone ever had to run a marathon, or a cross country run. I've never done a proper marathon, not one of those extended ones that you see on TV. But I do remember once taking part in a high school organised cross country run. I think it was a 3 hour run through the hills of Ohope Beach in New Zealand's Bay of Plenty. The thing about this run was that once you started, you really had to finish it if you were going to end up somewhere. I mean, you can't just stop halfway through the bush and give up. Even if you give up, you have to put in alot of effort just to get somewhere worthwile. You have to either walk all the way back, or all the way forward. And actually, if you did give up and just leave, not finishing, then you were bound to get a detention anyway, if not worse. For some strange reason I was determined to at least finish the race, regardless of the fact that I was the most unfit kid in the school. This is strange because I ussually just didn't even go to school on these kinds of days. I ran (walked quickly) up and down hills, through streams, over logs. Finally I made it back to the school, finishing 3rd to last...

The endeavour through the stages of Krsna consciousness can kind of be like that, except with a much better goal at the end. We have to put in the hard yards to make it. And if we do decide to just give up, we really have to put in the hard yards to get back into materialistic ways of living, and then we most certainly and seriously suffer the consequences.

Actually, it's sometimes described by my Gurudeva that the stage of anartha-nivritti alone is the mother of all battles. We've started on this path, this fact alone is glorious, as stated by Krsna in the Bhagavad-gita (2.40), and if we keep going we are guaranteed the most glorious prize giving ceremony ever. But it means determination, and struggling through tough situations. And we do have a time limit, in a sense, this one life-time. I personally don't want to risk not making it. Certainly we can restart where we left off in our next life, but that doesn't give that much insurance. For example, Bilvamangala Thakura attained the stage of Bhava in his previous life, but still he ended up very much attached to a prostitute, so much so that he actually went through some of the worst conditions possible for her association. He suffered so much because of his lusty desires that he decided to pluck out his eyes with a pin to solve the problem. Sure we can quickly reach our previous attained spiritual qualities, but not without the suffering of material distress and not even with any certain guarantee that we won't make the same mistakes next time.

I have an incredibly long way to go yet, since I'm struggling enough to keep to the platform of bhajana-kriya, carrying out devotional service...but I know that with enthusiasm, determination and patience I can make it through. By the strength of Srila Prabhupada's books, Gurudeva's instructions, devotee association and the Holy Name, it's very much possible to make it through the mother of all battles and actually really revive ones love for Krsna in this on lifetime. Anyway, please wait for me at the finishing line. I promise I'll make it there, sometime.

I switched to using an Apple Macbook Pro about a month ago. What follows is an in-depth review of some of the software I've been using on the Mac.

Positives
Parallels Desktop for Mac OS X is simply amazing. It seems to run Windows better than a Windows PC does. If given enough RAM, it can launch Windows XP in 10 seconds flat! How long does Windows take to boot on your PC, I wonder? You can have Windows running in one Window on the Mac and simply move the mouse into that and use it as you would any other application. You can also set it to rotate the screen between the operating systems with a cube effect: so Windows is running on one side of a cube and Mac OS X on the other. Applications run at almost full speed (although they can only use one of the two processors at a time). No slowdown whatsoever from what I could tell. You can also copy and paste text between the two operating systems. Finally, Windows can access any of the Mac hardware and filesystem (if you let it), even though they are completely different systems (of course, some Mac specific features, such as tracking file creation time, don't work when creating files in the Mac filesystem using Windows). Network connections can either be shared, or the guest operating system can appear as a separate computer. All in all, everything just works. Very nice. Want more info? Ars Technica has posted a very detailed review.

Presentation software: Keynote is an application from Apple for creating jaw dropping presentation. It is much, much (!) better than Powerpoint. Steve Jobs, the Apple CEO, uses it for all his famous presentations. Al Gore used it for his presentation on global warming which was recently made into a feature length film (An Inconvenient Truth). I haven't seen it, but its getting rave reviews and has made $10 million at the box office so far. Pretty good given that the film is basically just a video of Gore giving a Keynote presentation using his Apple notebook computer.

Aside: it is becoming easier and easier to create quality presentations/videos. Now everyone's doing it. For example: Angela Merkel, the new German Chancellor, has just started giving a weekly video podcast. Aim: "Directly addressing the people", "appeal to the youth", etc. etc.

Rosetta emulation is good, but not great. Almost all emulated software runs fine. However, if you attempt to open and edit a Word document that contains lots of images the computer grinds to a halt. Word is otherwise okay to use. There is a very slight, but noticeable delay before every action, but it is still perfectly usable (just not with images in a document). Of course, there are plenty of other word processor alternatives that will also read (and save) Word documents. However, none are however as fully featured / bloated as Word. Grammar checking, for example, is not included in any of them.

The Ecto blog writing software I use is really good. It makes it very easy to write blog entries offline and post them with a touch of a button. You can even include pictures and set them to upload with the main article. Lots of options, lots of features. It does however currently still runs in Rosetta emulation, but you'd never know. It's lightning quick.

Endo is a brilliant little RSS reader. I was previously using Bloglines, but Endo has replace it. It makes reading loads and loads of RSS feeds fast and easy. RSS is different from email. I scan RSS quickly for something that might interest me, while I read and respond to email in detail. Endo allows me eat through loads of feeds in practically no time at all.
Apple's Mail app is great. Fast (really fast), simple and uncluttered, yet can do almost everything that Outlook can. It's spam filter is also quite good. It can learn from what you label as spam or not-spam. Over time it will learn to catch most spam and never label something that isn't spam as such. Some spam will always slip through the net, of course.

iPhoto is a great photo management application. It completely replaces the traditional folder structure for pictures with a much more useful interface. Unlike similar tools on the PC (Photoshop Elements or Picasa), there are lots of plug-ins available that enable you to directly and easily export pictures into online galleries (flickr, coppermine, gallery, etc.). iPhoto can automatically handle all the resizing, re-naming and uploading. Simple.

SuperDuper! is the best backup software I've ever used. I wouldn't have thought that creating a backup is so difficult, but SuperDuper seems to be the only software in the world that that is easy to use and does fast, accurate and smart hard drive synchronization. The process for backing up my 120 GB hard drive is: plug in external hard drive, launch SuperDuper, press the "backup now" button, wait 20 minutes, done (the software only copies the changed files and removes any deleted files). You can, should your computer's hard drive fail, plug in the backup drive, boot the computer via USB and carry-on working, as if nothing had happened. Mac OS X has a special feature that you can seamlessly boot from and use an external drive as the main system drive.

Bonuses
No need for virus checker, anti-spyware tool, or third-party firewall needed. Zero viruses and spyware on the Mac. A good firewall is built into the operating system.

Real plug and play. For example: the process for using a new, unknown printer is: Plug in, press print. No hunting for drivers, no millions of pop-up boxes telling you that the new hardware is being recognized. It just works (Apple has included about 2 GB of common drivers with the OS).

Lots and lots of little things. Every time I've wished: "if only it could do that", I've found that it actually could do that. The Mac platform just oozes with attention to detail.

Negatives
Software sometimes crashes. That will always be there. Nothing disastrous, just annoying. I expect better from Apple! The entire operating system has even hung and/or crashed on me a few times. It seems that Apple is still struggling to get rid of some of the glitches in the new Intel hardware.

Firefox is not as good on the Mac as it is on Windows (not bad, of course, just has a few quirks). There are however plenty of alternative web-browsers: Camino, Safari, Shiira, Opera and Omniweb and (cough) Internet Explorer. You can pick the one that you like best.

Video Skype has not yet materialized. It is definitely being worked on, but no fruits so far.

Synchronization software for Windows Mobile 5 (for my T-mobile MDA Vario smartphone) has also not yet materialized. The two companies (missing sync and pocketmac) that make this kind of software have had about a year to work on it already, but, once again, no fruits as of yet.

Some older hardware does not work. I could not, for example, format my backup drive for the Mac. I had to use a different, older, PowerPC-based Mac computer to do that. Also, my digital camera can't directly connect to the Mac (it can however connect to Windows running in Parallels and, in that round-about way, transfer files). I usually just use an external card reader.

Some relearning required: things work differently on the Mac. Keyboard shortcuts are different (but actually make sense), windows have different buttons, the equivalent of the Windows-explorer is not quite as intuitive. It all takes some getting used to, but is worth it, in the end.

I switched to using an Apple Macbook Pro about a month ago. What follows is an in-depth review of some of the software I've been using on the Mac.

Positives
Parallels Desktop for Mac OS X is simply amazing. It seems to run Windows better than a Windows PC does. If given enough RAM, it can launch Windows XP in 10 seconds flat! How long does Windows take to boot on your PC, I wonder? You can have Windows running in one Window on the Mac and simply move the mouse into that and use it as you would any other application. You can also set it to rotate the screen between the operating systems with a cube effect: so Windows is running on one side of a cube and Mac OS X on the other. Applications run at almost full speed (although they can only use one of the two processors at a time). No slowdown whatsoever from what I could tell. You can also copy and paste text between the two operating systems. Finally, Windows can access any of the Mac hardware and filesystem (if you let it), even though they are completely different systems (of course, some Mac specific features, such as tracking file creation time, don't work when creating files in the Mac filesystem using Windows). Network connections can either be shared, or the guest operating system can appear as a separate computer. All in all, everything just works. Very nice. Want more info? Ars Technica has posted a very detailed review.

Presentation software: Keynote is an application from Apple for creating jaw dropping presentation. It is much, much (!) better than Powerpoint. Steve Jobs, the Apple CEO, uses it for all his famous presentations. Al Gore used it for his presentation on global warming which was recently made into a feature length film (An Inconvenient Truth). I haven't seen it, but its getting rave reviews and has made $10 million at the box office so far. Pretty good given that the film is basically just a video of Gore giving a Keynote presentation using his Apple notebook computer.

Aside: it is becoming easier and easier to create quality presentations/videos. Now everyone's doing it. For example: Angela Merkel, the new German Chancellor, has just started giving a weekly video podcast. Aim: "Directly addressing the people", "appeal to the youth", etc. etc.

Rosetta emulation is good, but not great. Almost all emulated software runs fine. However, if you attempt to open and edit a Word document that contains lots of images the computer grinds to a halt. Word is otherwise okay to use. There is a very slight, but noticeable delay before every action, but it is still perfectly usable (just not with images in a document). Of course, there are plenty of other word processor alternatives that will also read (and save) Word documents. However, none are however as fully featured / bloated as Word. Grammar checking, for example, is not included in any of them.

The Ecto blog writing software I use is really good. It makes it very easy to write blog entries offline and post them with a touch of a button. You can even include pictures and set them to upload with the main article. Lots of options, lots of features. It does however currently still runs in Rosetta emulation, but you'd never know. It's lightning quick.

Endo is a brilliant little RSS reader. I was previously using Bloglines, but Endo has replace it. It makes reading loads and loads of RSS feeds fast and easy. RSS is different from email. I scan RSS quickly for something that might interest me, while I read and respond to email in detail. Endo allows me eat through loads of feeds in practically no time at all.
Apple's Mail app is great. Fast (really fast), simple and uncluttered, yet can do almost everything that Outlook can. It's spam filter is also quite good. It can learn from what you label as spam or not-spam. Over time it will learn to catch most spam and never label something that isn't spam as such. Some spam will always slip through the net, of course.

iPhoto is a great photo management application. It completely replaces the traditional folder structure for pictures with a much more useful interface. Unlike similar tools on the PC (Photoshop Elements or Picasa), there are lots of plug-ins available that enable you to directly and easily export pictures into online galleries (flickr, coppermine, gallery, etc.). iPhoto can automatically handle all the resizing, re-naming and uploading. Simple.

SuperDuper! is the best backup software I've ever used. I wouldn't have thought that creating a backup is so difficult, but SuperDuper seems to be the only software in the world that that is easy to use and does fast, accurate and smart hard drive synchronization. The process for backing up my 120 GB hard drive is: plug in external hard drive, launch SuperDuper, press the "backup now" button, wait 20 minutes, done (the software only copies the changed files and removes any deleted files). You can, should your computer's hard drive fail, plug in the backup drive, boot the computer via USB and carry-on working, as if nothing had happened. Mac OS X has a special feature that you can seamlessly boot from and use an external drive as the main system drive.

Bonuses
No need for virus checker, anti-spyware tool, or third-party firewall needed. Zero viruses and spyware on the Mac. A good firewall is built into the operating system.

Real plug and play. For example: the process for using a new, unknown printer is: Plug in, press print. No hunting for drivers, no millions of pop-up boxes telling you that the new hardware is being recognized. It just works (Apple has included about 2 GB of common drivers with the OS).

Lots and lots of little things. Every time I've wished: "if only it could do that", I've found that it actually could do that. The Mac platform just oozes with attention to detail.

Negatives
Software sometimes crashes. That will always be there. Nothing disastrous, just annoying. I expect better from Apple! The entire operating system has even hung and/or crashed on me a few times. It seems that Apple is still struggling to get rid of some of the glitches in the new Intel hardware.

Firefox is not as good on the Mac as it is on Windows (not bad, of course, just has a few quirks). There are however plenty of alternative web-browsers: Camino, Safari, Shiira, Opera and Omniweb and (cough) Internet Explorer. You can pick the one that you like best.

Video Skype has not yet materialized. It is definitely being worked on, but no fruits so far.

Synchronization software for Windows Mobile 5 (for my T-mobile MDA Vario smartphone) has also not yet materialized. The two companies (missing sync and pocketmac) that make this kind of software have had about a year to work on it already, but, once again, no fruits as of yet.

Some older hardware does not work. I could not, for example, format my backup drive for the Mac. I had to use a different, older, PowerPC-based Mac computer to do that. Also, my digital camera can't directly connect to the Mac (it can however connect to Windows running in Parallels and, in that round-about way, transfer files). I usually just use an external card reader.

Some relearning required: things work differently on the Mac. Keyboard shortcuts are different (but actually make sense), windows have different buttons, the equivalent of the Windows-explorer is not quite as intuitive. It all takes some getting used to, but is worth it, in the end.

According to one lecture by Mother Urmila, which is on my list of lectures that I listen to again and again, Krsna generally has a few ways that He starts pointing out anarthas and offensive attitudes to us, and they get progressively more obvious as they carry on. And our ability to pick up on these pointers early rests on our attentive japa. First, Krsna will allow us the chance to glimpse something that shouldn't be there, like pride. We'll do something, and Krsna will give us the intelligence to say "Hey! That was just an act of pride!" Of course, if our japa isn't very attentive, we will easily pass over this realisation, or quickly forget it without rectification.

According to Mother Urmila, the next likely event will be that we will get subtle pointers during Bhagavatam class, or in conversations. Someone may bring up a point about pride in a class that perfectly fits our situation. Or perhaps someone in a brief conversation will talk about something they have read about pride, or maybe even we will read such a quote ourselves. Then, perhaps, if we don't pick up on that hint, Krsna will send someone to directly say to us "Prabhu, you're just proud." Of course, if we are really really proud we might just punch the messenger in the nose...

And if we still aren't able to pick up on the pointers and rectify the situation, chances are a very embarrassing situation will arise which forces it into our view. Of course still, we can ignore it, and likely will if our chanting is very slack.

Anyway, I had an ongoing example of this recently. And although I was aware of it practically when I did it first, I didn't rectify the situation. But now, having enough pointers, conversations and realisations, I think it's time I dealt with it abit.

Basically, I have committed a ridiculous amount of offenses through my use of this blog. I've acted like I actually know something about devotional service, Krsna consciousness and how to fix devotional problems. Actually, who the heck am I anyway? I'm just some young hooligan who can't chant with attention, can't walk down the street without lusting after every second person, and can't even properly carry out the service he's been given. Only a few short years ago I was engaged in some of the most abominable activities imaginable, and had some of the most embarrassing and shameful moments possible. Practically speaking, I'm in no position to tell anyone anything about Krsna consciousness. And yet, through this journal I have done just that. And to make matters worse, sometimes I even tried to instruct senior devotees through this medium. That is incredibly shameful.

I am incredibly sorry for anyone that I offended by anything I wrote over the past six months. I beg your forgiveness. Please excuse me for my immature mentality.

Having said that, I have a general announcement. Because my health has been progressively decaying over the past little while, which isn't so good because it sucked before anyway, my Gurumaharaja has suggested that I move down to Wellington and see a very good natural healer down there who happens to chant Hare Krsna, and associate with the devotees. I have just gotten back from a preliminary trip down to see the doctor and sort out living arrangements. I will be moving as soon as possible to live in the asrama run by my very dear senior Godbrother, Mahavana Prabhu. I look forward very much to his awesome association, and the opportunity to serve all the devotees down there. Sadly I am going to have to leave the association of the devotees at the Auckland brahmacari asrama. I recently sent a letter to my Gurumaharaja saying that I would consider my life incredibly blessed if I could spend the rest of it in service to these devotees in the asrama in Auckland. Unfortunately it appears that Krsna has other ideas...

I am begging all the devotees for their mercy, so that I will be able to cope with this change, make the most of it for my spritual life, and that I may be able to continue to practice brahmacarya strictly while in Wellington.

According to one lecture by Mother Urmila, which is on my list of lectures that I listen to again and again, Krsna generally has a few ways that He starts pointing out anarthas and offensive attitudes to us, and they get progressively more obvious as they carry on. And our ability to pick up on these pointers early rests on our attentive japa. First, Krsna will allow us the chance to glimpse something that shouldn't be there, like pride. We'll do something, and Krsna will give us the intelligence to say "Hey! That was just an act of pride!" Of course, if our japa isn't very attentive, we will easily pass over this realisation, or quickly forget it without rectification.

According to Mother Urmila, the next likely event will be that we will get subtle pointers during Bhagavatam class, or in conversations. Someone may bring up a point about pride in a class that perfectly fits our situation. Or perhaps someone in a brief conversation will talk about something they have read about pride, or maybe even we will read such a quote ourselves. Then, perhaps, if we don't pick up on that hint, Krsna will send someone to directly say to us "Prabhu, you're just proud." Of course, if we are really really proud we might just punch the messenger in the nose...

And if we still aren't able to pick up on the pointers and rectify the situation, chances are a very embarrassing situation will arise which forces it into our view. Of course still, we can ignore it, and likely will if our chanting is very slack.

Anyway, I had an ongoing example of this recently. And although I was aware of it practically when I did it first, I didn't rectify the situation. But now, having enough pointers, conversations and realisations, I think it's time I dealt with it abit.

Basically, I have committed a ridiculous amount of offenses through my use of this blog. I've acted like I actually know something about devotional service, Krsna consciousness and how to fix devotional problems. Actually, who the heck am I anyway? I'm just some young hooligan who can't chant with attention, can't walk down the street without lusting after every second person, and can't even properly carry out the service he's been given. Only a few short years ago I was engaged in some of the most abominable activities imaginable, and had some of the most embarrassing and shameful moments possible. Practically speaking, I'm in no position to tell anyone anything about Krsna consciousness. And yet, through this journal I have done just that. And to make matters worse, sometimes I even tried to instruct senior devotees through this medium. That is incredibly shameful.

I am incredibly sorry for anyone that I offended by anything I wrote over the past six months. I beg your forgiveness. Please excuse me for my immature mentality.

Having said that, I have a general announcement. Because my health has been progressively decaying over the past little while, which isn't so good because it sucked before anyway, my Gurumaharaja has suggested that I move down to Wellington and see a very good natural healer down there who happens to chant Hare Krsna, and associate with the devotees. I have just gotten back from a preliminary trip down to see the doctor and sort out living arrangements. I will be moving as soon as possible to live in the asrama run by my very dear senior Godbrother, Mahavana Prabhu. I look forward very much to his awesome association, and the opportunity to serve all the devotees down there. Sadly I am going to have to leave the association of the devotees at the Auckland brahmacari asrama. I recently sent a letter to my Gurumaharaja saying that I would consider my life incredibly blessed if I could spend the rest of it in service to these devotees in the asrama in Auckland. Unfortunately it appears that Krsna has other ideas...

I am begging all the devotees for their mercy, so that I will be able to cope with this change, make the most of it for my spritual life, and that I may be able to continue to practice brahmacarya strictly while in Wellington.

Another day, another Saturday Feast with the Vedicsoc crew.

Lots of people this time (for my standards): We had J. N. F. B. T. and H.

We discussed the first verse of the Upadesamrta (Nectar of Instruction) by Rupa Goswami. It points out that unless there is control of the senses, there cannot be spiritual success, nor can their be material success. Only someone with controlled senses is eligible to instruct disciples. That is, one should not learn from someone who can not even control of their own speech, thoughts, temper, hunger and lust (i.e. don't listen to the "good advice" of most people).

The verse also gives quite a heavy analysis of the uselessness of Mayavadi philosophy and materialistic life.

In the end, it recommends the nice, easy and tasty (!) process of taking prasadam to control the tongue. Then all the other senses can easily be controlled. Sense control begins with the tongue.

Naturally, we engaged in some of that style of practical sense control. On the menu:

• Quinoa Tabbouleh salad
• Spicy Bengali potatoes
• Green beans with cauliflower, carrots and eggplant
• Tomato relish
• Fennel basmati rice
• Gluten-free vegan carrot and walnut cake
• Old fashioned homemade lemonade

Another day, another Saturday Feast with the Vedicsoc crew.

Lots of people this time (for my standards): We had J. N. F. B. T. and H.

We discussed the first verse of the Upadesamrta (Nectar of Instruction) by Rupa Goswami. It points out that unless there is control of the senses, there cannot be spiritual success, nor can their be material success. Only someone with controlled senses is eligible to instruct disciples. That is, one should not learn from someone who can not even control of their own speech, thoughts, temper, hunger and lust (i.e. don't listen to the "good advice" of most people).

The verse also gives quite a heavy analysis of the uselessness of Mayavadi philosophy and materialistic life.

In the end, it recommends the nice, easy and tasty (!) process of taking prasadam to control the tongue. Then all the other senses can easily be controlled. Sense control begins with the tongue.

Naturally, we engaged in some of that style of practical sense control. On the menu:

• Quinoa Tabbouleh salad
• Spicy Bengali potatoes
• Green beans with cauliflower, carrots and eggplant
• Tomato relish
• Fennel basmati rice
• Gluten-free vegan carrot and walnut cake
• Old fashioned homemade lemonade

I got a paper accept at the ER2006 conference! That's the 25th International Conference on Conceptual Modeling to be held in Tucson, Arizona, USA from November 6 - 9, 2006 (ER stands for Entity Relation - the age-old method of conceptual modeling in databases).

My paper on "Representing Transitive Propagation in OWL" was accepted in peer-review process. A total of 158 papers were submitted and only 37 were accepted (23.4% acceptance ratio).

I got high marks for Originality and Presentation, but low marks for Significance (when I say "low", that means a "neutral = 4" rating, rather than a "accept = 6" rating; ratings were out of 7). That is fair enough. This research isn't the main, innovative, ground-breaking trust of my PhD. It is just something interesting that came up as a side-idea.

The paper is available in the academic section of this website.

I got a paper accept at the ER2006 conference! That's the 25th International Conference on Conceptual Modeling to be held in Tucson, Arizona, USA from November 6 - 9, 2006 (ER stands for Entity Relation - the age-old method of conceptual modeling in databases).

My paper on "Representing Transitive Propagation in OWL" was accepted in peer-review process. A total of 158 papers were submitted and only 37 were accepted (23.4% acceptance ratio).

I got high marks for Originality and Presentation, but low marks for Significance (when I say "low", that means a "neutral = 4" rating, rather than a "accept = 6" rating; ratings were out of 7). That is fair enough. This research isn't the main, innovative, ground-breaking trust of my PhD. It is just something interesting that came up as a side-idea.

The paper is available in the academic section of this website.

I attended the glorious London Rathayatra a few weeks ago. It was just great!

The Rathayatra is an age old festival that involves taking Krishna in his super-happy, happy, happy form of Jagannatha comes out for a rid on a huge cart. It has been observed in the Indian city of Puri for thousands of years. By the mercy of Srila Prabhupada it is now also held is most major cities around the world.

Now for some interesting things that happened to me throughout the day:

There was constant chanting and dancing going on. Huge kirtan parties were going wild. So many senior devotees were singing and jumping here, there and everywhere.

I got the opportunity to pull some of the carts, which was surprisingly hard work, considering the amount of people that were pulling. Krishna is heavy! I also got a quick turn at sweeping the road in front of one of the carts. Just like the King of Orissa traditionally sweeps the road for Jagannatha, the mayor of London traditionally comes out and takes a turn sweeping, as well.

As I was walking along a disheveled, homeless-looking person can and asked me for a light for his cigarette. Instead, I gave him a prasadam sweet someone had pushed into my hand a few minutes before. The guy went wild. I thought he was going to jump with joy. He started shouting, gave me a big hug and started playfully punching me in the chest. I was a bit taken aback by the sudden outburst and quickly disentangled myself from him. As I looked back he was still yelling and waving.

I met a young book distributer while walking along. He asked if I wanted to try to distribute some books myself. I hadn't done so for quite some time, but thought, what the heck, I'll give it a go. With such a huge festival going it was easy. I sold the two books he gave me within a few minutes.

Arraying at Trafalgar Square in central London there were so many people. The weather was really hot and sunny, so lots of people had come to see and enjoy. I meet so many old friends.

After queuing for about an hour for prasadam we finally got some. It was surprisingly expertly prepared, especially considering the many thousands of people that they had to feed. The menu consisted of:

• Coldslaw salad
• Coconut and potato subji
• Eggplant, curd and tomato subji
• Popadoms
• Cashew nut rice
• Raisin halava
• Frreshly pressed juice

Our group from Manchester walked to Soho Street temple for a brief visit, aiming to depart from there back home. We got the good fortune to be there for Lord Jagannatha's return from his cart (in expensive cars). Everyone had a kirtan and helped unload the various maha-prasadam from the cars.

We then walked back to Hyde Park, where the procession had begun, climb aboard our mini-bus and departed for a long journey back to Manchester.

My body was totally exhausted. I could hardly walk anymore. Still, in spite of being very tired and suffering from hay-fever throughout the day, the Rathayatra was a day of perfect happiness.

Check out the huge number of pictures I took.

I attended the glorious London Rathayatra a few weeks ago. It was just great!

The Rathayatra is an age old festival that involves taking Krishna in his super-happy, happy, happy form of Jagannatha comes out for a rid on a huge cart. It has been observed in the Indian city of Puri for thousands of years. By the mercy of Srila Prabhupada it is now also held is most major cities around the world.

Now for some interesting things that happened to me throughout the day:

There was constant chanting and dancing going on. Huge kirtan parties were going wild. So many senior devotees were singing and jumping here, there and everywhere.

I got the opportunity to pull some of the carts, which was surprisingly hard work, considering the amount of people that were pulling. Krishna is heavy! I also got a quick turn at sweeping the road in front of one of the carts. Just like the King of Orissa traditionally sweeps the road for Jagannatha, the mayor of London traditionally comes out and takes a turn sweeping, as well.

As I was walking along a disheveled, homeless-looking person can and asked me for a light for his cigarette. Instead, I gave him a prasadam sweet someone had pushed into my hand a few minutes before. The guy went wild. I thought he was going to jump with joy. He started shouting, gave me a big hug and started playfully punching me in the chest. I was a bit taken aback by the sudden outburst and quickly disentangled myself from him. As I looked back he was still yelling and waving.

I met a young book distributer while walking along. He asked if I wanted to try to distribute some books myself. I hadn't done so for quite some time, but thought, what the heck, I'll give it a go. With such a huge festival going it was easy. I sold the two books he gave me within a few minutes.

Arraying at Trafalgar Square in central London there were so many people. The weather was really hot and sunny, so lots of people had come to see and enjoy. I meet so many old friends.

After queuing for about an hour for prasadam we finally got some. It was surprisingly expertly prepared, especially considering the many thousands of people that they had to feed. The menu consisted of:

• Coldslaw salad
• Coconut and potato subji
• Eggplant, curd and tomato subji
• Popadoms
• Cashew nut rice
• Raisin halava
• Frreshly pressed juice

Our group from Manchester walked to Soho Street temple for a brief visit, aiming to depart from there back home. We got the good fortune to be there for Lord Jagannatha's return from his cart (in expensive cars). Everyone had a kirtan and helped unload the various maha-prasadam from the cars.

We then walked back to Hyde Park, where the procession had begun, climb aboard our mini-bus and departed for a long journey back to Manchester.

My body was totally exhausted. I could hardly walk anymore. Still, in spite of being very tired and suffering from hay-fever throughout the day, the Rathayatra was a day of perfect happiness.

Check out the huge number of pictures I took.

The last session of the term. That's it. Vedicsoc is over for the year.

Some statistics:
24 sessions
400 people subscribed to email list
~50 different people chanted the maha-mantra and took prasadam
Several sets of beads distributed (I didn't count)
15 small books distributed
5 big books distributed

In the last session we discussed "happiness". V. has written an essay for on the topic for her philosophy course: "The nature of happiness ??" whether happiness is a psychological state". We talked about how material happiness is indeed a state of mind, while spiritual happiness is transcendental to any mental joy or sorrow. With Krishna consciousness you can be happy regardless external circumstance. The body and mind will endlessly yo-yo: happiness/distress, pleasure/pain, joy/sorrow; but Krishna (and his part and parcels, the surrendered devotees) are always happy (sukhi).

The last session of the term. That's it. Vedicsoc is over for the year.

Some statistics:
24 sessions
400 people subscribed to email list
~50 different people chanted the maha-mantra and took prasadam
Several sets of beads distributed (I didn't count)
15 small books distributed
5 big books distributed

In the last session we discussed "happiness". V. has written an essay for on the topic for her philosophy course: "The nature of happiness ??" whether happiness is a psychological state". We talked about how material happiness is indeed a state of mind, while spiritual happiness is transcendental to any mental joy or sorrow. With Krishna consciousness you can be happy regardless external circumstance. The body and mind will endlessly yo-yo: happiness/distress, pleasure/pain, joy/sorrow; but Krishna (and his part and parcels, the surrendered devotees) are always happy (sukhi).

Initially only F. came. We discussed several things what were on her mind. In particular she mentioned, and gave me a copy of, a conversation with Sankaracharya (the current one, not the original teacher) in which he glorifies A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada.

T. arrived after some time to join us. We discussed the various divisions explained in the 17th chapter of the Bhagavad-Gita. People in different modes of nature eat different types of food, perform different types of sacrifice, austerity, penance and give different charity. I explained how to perform all those activities in the best way (goodness).

The guests literally devoured the vanilla flavored almond cookies I made. Between the two of them they almost finished the entire batch. Prasadam is powerful.

We ended the session with some chanting of the maha-mantra while a crazy punk-rocker next door was jamming on his electric guitar and singing (badly). However, amazingly, we did not notice his music playing at all while we were chanting. As soon as we finished we were all amazed at the sudden loudness of the electric guitar.

Initially only F. came. We discussed several things what were on her mind. In particular she mentioned, and gave me a copy of, a conversation with Sankaracharya (the current one, not the original teacher) in which he glorifies A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada.

T. arrived after some time to join us. We discussed the various divisions explained in the 17th chapter of the Bhagavad-Gita. People in different modes of nature eat different types of food, perform different types of sacrifice, austerity, penance and give different charity. I explained how to perform all those activities in the best way (goodness).

The guests literally devoured the vanilla flavored almond cookies I made. Between the two of them they almost finished the entire batch. Prasadam is powerful.

We ended the session with some chanting of the maha-mantra while a crazy punk-rocker next door was jamming on his electric guitar and singing (badly). However, amazingly, we did not notice his music playing at all while we were chanting. As soon as we finished we were all amazed at the sudden loudness of the electric guitar.

My mother visited Radhadesh in Belgium over the last weekend. She attended Kurma's cooking course there.

I spoke with her today. She said she really enjoyed it. The course was great and Kurma was expert. She prepared a some nice preparations for the daily feasts they all cooked together. All the devotees were really nice, too. She particularly enjoyed a morning class by Krishna Ksetra Prabhu. She also bought 9 books from the venerable Laksmipriya dd of the BLS distribution center.

Now greatly inspired in her Krishna consciousness she wants to go back to visit the castle again soon.

Kurma's blog entries about the Radhadesh cooking course can be found here and here. He also talks about the history of the place.

My mother visited Radhadesh in Belgium over the last weekend. She attended Kurma's cooking course there.

I spoke with her today. She said she really enjoyed it. The course was great and Kurma was expert. She prepared a some nice preparations for the daily feasts they all cooked together. All the devotees were really nice, too. She particularly enjoyed a morning class by Krishna Ksetra Prabhu. She also bought 9 books from the venerable Laksmipriya dd of the BLS distribution center.

Now greatly inspired in her Krishna consciousness she wants to go back to visit the castle again soon.

Kurma's blog entries about the Radhadesh cooking course can be found here and here. He also talks about the history of the place.

I've moved web hosting providers. I've gone from Surpasshosting to BlueHost.

Sorry for any hiccups that might have occurred today during the transition. If you tried to send me email that didn't go through, then please resend. All should be working now, but if you spot any bugs, please let me know.

My reasons for switching were mainly surpasshosting's backup policy. I lost 2 weeks worth of content when their hard drive crashed. A backup only every two weeks is totally unacceptable. This new host is very highly regarded, from the reviews I've read. They also give me more space and bandwidth than I would have had with surpass hosting. Finally, they aren't located in (soon to be wiped off the face of the Earth due to hurricanes) Florida, but are in nice quiet state of Utah.

I've moved web hosting providers. I've gone from Surpasshosting to BlueHost.

Sorry for any hiccups that might have occurred today during the transition. If you tried to send me email that didn't go through, then please resend. All should be working now, but if you spot any bugs, please let me know.

My reasons for switching were mainly surpasshosting's backup policy. I lost 2 weeks worth of content when their hard drive crashed. A backup only every two weeks is totally unacceptable. This new host is very highly regarded, from the reviews I've read. They also give me more space and bandwidth than I would have had with surpass hosting. Finally, they aren't located in (soon to be wiped off the face of the Earth due to hurricanes) Florida, but are in nice quiet state of Utah.

One "interesting" thing happened to me on my way back from the WWW conference:

I took a late train from Edinburgh to Manchester. I arrived at Manchester at about 11pm on a Friday night. Lots of students were out and about "enjoying" the kali-yuga delights. I was walking down the road from the train station, wondering if I should take a taxi, or walk home when ...

Suddenly, out of no-where, three Mercedes police SUVs appear. They stop in the middle of the road, blocking all the traffic. Within two seconds several police officers in full body armor pile out of the cars, draw their pistols, move in on a group of students, scream at one student to "drop it!" and have the guy in an arm-lock, pinned to the floor.

It happened so fast I didn't have time to react.

It seems one geeky looking teenage student had been brandishing a gun to get some respect (unusual in the UK, since even the police here do not carry firearms - expect, of course, for the Armed Response Units, such as the one that I happened to witness in action). The guy certainly suffered the consequences.

All that made me desire less and less to stay in the UK. Manchester: crime city.

One "interesting" thing happened to me on my way back from the WWW conference:

I took a late train from Edinburgh to Manchester. I arrived at Manchester at about 11pm on a Friday night. Lots of students were out and about "enjoying" the kali-yuga delights. I was walking down the road from the train station, wondering if I should take a taxi, or walk home when ...

Suddenly, out of no-where, three Mercedes police SUVs appear. They stop in the middle of the road, blocking all the traffic. Within two seconds several police officers in full body armor pile out of the cars, draw their pistols, move in on a group of students, scream at one student to "drop it!" and have the guy in an arm-lock, pinned to the floor.

It happened so fast I didn't have time to react.

It seems one geeky looking teenage student had been brandishing a gun to get some respect (unusual in the UK, since even the police here do not carry firearms - expect, of course, for the Armed Response Units, such as the one that I happened to witness in action). The guy certainly suffered the consequences.

All that made me desire less and less to stay in the UK. Manchester: crime city.

There was a talk on "The Web Structure of E-Government - Developing a Methodology for Quantitative Evaluation".

The researchers from University College London (UCL) used several statistical measures for evaluating government websites: worse case strongly connected components, incoming vs. outgoing link, path length between pages, etc. They compared their statistical measure with results from user evaluations. That is, they got a bunch of users together and measured how long it took them to find stuff on various website (both with and without using Google).

They tested the UK, Australia and USA immigration websites. The results:

• UK is best, both navigating the link structure and searching
• AU is terrible to navigate, but good to search
• USA is bad any way you look at it, but at least search will eventually find you what you are looking for.

Automated statistics don't tell you much.

More info at: www.governmentontheweb.org

This was followed by a talk by Ian Pascal Volz from the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Germany. He talked about "the Impact of Online Music Services on the Demand for Stars in the Music Industry".

His main (and interesting!) finding is that people tend to buy music they already know and like from online music stores like the iTunes Music Store. Peer-to-peer file sharing networks, on the other hand, tend to get people to try and discover new music. Virtual communities are somewhere in between the two.

People who buy music will not spend any money on something they don't already know and value. Even $1 per song is too high a price for a casual purchase. If you want people to discover your music and you are unknown it must be available for free.

On a related topic: when recording lectures on spiritual subject matter, please, please, please don't try to charge for them. No one will pay. Make them available for free. That way to the whole world will benefit.

And so ends the WWW2006 conference. Next stop Banff, Canada for WWW2007.

There was a talk on "The Web Structure of E-Government - Developing a Methodology for Quantitative Evaluation".

The researchers from University College London (UCL) used several statistical measures for evaluating government websites: worse case strongly connected components, incoming vs. outgoing link, path length between pages, etc. They compared their statistical measure with results from user evaluations. That is, they got a bunch of users together and measured how long it took them to find stuff on various website (both with and without using Google).

They tested the UK, Australia and USA immigration websites. The results:

• UK is best, both navigating the link structure and searching
• AU is terrible to navigate, but good to search
• USA is bad any way you look at it, but at least search will eventually find you what you are looking for.

Automated statistics don't tell you much.

More info at: www.governmentontheweb.org

This was followed by a talk by Ian Pascal Volz from the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Germany. He talked about "the Impact of Online Music Services on the Demand for Stars in the Music Industry".

His main (and interesting!) finding is that people tend to buy music they already know and like from online music stores like the iTunes Music Store. Peer-to-peer file sharing networks, on the other hand, tend to get people to try and discover new music. Virtual communities are somewhere in between the two.

People who buy music will not spend any money on something they don't already know and value. Even $1 per song is too high a price for a casual purchase. If you want people to discover your music and you are unknown it must be available for free.

On a related topic: when recording lectures on spiritual subject matter, please, please, please don't try to charge for them. No one will pay. Make them available for free. That way to the whole world will benefit.

And so ends the WWW2006 conference. Next stop Banff, Canada for WWW2007.

A presentation by some researchers from Karlsruhe, Germany was very interesting (well presented, too). They talked about their "semantic wikipedia", an extension to the popular MediaWiki that allows authors to express some semantics, i.e. to get at the hidden data within the articles.

The normal wikipedia only has plain links between articles. Nevertheless, it is the 16th most successful website of all time (according to alexa.com). However, in the semantic version every link has a type. Object properties map concepts to concepts and datatype properties map concepts to data values.

Why do it this way? Answers: adding these annotations is cheap and easy (no new UI), they can be added incrementally and there is no need to create a whole new RDF layer on top of the existing content, the annotations are right there in the wiki text.

This simple addition is enough to allow for powerful queries. You can create pages that automatically pull in all articles of a specific category, with a specific title and between a specific date range, for example. Checking for completeness because easier too: you can construct a query that tests if every Country has a Capital. If some countries come up that don't, those can be easily fixed.

The whole thing self-regulates. Each property has its own page in the wiki, so that people can suggest property types and eventually come to a consensus about which properties are the right ones to use.

The wiki can be imported into OWL and vica versa. The template system can also be leveraged to quickly create semantic annotations.

The whole thing is a win-win-quick-quick scenario (bit of an in-joke there).

A presentation by some researchers from Karlsruhe, Germany was very interesting (well presented, too). They talked about their "semantic wikipedia", an extension to the popular MediaWiki that allows authors to express some semantics, i.e. to get at the hidden data within the articles.

The normal wikipedia only has plain links between articles. Nevertheless, it is the 16th most successful website of all time (according to alexa.com). However, in the semantic version every link has a type. Object properties map concepts to concepts and datatype properties map concepts to data values.

Why do it this way? Answers: adding these annotations is cheap and easy (no new UI), they can be added incrementally and there is no need to create a whole new RDF layer on top of the existing content, the annotations are right there in the wiki text.

This simple addition is enough to allow for powerful queries. You can create pages that automatically pull in all articles of a specific category, with a specific title and between a specific date range, for example. Checking for completeness because easier too: you can construct a query that tests if every Country has a Capital. If some countries come up that don't, those can be easily fixed.

The whole thing self-regulates. Each property has its own page in the wiki, so that people can suggest property types and eventually come to a consensus about which properties are the right ones to use.

The wiki can be imported into OWL and vica versa. The template system can also be leveraged to quickly create semantic annotations.

The whole thing is a win-win-quick-quick scenario (bit of an in-joke there).

Over lunch I bumped into John Darlington, the former CEO of Active Navigation, a small company (spin-off from Southampton University) that I worked for a while ago. John is now working for Southampton University as a Business Manager and was involved in organizing the WWW conference.

Active Navigation was a very nice place to work. It had the atmosphere of a small start-up without the killer, passionate, burn-out, no-holds-barred pace.

The company creates a server technology that automatically injects hyperlinks into web pages pointing to relevant, related pages on the same website. Website navigation can be improved by using these injected links. If someone, for example, creates a web page containing the word "ontology" and someone else has written a web page that also contains the "ontology", then the server transforms those words into links to each other's web pages. Someone browsing the website could find the two related pages by clicking on the automatically created link.

John called me over: "Julian! Wow, great to see you!"

Turning to Nigel Shadbolt next to him: "Julian here worked for me for a while, then disappeared into the either, as you do, and now: I'm chairing a session (the one on education), look down and who do I see? Julian, asking a question!"

He suggested I might look into digital media production in New Zealand as a possible career path. Ever since Lord of the Rings that has apparently taken off in a big way down-under.

Over lunch I bumped into John Darlington, the former CEO of Active Navigation, a small company (spin-off from Southampton University) that I worked for a while ago. John is now working for Southampton University as a Business Manager and was involved in organizing the WWW conference.

Active Navigation was a very nice place to work. It had the atmosphere of a small start-up without the killer, passionate, burn-out, no-holds-barred pace.

The company creates a server technology that automatically injects hyperlinks into web pages pointing to relevant, related pages on the same website. Website navigation can be improved by using these injected links. If someone, for example, creates a web page containing the word "ontology" and someone else has written a web page that also contains the "ontology", then the server transforms those words into links to each other's web pages. Someone browsing the website could find the two related pages by clicking on the automatically created link.

John called me over: "Julian! Wow, great to see you!"

Turning to Nigel Shadbolt next to him: "Julian here worked for me for a while, then disappeared into the either, as you do, and now: I'm chairing a session (the one on education), look down and who do I see? Julian, asking a question!"

He suggested I might look into digital media production in New Zealand as a possible career path. Ever since Lord of the Rings that has apparently taken off in a big way down-under.

Harith Alani presented his position paper on building ontologies from other online ontologies. He explained how building ontologies is difficult, so it is best to reuse existing knowledge bases, or, even better, completely automate ontology construction. The state of the moment is that there are quite a few ontology editing tools, but little support for reuse. Furthermore, these tools are build for highly trained computer scientists, not the average web-developer.

His idea is to combine three existing research areas:
Ontology libraries (e.g. DAML library, Ontolingua) and ontology search engines (e.g. Swoogle) can be used to located ontologies on the Internet.
Ontology segmentation techniques (like mine) can be used to cut smaller pieces out of these ontologies.
Ontology mapping techniques can be used to reassemble the pieces into new ontologies.

Result: instant custom ontology. However, to get this working in practice takes quite a bit of doing. He himself admitted that is was quite an ambitious undertaking. Good idea though.

Mustafa Jarrar (from Beligum) and Paolo Bouquet (from Trento, Italy) presented the next two papers. They talked about a very similar topic. Both were advocating linking ontology terms to dictionary / glossary definitions.

It was interesting two observe these two researcher's presentation styles. Paolo was very fast and frantic, very much unlike Mustafa who was very slow and relaxed, even when trying to hurry (Vata vs. Kapha, for those knowledge in Ayurveda).

Mustafa told of how he built a complex ontology for some lawyers, but, after he had gone through the trouble of carefully constructing this knowledge base, the lawyers found it to be too complicated to understand and threw everything expect the glossary part away. However, the did really like and appreciate having a sensible glossary of all kinds of law-related knowledge.

He defined this "gloss" as:

auxiliary informal (but controlled) account for the common sense perception of humans of the intended meaning of a linguistic term

The glosses should be written as propositions, consistent with the formal definition, focused on the distinguishing characteristics of what is being described, sufficient, clear, use supportive exampled and be easy to understand.

Advantages are that these glosses are highly reusable (very important for his lawyer clients) and that they are very easy to agree upon.

So everyone: link your ontology to WordNet (or something better)!

Paolo picked up the issue and talked about his WordNet Description Logic (WDL). An extension to DL that adds lexical senses to the vocabulary of logic. It allows for compound meanings. So, UniversityOfMillan is automatically inferred as University that hasLocation some Millan.

Using this type of dictionary-link makes it possible to check for errors by comparing the glossary definition to the logical semantics. If they don't match, a potential error can be flagged.

His system also allows for bridging and mapping between ontologies. If two ontology concept refer to the same dictionary definition, then that is a very good indication that they are describing the same sort of thing.

Harith Alani presented his position paper on building ontologies from other online ontologies. He explained how building ontologies is difficult, so it is best to reuse existing knowledge bases, or, even better, completely automate ontology construction. The state of the moment is that there are quite a few ontology editing tools, but little support for reuse. Furthermore, these tools are build for highly trained computer scientists, not the average web-developer.

His idea is to combine three existing research areas:
Ontology libraries (e.g. DAML library, Ontolingua) and ontology search engines (e.g. Swoogle) can be used to located ontologies on the Internet.
Ontology segmentation techniques (like mine) can be used to cut smaller pieces out of these ontologies.
Ontology mapping techniques can be used to reassemble the pieces into new ontologies.

Result: instant custom ontology. However, to get this working in practice takes quite a bit of doing. He himself admitted that is was quite an ambitious undertaking. Good idea though.

Mustafa Jarrar (from Beligum) and Paolo Bouquet (from Trento, Italy) presented the next two papers. They talked about a very similar topic. Both were advocating linking ontology terms to dictionary / glossary definitions.

It was interesting two observe these two researcher's presentation styles. Paolo was very fast and frantic, very much unlike Mustafa who was very slow and relaxed, even when trying to hurry (Vata vs. Kapha, for those knowledge in Ayurveda).

Mustafa told of how he built a complex ontology for some lawyers, but, after he had gone through the trouble of carefully constructing this knowledge base, the lawyers found it to be too complicated to understand and threw everything expect the glossary part away. However, the did really like and appreciate having a sensible glossary of all kinds of law-related knowledge.

He defined this "gloss" as:

auxiliary informal (but controlled) account for the common sense perception of humans of the intended meaning of a linguistic term

The glosses should be written as propositions, consistent with the formal definition, focused on the distinguishing characteristics of what is being described, sufficient, clear, use supportive exampled and be easy to understand.

Advantages are that these glosses are highly reusable (very important for his lawyer clients) and that they are very easy to agree upon.

So everyone: link your ontology to WordNet (or something better)!

Paolo picked up the issue and talked about his WordNet Description Logic (WDL). An extension to DL that adds lexical senses to the vocabulary of logic. It allows for compound meanings. So, UniversityOfMillan is automatically inferred as University that hasLocation some Millan.

Using this type of dictionary-link makes it possible to check for errors by comparing the glossary definition to the logical semantics. If they don't match, a potential error can be flagged.

His system also allows for bridging and mapping between ontologies. If two ontology concept refer to the same dictionary definition, then that is a very good indication that they are describing the same sort of thing.

It's really really cold. I don't know why I find it so cold here, but today is freezing. I grew up in -40*C (which is about equal to -40*F, interestingly enough), but here in New Zealand, it's well above freezing, but the cool air is so humid that it just goes straight to your bones and makes your whole body feel very very cold.

Of course, I'm still suffering from this flu. Only two members of the asrama managed to escape it's clutches, Balagopala and Yadu-raya. Even Khela-tirtha, who claims to have not been sick in ten years, caught this particularly nasty bug.

I'm about to start taking alot of radical measures for my health. I have hardly done any sankirtana in the last month, and I've had to ask other devotees to take over alot of my other physically demanding services over this period. If I don't get on top of this, then I'm just going to get spaced out from a lack of engagement. So my full-time service for the next little while is going to be getting healthy so that I can get back into full engaging service for Guru and Krsna.

It's really really cold. I don't know why I find it so cold here, but today is freezing. I grew up in -40*C (which is about equal to -40*F, interestingly enough), but here in New Zealand, it's well above freezing, but the cool air is so humid that it just goes straight to your bones and makes your whole body feel very very cold.

Of course, I'm still suffering from this flu. Only two members of the asrama managed to escape it's clutches, Balagopala and Yadu-raya. Even Khela-tirtha, who claims to have not been sick in ten years, caught this particularly nasty bug.

I'm about to start taking alot of radical measures for my health. I have hardly done any sankirtana in the last month, and I've had to ask other devotees to take over alot of my other physically demanding services over this period. If I don't get on top of this, then I'm just going to get spaced out from a lack of engagement. So my full-time service for the next little while is going to be getting healthy so that I can get back into full engaging service for Guru and Krsna.

New feature:

I was inspired to imitate the recent comments feature of Sitapati's blog. However, the side panels of this website design are already cluttered with all kinds of useful information. I didn't want to add yet another long heading. I have therefore created dynamic HTML pop-up display of the most recent comments. Check it out!

Implementation: It's a "mash-up". It is a combination of the Recent-Comments plugin by Nick Momrik with the FreeStyle DHTML / JavaScript Menu by TwinHelix Designs.

Tell me how you like it and let me know if there are any bugs.

New feature:

I was inspired to imitate the recent comments feature of Sitapati's blog. However, the side panels of this website design are already cluttered with all kinds of useful information. I didn't want to add yet another long heading. I have therefore created dynamic HTML pop-up display of the most recent comments. Check it out!

Implementation: It's a "mash-up". It is a combination of the Recent-Comments plugin by Nick Momrik with the FreeStyle DHTML / JavaScript Menu by TwinHelix Designs.

Tell me how you like it and let me know if there are any bugs.

My body just doesn't seem to be getting a chance to recover from any illnesses. This flu that I've gotten this week is hitting me pretty heavily. Yesterday, my mother took me to the A&E (ER for the North Americans) because I had been delirious all day. They took my temperature there, it was 39*C, which is pretty hot. From memory, 38* is something to worry about. Anyway, they said I was at risk for getting pneumonia again, and my throat looked rather infected so I'm back on anti-biotics, for the second time in practically a month. This morning I got up at about 3:30 just to go to the toilet. As I was exiting the toilet my head started spinning, and everything went dark, next thing I knew I woke up on the floor outside the toilet, leaning up against the wall. I crawled back to bed, the clock said 3:45, so I think I was on the ground for about ten minutes before I woke up. And today I am incredibly tired. My fever has subsided, but my throat is still sore. I didn't finish my rounds until about 12:45. Anyway, Dan is very excited about the beads I gave him, he's shown them to everyone who has come to visit. He has promised to chant one round a day, and then increase, so the trip hasn't been a total waste.

My body just doesn't seem to be getting a chance to recover from any illnesses. This flu that I've gotten this week is hitting me pretty heavily. Yesterday, my mother took me to the A&E (ER for the North Americans) because I had been delirious all day. They took my temperature there, it was 39*C, which is pretty hot. From memory, 38* is something to worry about. Anyway, they said I was at risk for getting pneumonia again, and my throat looked rather infected so I'm back on anti-biotics, for the second time in practically a month. This morning I got up at about 3:30 just to go to the toilet. As I was exiting the toilet my head started spinning, and everything went dark, next thing I knew I woke up on the floor outside the toilet, leaning up against the wall. I crawled back to bed, the clock said 3:45, so I think I was on the ground for about ten minutes before I woke up. And today I am incredibly tired. My fever has subsided, but my throat is still sore. I didn't finish my rounds until about 12:45. Anyway, Dan is very excited about the beads I gave him, he's shown them to everyone who has come to visit. He has promised to chant one round a day, and then increase, so the trip hasn't been a total waste.