Shahin's Eclectic Weblog

Python code I setup in Colab to create paintings using Neural Style Transfer

https://colab.research.google.com/drive/1kxBMJ35U1rhifhuNbWcb4RXaiQI-FH9n#scrollTo=26qKubSLtwTJ

My Charcoal

Picked up doing charcoal portraits over the summer.

Charcoal medium demonstrates how shapes and shading is more important than details in a painting:

My sketching process step by step. Step 1 identify key points to preserve the shape:

Step 2 draw the points and form lines for reference, then add a few identifying elements:

Step 3 develop the drawing in reference to the lines:

Step 4, add different levels of shading to create depth:

Chaotic Systems and Randomness

This experiment fundamentally questions randomness as it proves you can mimic any random sequence of numbers (i.e. a sequence of head/tails on a coin) using a chaotic system once the proper initial conditions are derived and fed into the chaotic system. The question then is what is random? Here, we load a random sequence of zeros and ones, then take the chaotic recursive system X[i+1] =4 X[i] (1 - X[i]) and find the appropriate initial condition that will produce the same sequence. To view the Mathematica file click here.

It would also be a good exercise to verify data compression applications using this method. Theoretically, the initial conditions may require more accuracy than the generated sequence for an unknown or derived initial condition (Kolmogorov: A sequence is random if the only algorithm for generating the sequence requires as many bits to describe)

My first landscape painting

Shahin's Drawings

Guitar Improvisations

I was trying to replicate the Reggaeton rythm on the guitar using spanish-style chord variations.. Click on Play ShahinExperimentalRythm.MPG  to view the video.

Zayn's B-day

Paper based on some of my research

This paper is about analysing the data from the probes orbiting the planet Mars.  To read the paper click here:  Download Engineering_Masters_Research_Paper.pdf

 

A road through the ocean

I took this photo while in the island of Funafuti in the country of Tuvalu.  This is a narrow portion of the island where one side is the ocean and the other the lagoon.

A Translation of Sepehri

من در اين آبادی، پی چيزی می گشتم :
پی خوابی شايد،
پي نوری، ريگی، لبخندی 

In this land, I am seeking something, to find:
A dream maybe,
A sparkle of light, a stone, or a smile

Mountain of Light

Click on photo to load the fullscreen version of the picture

Photos of Riaz

For more photos of my nephew Riaz you can click on: http://mowzoon.typepad.com/photos/riaz/

Sea of Light

Translated from the great Varqa

Click here to load the background music (courtesy of amazon clipserver)

It’s morn and the morning breeze
brings,
that spring scented wind
and I taste the fragrance of life
from my beloved's locks of hair

T.S. Eliot's Waste Land

T.S. Eliot’s work “The Waste Land” is a powerful depiction of a world. It is a place that has everything but is devoid of life and so everything becomes nothing. This is a fragmented poem where he writes in a shattered style so the poem itself speaks through its contrasting accents. Here he also introduces timeless dialog that reflects much of what we see today. His prophetic words “I can connect nothing with nothing” show a connected world were meaning is lost. Here the land is a reflection of the people. T.S. Eliot received the Noble Prize for Literature for his work.

This work is a great example of how literature can transcend the bounds of culture and language. This poem is an opposite mirror of Sepehri’s work. Where Sepehri shows life, Eliot shows its non-existence.

Click on the links below to view most of my translation of T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land into Persian:

The Waste Land سرزمين لم يزرع

Sample extract:

Rumi's "Dialog With The Soul"

Drowned I the sea of self in itself
Wonder what boundless sea that I am

This is the first poem I translated from Rumi.
Read full translation by clicking here.

Rumi - Death In Love

Embrace death, embrace death,
in this love, death embrace
in this love as death's embraced
all shall live receiving life
Accept death, accepting
Not fearing
Arise above the dust
And rise unto heaven
In death severe the self
That binds your self to yourself
Yourself enslaved, enchained
Take the axe and unchain
Shatter the cell, free that King
Beauteous king, that in death lives
in us all, as kings live
To die then is to descend
And cast away the cloud
From that luminous moon
Be silent, in silence
Does death descend and we
Embrace life, in silence.

This poem from Rumi has been translated by
several others. Persian text is online here.

Hafiz

Come let us spread the roses bed
and in the wine cup cast love's wine
and the heavens let us tear asunder
and roll out anew in its stead
if sorrow does legions send
bent on lover's blood be shed
you and I who hold the cup
will conspire and roll it up

Tahirih (Qurratu'l-'Ayn)

When first I gazed upon your face
our eyes did lock your face to mine
Your sorrow hence I shall recount
each thought each strand of hair entwined
to see your face I then set out
as zephyr wind to cross to find
From house to house and door to door
each way each street, each path each place

MIT Open CourseWare

MIT, one of the world's top universities, has placed all the material for 500 courses on the Internet. They have placed everything on their web site in a move to provide a free educational resource to everyone around the world. Visit the web site at: http://ocw.mit.edu/index.html