Thoughts in word

My principles of teaching...

2010-03-18T19:25:00.000-07:00

A slowly growing list of insights or concepts.

(1) Any thing that is slightly related to what you already know is very easy to understand and explain.

(2) Any thing that is confusing and possibly misunderstood should be repeated many times.

(3) If the same concept is explained in more than one way, it can lead to better insights and understanding.

(4) Attention span is continuously varying and requires constant readjustment and re-fixation

(5) High-level of interest leads to increased participation.

(6) A discussion or Q & A based interaction has much more capability of passing the knowledge than a one-way communication

(7) Explaining the concept from the fundamentals all the way to the details will help in reestablishing the relevance of a specific topic. Without that the first question we tend to think is: What is the point ?

(8) Practice and challenging problems helps in nailing the concept details in mind

(9) If advanced concepts can be tied with day-to-day incidents or events, then the concept can be made lighter

(10) A small project explains the concept 1000 times better than reading that information. Once the basic level is established more advanced stuff can be read or discussed. A good balance of theory and practice will go far beyond what they can achieve individually

(11)

Impact of Kolmogorov

2009-11-13T14:17:00.000-08:00

He is considered as one of the leading mathematician of 20th century for his contribution in probability, real-analysis and other topics. I would like to devote some of my time to read his books on real-analysis and probability.

I also enjoyed of brief snippet given about Kolmogorov (taken from here)

"To this school he devoted a major proportion of his time over many years, planning syllabuses, writing textbooks, spending a large number of teaching hours with the children themselves, introducing them to literature and music, joining in their recreations and taking them on hikes, excursions, and expeditions. ... [Kolmogorov] sought to ensure for these children a broad and natural development of the personality, and it did not worry him if the children in his school did not become mathematicians. Whatever profession they ultimately followed, he would be content if their outlook remained broad and their curiosity unstifled. Indeed it must have been wonderful to belong to this extended family of [Kolmogorov]"

Impact of hightech on society

2008-06-16T11:05:00.000-07:00

http://www.longnow.org/

http://spectrum.ieee.org/jun08/6272

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.04/joy_pr.html

http://antpac.lib.uci.edu/search/X?SEARCH=The+Agony+and+the+Ecstasy&SORT=D&searchscope=7

http://www.foresight.org/

Must listen audio books

2008-04-17T11:49:00.000-07:00

1) Adventure of Huck Finn

http://librivox.org/the-adventures-of-huckleberry-finn-by-mark-twain-version-3/

2)

Upcoming works to be listened:

1) http://712educators.about.com/cs/novelsmenu/tp/amlitnovels.htm

2) http://ask.metafilter.com/79067/Librivox-Recommendations

Thirukural Related website

2008-04-04T07:33:00.001-07:00

http://www.kural.org/

http://www.thirukkural2005.org/broadcast/index.htm

http://www.thirukkural2005.org/

Videos of Astronomy, Science and Technical talks and interview

2008-03-27T12:46:00.000-07:00

(0) Stanford university Electronics Colloquium Online talks
http://www.stanford.edu/class/ee380/

(1) 50 years in Space at Caltech
http://win-dms-ms1.caltech.edu/ms01/catalog/
I watched talk by Dr. Abdul Kalam

(2) NOVA PBS Science NOW
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/

(3) Conversation with History at Berkeley
http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/conversations/

(4) Google Tech Talks
http://research.google.com/video.html

(5) The Science Network channel
http://thesciencenetwork.org/

(6) UCSD Guestbook Talks
http://www.uctv.tv/library-science.asp?seriesprograms=01&seriesnumber=79

(7) TED Talks
http://www.ted.com/talks

(8) UC Berkeley Hitchcock lectures
http://www.grad.berkeley.edu/lectures/multimedia/uctv.shtml

(9) NASA SciFiles Video Documentary
http://scifiles.larc.nasa.gov/index.html

(10) NASA Destination Tomorrow Videos
http://video.csupomona.edu/streaming/NASA/nasa_index.html
http://destination.larc.nasa.gov/video_stream.html

(11) NASA Connect program
http://nasa.ibiblio.org/connect.php
http://connect.larc.nasa.gov/online.html

(12) U.K Science trust archives
http://www.vega.org.uk/

(13) UC Berkeley Online FREE Video Courses
http://webcast.berkeley.edu/

(14) MIT Lectures FREE Video Courses
http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/web/courses/av/index.htm
Things I watched in this:
(1) Prof. Walter Lewin: Classical Physics

(15) MIT Talks/Seminars Online
http://mitworld.mit.edu/

(16) The Mechanical Universe & Beyond by CALTECH
http://www.learner.org/resources/series42.html?pop=yes&pid=548#

(17) Outstanding online materials for learning Math, Science and History
http://www.learner.org/resources/browse.html

Best Science based Interview I have read

2008-03-14T16:32:00.000-07:00

(1) Lawrence Stark - Mind's eye and Superb interdisciplanarian
http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/conversations/Stark/stark-con0.h tml

(2) Charles Townes - Laser Inventor
http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/people/Townes/townes-con0.html

(3)

Famous science themes in USA

2008-03-14T16:16:00.001-07:00

(1) Mount Wilson - Largest observatory in USA - California
(2) American Museum of Natural History - Hayden Planitorium - New York
(3) Museum of Science - Boston
(4) Computer History Museum - Mountain View California
(5) Discovery Science Centre - Anaheim
(6) Science Exploratorium - San Fransisco

Good song translation links

2007-02-07T23:13:00.000-08:00

Jana Jogi De Naal

http://dreamsneverdie.blogspot.com/2006/04/jana-jogi-de-naal.html

Hindi Lyrics Translations
http://www.hindilyrics.net/hindi-songs-translations.html

Tere bin - Atif Aslam
http://www.moron.nl/album.php?album=Bas+Ek+Pal+OST&artist=Atif%20Aslam

Brain related website

2006-10-29T19:15:00.000-08:00

http://www.braingle.com/

http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~wwu/riddles/intro.shtml

http://www.qbyte.org/puzzles/

http://hilltop.bradley.edu/~delgado/potw/potw.html

http://www.willamette.edu/cla/ler/memory.htm

Urdu short story writer: Ismat Chughtai

2006-08-08T17:35:00.000-07:00

Interview by a well known, out spoken Urdu Short Story writer "Ismat Chughtai".
http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00urdu/ismat/txt_ismat_interview_mahfil1972.html

Great movies to watch

2006-08-04T10:49:00.000-07:00

Great Mallu movies:

1. `Kireedam',
2. Bharatham: A nice scripted movie about clash of ego and the influence of alcohol among the artist. A must watch for simple acting, and story line and suprising sad climax. Overall except story and dialogues by Lohithadas.
3. `Kamaladalam'
4. Aalkootathil Thaniye: The movie was sort of boring and probably too artistic and un-realistic and totally unbelievable for a malayalam movie.
5. 'Oru Vadakkan Veeragatha'
6. Anantharam
7. Mathilukkal
8. Vidheyan
9. Anu Bantham: A great treat to watch for its suprising twist in the tale, sentiments and genuine acting. Excellent screenplay and dialogues by MT.VNair. Great acting by toddlers and mamooty.

Great Tamil works:
1. Devar Magan (story, acting(sivaji,kamal,revathi etc))
2. Mouna Ragam (story,screenplay)
3. Samsaram Adhu Minsaram (comedy, story, screenplay)
4. Hey Ram (everything, esp. acting)

Great Telugu works
1. Sagara Sangamam (kamal, kamal)
2. Geethanjali (screenplay,direction,tragic humour,exploding love)

Great English works
1. Good night and Good luck (realism at its best and intense acting)

Here she is again in Tamil

2006-07-29T16:21:00.000-07:00

Sathish marriage photos

2006-05-02T09:45:00.000-07:00

Sathish Photos:
http://community.webshots.com/album/549988566WbLrNB
http://community.webshots.com/album/550019000OvUiFe

Swimming basic techniques

2006-04-10T17:10:00.000-07:00

Day 1:

The following lessons were thought on the first day of my swimming lesson.

(a) Breathing pattern or rythm is extremely important. Maintaining calmness in a different
terrain is also important. Slow exhaling under the water, with free floating helps to practice breathing, and maintaining calmness

(b) Floating straight, and breathing underneath water with a small push from side. You learn balancing, calmness, and breathing

(c) Floating with a support, and slowly but systematically beating the leg is the next
thing to practice. This helps balancing, rythymic relaxed tapping of leg, and floating.

(d) Floating with a support, and slowly doing freestyle. Hold the board with one hand,
and move the other hand in a rotating fashion. Make sure you hold the board in
the middle.

(e) Freestyle with breathing exercise on your side.

(f) Floating on back with the board in your hand. Slowly kick the legs to feel the motion

(h) Floating on back with the board in your hand. Kick the leg like a frog. Bend the leg little,
and tilt the foot. Make a large rotating circle and kick and come back to the normal position

(i) Floating on the back with the board on your legs to help you float. Now, rotate the hands
like a fly-wheel. The thumb should come up first and the pingy should go first inside the water.
Balance and be calm when you do this.

M. Jayachandran "the new find"

2006-01-31T23:49:00.000-08:00

I recently had a chance to listen to some of the hits of Malayalam songs at Raaga.com. Some songs composed by M.Jayachandran seems to awesomely soothing. Do try to listen to the following albums like Boyy Friend, Nottam, Paranju Theeratha Visheshangal etc.

I felt I need to know more about the music director M.Jayachandran. Hindu has always been consistently putting good interviews given by talented personalities. Checkout the interview at:

Interview1
Interview2

I liked one of his remark about relation between music and competion. And also unwanted importance given to them. His point seems to be very valid, and can be applied to any field.

"The undue stress on competing and winning, rather than music was the reason why he stopped participating in such events "

Meanwhile, checkout the album "HAPPY" in telugu by Yuvan Shankar Raja. Sounds quite cool,
and youthful album.

Interesting non-technical books

2006-01-29T18:09:00.001-08:00

Interesting book useful to introduce scientific experiments :

1. Where puddles go - Michael Strauss
2. Mr. Tompkins - Gamow
3. Asimov on Physics - by Issac Asimov

Interesting non-technical books
Books in touch:

(0) Engineering : our digital future

(1) Geeks by Jon Katz
Comments:

(2) Bad astronomy : misconceptions and misuses revealed, from astrology to the moon landing 'hoax' / Philip C. Plait
Comments:

(3) Einstein's heroes : imagining the world through the language of mathematics / Robyn Arianrhod

(4) First things first : to live, to love, to learn, to leave a legacy / Stephen R. Covey, A. Roger Merrill, Rebecca R. Merrill

(5) The Evolution of Physics: By Albert Einstein & Leopold Infeld

(6) Mathematics for Millions: by Lancelot Hogben

(7) Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond,

(8) Thinking physics is Gedanken physics / Lewis Carroll Epstein

(9) An introduction to mathematics by A. N. Whitehead

(10) Quest : an autobiography / Leopold Infeld

(11) Journey through genius : the great theorems of mathematics / William Dunham

(12) Men of mathematics, by E. T. Bell

(13) What is Mathematics? An elementary approach to ideas and methods, by Richard Courant and Herbert Robbins

(14) The six core theories of modern physics / Charles F. Stevens

(15) Brave new world / Aldous Huxley

(16) Mr. Tompkins in paperback, by G. Gamow; illustrated by the author and John Hookman

(17) One Two Three . . . Infinity : Facts and Speculations of Science (Paperback)
by George Gamow

(18) Thirty Years that Shook Physics : The Story of Quantum Theory (Paperback)
by George Gamow

(19) The Great Physicists from Galileo to Einstein (Biography of Physics) (Paperback) by George Gamow

(20) Models of my life / Herbert A. Simon

(21) What mad pursuit : a personal view of scientific discovery / Francis Crick

(22) The joy of insight : passions of a physicist / Victor Weisskopf

(23) Science careers : personal accounts from the experts
by Flowers Lawrence O

(24) Building a successful career in scientific research : a guide for Ph.D. students and post-docs / Phil Dee ; with cartoons by Chris McLeod

(25) UCI Library links

General books:

(1) The innovator's dilemma : when new technologies cause great firms to fail / Clayton M. Christensen

(2) Demon-haunted world: Science as a Candle in the dark / Carl Sagan

(3) The Innovation Algorithm: TRIZ, Systematic Innovation and Technical Creativity / Genrich Altshuller

(4) And Suddenly the Inventor Appeared: TRIZ, the Theory of Inventive Problem Solving / Genrich Altshuller

Books by E.Schumacher

Interesting links

2006-01-29T18:09:00.000-08:00

Resume tips:
web.mit.edu/career/www
Science:

http://www.sigmaxi.org/
http://www.americanscientist.org/template/ScientistNightstandTypeDetail/assetid/45261

Computer Architecture tools for study and analysis:

http://netcare.purdue.edu/ => Tools for research and education in computer architecture
http://www.ecs.umass.edu/ece/koren/architecture/ => Tools for various architecture evaluation
http://yara.ecn.purdue.edu/~teamaaa/dlxview/ => DLX processor simulator

Devishri Prasad's best in recent times

2006-01-24T23:37:00.000-08:00

Social works involved or contributed

2006-01-06T15:19:00.000-08:00

(1) Asha Eindhoven
(2) Udavum Karangal , Chennai
(3) UNICEF
(4) WWF - Worldwide Fund for Nature
(5) Stichting ICCF Holland

GNU Linux notes

2006-01-02T19:49:00.000-08:00

Found the following website to be very useful for Fedora Core 4 installation guidelines:

Very good installation guide
http://stanton-finley.net/fedora_core_4_installation_notes.html

Very good installation guide
http://www.mjmwired.net/resources/mjm-fedora-fc4.html?PHPSESSID=768296656d32bd985e74949a9ca31b42

Guide to setup wireless using fedora
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/showthread.php?t=373096

Things which did not work out-of-the-box in fedora on Dell Inspiron 8600:

(1) Wireless settings:
Wireless installation on Fedora had not been quite as easy as I expected.
Still have'n t figured out the exact sequence needed for wifi to work smoothly with my PC.

(2) Sound card problem:
After the first installation, the sound card did not work properly. I found from some news group that we need to use a tool called kmix, and disable external amplification option, so that the sound is played using internal speaker itself.

(3) Nvidia driver support

(4) ACPI and APM support: Did not have option to put the pc in standby mode or suspend or hibernate mode.

(5) Hardware did not detect the correct settings for the the monitor especially resolution.

Ubuntu notes:
Tried using the Live CD from Ubuntu and found to be quite a idea replacement for desktop.
The interface and tools resembled Windows XP a lot. I was wondering any other front-end would come into the world (probably from MS).
The experience was pleasant. I detected my monitor correctly. I did not know how to enable the wireless network from liveCD. I still considering of switching from Fedora to Ubuntu.

Is it good to switch now ?

How to be hacker by Eric Raymond
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html

Other linux related links:

User-Mode Linux:

http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/edu/l-dw-linuxuml-i.html

Cell project from IBM/Sony/Toschiba:

http://researchweb.watson.ibm.com/cell/

http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/power/library/pa-cellstartsim/

http://www.alphaworks.ibm.com/tech/cellsystemsim

http://www.bsc.es/projects/deepcomputing/linuxoncell/cbexdev.html

Linux tools:

http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/views/linux/library.jsp

Concept of GRUB installation not in MBR:

http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Dual_Boot_from_Windows_Bootloader_(NTLDR)_and_why

http://www.sysresccd.org/Howto_install-usb-stick

http://www.howtoforge.com/perfect_setup_fedora_core_5

http://www.geocities.com/epark/linux/grub-w2k-HOWTO.html

Four eyes - One view on Innovation life cycle

2005-12-10T09:08:00.000-08:00

(Still under development and needs grammatical and spelling correction. If you know my password and account name, feel free to correct any errors/grammar mistakes which you find. Please do not change the structure or sentences. Kindly leave your opinion in the comment section)

Among the commonly used buzzword in the business and academic community, probably "Innovation" would come as one among the top ten words (others could be "", "customer centric", etc). Hence lots of books, papers and companies have been created centered around the word - Innovation. Companies try really really very hard to foster innovative spirit within an organization by constantly bringing in new people and implementing new ideas. Some of the schemes implemented backfires because of the chaos associated with Innovation like rapid changes in regular work, uncertainity associated with implementing new ideas etc, Infact for fostering and reinforcing innovation within an institution (could be university, company or importantly in government department) is so important that every company should have dedicated person or team to manage innovation like managing finance, managing project etc. It would not be an excaggeration if I say that the future of an institution lies firmly on the innovation spirit running within the community. Coming from India I tend to look that India needs to do many things to kindle the innovative sprit among its community. India is definitely ahead of other countries in accepting new technology and embracing change (there are still some institution which still think mobile phones, computer technology are hindrance for the society). The book by Prof. Prahalad ("The bottom of the pyramid) aptly points out some of the most innovative and native ideas which are applied in different areas like low cost eye care by arvind hospital, jaipur foot, IT revolution driven by Infosys, TCS and others, modified shakti salt, and many more ideas. But these examples of innovation happening in a big giant country like India is just too less and thats why we are able to point them out easily. This is not at all enough. Though recent initiatives by Mr. Anil Gupta of National Innovation Foundation shows one of the serious attempts made to stimulate, gather and use the collective innovation spirit of rural India is very impressive and a step in the right direction (http://ia.rediff.com/money/2005/dec/17spec.htm). Still I am a person who will not get easily satisfied, and also a hardcore critic of anything which is visible to me and hence I think a lot could be done in India and elsewhere to look at the idea of what is innovation and what are the means to scale it to a large community. I am not going to consolidate all the ideas specified in literature (because I have read only very little), but point out one means of looking at innovation.
Let us now look at what is an innovation life cycle and how can this help an institution to move towards embracing the concept of innovation. This is just one theory based on general observation of innovation in different fields and hence it is just one opinion or one view about what is innovation. The innovation life cycle consist of the following four stages namely:
(1) Inspiration
(2) Imitation
(3) Improvisation
(4) Innovation
They can be briefly called as 4-Is innovation life cycle (and hence the title of the article). These four stage theory was built because it looked compact (cute and poetic) and also tried to compress the complex process of innovation to be more easily practicable in the daily life by individuals or could be applied by any other institution.

Though from the name given it will be possible to visualize the innovation life cycle, I try to explain them by adding many many real life example coming from different fields. I also like to generalize a problem into a concept or theory which can be observed in real-life. If a concept or theory works in one particular case then the importance of the theory is usually limited. But if it is possible to use the concept or theory in varied fields or varied situation and could be proved to be applicable in different fields then the credibility of the theory improves very much.

The first stage is the inspiration. We cannot build innovation from nothing. It should start from somewhere. And one way is to begin with inspiration. In case of kids this lies in the hand of their parents and teachers. It is their job to genuinely identify the potential of their kids and inspire them in the right direction. We have seen many such examples in the life of great sports person like Vishwanathan Anand or Sania Mirza, in the life of musicians, in the vision of the founders of companies like Sony or Toyota, in the life of great thinkers like Swami Vivekanda etc. Vishwanathan Anand was observing and playing the game of chess with his parents from an young age. And it was actually his mother who inspired him to play and I think it was his father who coached him at that young age. Similarly Swami Vivekanda was inspired by the life of Lord Ram which was taught to him by his mother. There are many many examples like these to show that the first step to any innovation process is inspiration. Companies like Toyoto was inspired by the technical capability of automobile giant Ford. Thus the story goes on and on in various other fields. In fact I believe the first engineer or doctor or farmer was inspired by the nature ( and still a lot and lots of people get their inspiration from the nature god).

Okay we are inspired, what do we do next ? I think the best way to build up new things is to build existing things. Of course you need to start somewhere. Every poet would try to immitate the style of his role model or inspiration(probably shakespeare in English or Bharatiyar or Vairamuthu in Tamil). Every software developer would try to write his code based on the style and methodology followed by a book which inspired him (earlier it used to be "kernigan and richie" and nowadays it is probably any good open source code). In my case I had the chance to look into the code written by one of my senior colleage at Philips who had an elegance and clarity in his program which I have not seen before and I try my best to follow some of them. Similarly Japanese companies which got inspired by American companies earlier in 1970s was quite infamous for imitating the work of their counterpart in America. And few years back the same accusation was levied by the Japanese companies on their Chinese counterparts. Every great filmmakers make their movies based on the influence and ideas from the director he or she admires. I am sure many of the filmmakers will point to either Satyajit Ray or Akira Kurasawa or Mani ratnam if you ask them about their first movies. As kids we try to imitate the behaviour, action and also mannerism of our parents and increasing these days based on what we see in TV etc. So imitation seems to be the first step after inspiration. So as individual or company or government it is good to imitate whatever you think is the best in respective arena.

It would not help in the way towards innovations if we stick long in the imitation loop. At certain point or after certain point it would be worthwhile to escape the imitation loop towards what I call as moving from imitation towards improvisation stage. It could be harmful and a road block if we are not aware of the imitation loop. Imitation beyond a point looses its value and hence the company or individual need to keep this in mind. The best way to skip the imitation loop is improvisation starting at a small level and progressively increasing the difference between the new and the original version. Improvisation gives the necessary confidence, capability and legitimacy need to move towards innovation. A famous example which I can think of is GNU/Linux OS. It is a fact that many of the ideas and software tools developed by the open source community was very similar to the either UNIX or MS OS. Many tools had more or less same features and interface based on their counterparts. But the open source community did not stop there. They used their strength which was gained from the imitation loop and switched to truly remarkable products with lots of improvisation. The Japanese companies which were initially imitating the American products found a great of improving their product by being more quality conscious. Thus the concept of quality was the key improvisation by these Japanese companies and which is now universally embraced by world. In Tamil and Hindi film world many music directors are infamous for getting stuck in the imitation loop and not seeking to go beyond it. Few of them still perform but most of them have disappeared. I think in every field we can find similar examples of the danger of getting stuck in the imitation loop.

The extreme or end of improvisation stage is what we can classify or call as true innovation stage. Here whatever you do or create is considered as original. This is the stage where every individual or society tries to reach constantly. The best example I could think of is the idea behind Wheels as a mode or means for mobility. I am not aware of any animal or living creature which used ideas similar to wheels for motion. So wheels can be considered as truely the most remarkable and original idea by humans, who were initially trying to imitate and improvise other mechanical motion created by God. Many concepts of Internet was based on the idea from the real world Post delivery mechanism. Earlier Airplanes tried imitating the properties of birds but finally gave it up to another original mechanism of aerodynamic different from birds.

Thus the concept of four eyes or 4Is can be applied to go in the direction of interest which could be anything and by being fully aware of these stages it is possible to plan to reach the goal of true innovation.

"The silent battle" - An attempted poem

2005-11-25T18:07:00.000-08:00

What is the need for fear ?
break it into pieces and fire,
it is the beginning of a silent battle,
time to take a plunge in this struggle.

The ever flowing blood within the body,
supplies you with the necessary energy ,
with an strong chest and meditating mind,
you can face battle of any kind

Wonderful birth happens only once,
recycling death happens only once,
in between this brief pauze,
fight for some mighty cause.

Let truth be your firing power,
let wisdom be the guiding tower,
let love be your protection -
in this silent battle and agitation

Laziness disguised as friend in need,
the twin devils of lust and greed,
the demons of jeoulousy and endless fright,
these are the enemies to fight.

Throw away the books of How to,
No need for senseless lectures and preaches,
with your will and nature to guide,
everything is possible from your side.

First step will be a misery,
before you can dream of any victory,
with wisdom and truth ever in memory,
who said you cannot create a history ?

What a week ! (Nov 5 - Nov 12th)

2005-11-14T00:51:00.000-08:00

(Kindly excuse me for the grammar mistake. I don't have time to check nor write slowly, correctly. This is an autobiography article. Please ignore if not interesting. Upcoming article will be the following topics: Prison of mind, State of brahmins and the future)
Last week was quite exciting in a number of fronts. First, I witnessed the first examination after coming back from work. So I felt like Tendulkar back to the pitch after 3 years of rest. You can guess what would have happened. I felt bit rusty to go back to the high-spirted, exciting 2 hours of exam (like one-day match) filled with various interesting questions (like interesting bowlers) and of course I struggled to find my rythm between my pen and mind (like between a bat and mind). Things were not flowing easily (strokes not coming cleanly) and I should say I made an average performance ( like scoring around 50 runs in a one-day).

One exam was on Analysis of Algorithm and the other on Models of Brain. Analysis of algorithm is kind of tricky paper. It is like solving a puzzle. You might get the solutions instantly after seeing the question or you can sit and pull the last strand of you hair until you are totally bald but you might not get the right solutios. So I prepared myself not to stress the brain too much. Because I knew from experience in solving the home-works that it all depends right systematic analysis of the problem and hoping for the solution to come. I read Feynman suggested a nice algorithm to solve problems.
(1) Read the problem
(2) While ( ! correct solution) { Think hard }
(3) Write the solution
I will in the future try to take more course which are focussed on problem solving like the algorithm course, graph theory course, and other course which relies on systematic problem solving techniques. Systematic thinking and problem solving is the forte needed for managing the real-life problems. The book which we used for this course was "Introduction to Algorithm" by CLRS. I should say I was totally impressed with the book.
The explanations are rock solid, the problems are fantastic and once in a while they put some pun (like the explantion for "hash" table). I have to wait and see and also learn to practice more problem for the final exam. Overall, I need to focus and work more on this subject in the coming weeks.
Next was the models of the brain course. Everything in this course is a no-brainer.
Did I tell you the story of the other two intersting course, which I took because of the compulsion of my advisor and dropped later due to scary first week experience/nightmare. They were Digital Communication and the Random Processes course. Both of them is based on probability course - by nemesis.
Many of the aversion towards these course has its base on the undergraduate course which I took and passed with distinction at GCT (no offense to my alma mater).

It is a pity I have a week foundation in the most interesting and most exciting mathematics domain of probability and random processes. The trouble starts for me when we move from simple probability to random variable. More and more I see that many subject in different engineering domain depends upon the probability course. I have made a decision not to let this thing continue and I will be investing more time in the coming days to remove this curse ( the curse of probability inability).

Perhaps the most important thing that happened this week which I wanted to convey is about the experience of joining the new school of meditation called "Sahaj Marg by Sri Ramachandra Mission". Sahaj marg literally means "Natural way". I had the first two sitting with the preceptor ( or local guru ) of this system
on Saturday and Sunday morning. The name of the person who gave me the initial sitting was Dr. Vandana Soni. She is an Ayurvedic doctor at the Newport Beach. I visited her on Saturday and Sunday at 8.00 am in the morning. I caught a bus (No: 79) and reached almost sharply both the days (first surprise). She was very calm/serene person and was very kind enough to spare her precious time for me (I thought of saying fools like me). The process is actually the following. You have to first have a 3, 1 hour each one-to-one sitting with the preceptor of the mission and meditate with her/him. And later there will be a group sitting. I should say the experience was very pleasant. My mind was very clearly functioning (probably it is the influence of the weekends) and I have to wait and see and experience further. I will write in detail about the experience of Sahaj Marg meditation in the future. But, one thing I am trying to be cautious every time I do meditation. I make sure that not one (especially Seenu) will not catch me sleeping during the meditation. Nothing can be more embarassing than that.
Times up. Though I want to write more and more. My watch tells me that it is already 1:35pm. I have a couple of jobs to finish, then sleep and then get up little bit early in the morning for the doing of meditation and then start the work for the day.
Wish me a wonderful week ahead !!!

List of ideas for hands on project !

2005-11-03T16:35:00.000-08:00

(1) A GNU/Linux PVR using Myth TV Front end
(2) GNURadio a project to make SDR using standard PC: Next big killer AP from GNU mavericks.
(3) Personal music system with giant moving lights using leds and lamps based on frequency or other properties
(4) http://www.bsc.es/projects/deepcomputing/linuxoncell/cbexdev.html

The jumble

2005-10-17T19:01:00.000-07:00

Warning: I apologise for the spelling mistakes which I made. This article is still under development and need to be pollished.

Have you ever seen astronauts (or rare cosmonauts or more commonly taikonaut) walking in other planets of the solar system ? The first thing you will notice is the sophisticated space suite. Some of the main purpose of these space suites are to protect the taiknaut from harmful radiations, chemicals particles present in the atmosphere of these foreign planets, to provide clean oxygen for inhaling and to store and recycle the carbon-di-oxide exhaled, also in some cases sophisticated camera and lighting arrangement to increase his visibility and make sure he can walk on the space easily without falling into a deep crater (and 'mostly' no one will be there to help him out, which SETI people will disagree).

The bad part of the story is that this foreign or alien planet which I was writing before could increasing be our dear planet, The Earth. Yes. The indicators are that we are strongly on this path. The temperature of the planet and more sadly (our) India is rising rapidly to record levels each year. The indicators are that the average temperature of large part of the country had increased by a degree or more in the last decade. Increasingly these days the weather is getting more and more extreme and if we can project this trend to coming 15-20 years, we can expect the weather to be really bad (polluted, hazy and extreme ) in many major cities in India including Bangalore. So as the mercury of thermometer touches 50-60 degree which could burn our skin we need to protect ourself by "earth suites". The "earth suites" will be very similar to space suites containing build in AC to protect for excessive heat, build-in air purifiers and harmful chemical extractor, fog and visibility improvement infra-red cameras. These stuffs will be affortable by rich people only. What will be the status of poor people ?? Let me stop continuing to paint this kind of picture like a pyched up cynic. What I want to mainly point out is that many environment disasters which are waiting to happen unless or until we show some seriousness in handing with the atmosphere. So what are the main issues we need to deal or understand ?

First and foremost we need to remember is that this planet is not ours. We have borrowed it for some time from our ancestors and we need to give it safely to our future generation in atleast the same condition and not as a ruined and decaying hell.

Second, we have to get away from the attitude of let the diaster strike us and then we will have the courage and resources and willingness to deal with the diaster. For example, let the Tsunami strike us and then we will worry about the tsuanami avoidance system, let the earthquake cause some havoc reguarly then we will think about building earthquake protected buildings, let the drought and pollution of water strike us and then we will think about how to manage or live with it. This is NOT the attitude we want. Many things are irreversible in nature (like death, large scale water contamination) and so prevention is better than cure. Let us not let the same thing happen or otherwise nature will take its own action. Let us work and cooperate with nature so that both us the human beings and nature can coexist peacefully. I see that many of the problem or issues which we face regularly CANNOT be handled separtely ignoring the others issues. The problems of development, pollution, traffic, water scarcity, poverty are unfortunately not independent. These we tightly related to each other and are heavily inter-dependent. We cannot tackle them one after another. We need to concentrate simultaneosly on all these fronts to make optimum choices. Mathematicans who work in optimization problem will know that it will be easy to solve the problems if the number of variabes in the problem are few and as the variable and dependencies increase it will be more difficult to find an optimum choice. We are facing such a probem that all the issues I mentioned are tightly inter-related and growing.

Third and most importantly, the so called developed world will NEVER care about what happens to us. They will NEVER care if we die in poverty or AIDS or drought. They will NEVER care if the pollution weaken the brain development of our children. They will NEVER care as long as the problem is global in nature and will affect them (like the story of terrosim). Also we should not be waiting and expecting some foreign soul to come and rescue us from the deep embroilment we are facing. WE have to deal with the problem ourself. We need to collobrate with like minded countries around us who are willing to tackle similar problem themselves (like Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Srilanka). Atleast we can make an agreement with Pakistan that we will have a ceasefire for another 50 years and promise them to have a plebicite in Kashmir after that. By then some of the resources which we are pouring for security and defence can be re-directed to increasingly important issues we are facing with. My above solution for the Kashmir problem might look ridiculous, but this need not be done overnight. We can gradually change the focus from one issue to the another with heavy understanding and involvement from all parties (importantly with Pakistan). And NOW is the time to do it as they can understand the importance and significane of handing natural diasters and tacking existing problems before creating new probems. Also by another 50 years, the poor Kkashmiris will get more time first to heal their wounds, live some normal life and then free their mind from fear to decide on which way to go (either India, or Pakistan or independent). Why did I diverge from the pollution and dealing with nature to terrosim and relation with Pakistan ? This is to point out that at this stage one problem is not independent of another. They are so tightly inter-twined. This is almost like a totally mixedup and jumbled strings of thread. We need to tackle all of them or atleast most important knots at the same time, rather than waiting for it strike hard or waiting for others to come and solve it or adding more knots/jumble.

After critising all these issue, it is important to see what can be done. I want to point out that the solution which I will be describing are not at all new. They are the same good solutions suggested by very many brilliant people. The difference is in general mentality and proactiveness to listen to them and implement them seriously as all are facing the same or similar challenge. Sadly this is similar to the increasing attention world (read USA) is paying to overcome terrorism even though India was shouting for some attention for more than a decade. So how are we going to tackle the problem(s) ?

First, the chief of all the problems is the population. Population puts lots of strain and pressure on rare resources. Either we do something about it or nature will do its job.

Second, we need to increase the coverage and penetration of trees, not just in jungles, but also in cities. People might criticize that water is already a probem and how can they expect to supply water to these new trees. The answer is as I mentioned before, one problem is not independent of other, we cannot forget one issue and solve the other because of the complexity. Just because one child of you need some attention you cannot allow the other child to rot and die. Will you ? We need to also increase the focus of nature and vegetation in our education system so that kids make a special relation or bond with nature. These kids should not end-up saying that apple is manufactured in tropica factories or water comes from coke or something stupid like that. The schools and colleges could come out with various innovative techniques to concentrate on this front like more regular eco-tourism, school gardens and trees maintained by the students teams, not just asking them to write some essay on how trees are important to human life and eco-system.

Third, we need to encourage the use of alternative fuels and start having metro transportation system in big and growing cities, and also have the traffic system in cities support the cleanest of all kinds of transportation, the humble bicycle. Can you without fear of accident ride a bicycle in a busy city traffic ? I don't think so.

All these efforts need to start from the ground and percolate to the top. India needs to tackle the problem by bottom-up approach. In other countries the top-down system might work well. What I mean by top-down is that the central government issues a plan directly to state, state to the district, the district to the municipality and the finally the distilled, filtered, use-less, skeleton of the plan goes to the people and is implemented without all necessary things, which is almostly good for nothing. Alternatively the bottom-up approach can work pretty well in India and has done lots of wonder to our country. In the bottom-to-top system the people will act as role model for the government rather that the opposite. This would give some directions for the confused leaders at the top chewing pans and spitting against each other. IT, green revolution, water-shed systems are some of the finest examples of such bottom-up system. Of course once things start rolling in the right directions the politicians will come and support (and might take the credit too). They have to do it to win the election. These things are happening and springing up at different places but rather at low scale. Such initiative could come from all over the country and by this we can shape our own destiny and come out of the mess or jumble created due to past action.
I hear someone asking me what have I done to improve the problems which I was vociferously shouting before ? Good question. Not at large scale but at personal I do not litter the public places like stations, bus-stand, gardens, temples etc. And also doing many good things suggested by the famous Tamil movie called Anniyan. Think about it !

First mile of the marathon

2005-10-09T15:53:00.000-07:00

As of now 3 weeks had passed since I left my job and moved to university to start a PhD. I should say overall the experience had been good. I can split the whole experience into three parts (A) self (B) research (C) others.

(A) In the self front:
I am doing my best to stream-line my life. For doing a good research, one needs to have a stable mind and a creative mind. Unfortunately, the association between creativity and stability is not easy. If you are a poet or a music composer, you need creativity but sadly not stability. But to be a good researcher, along with creativity you also need stability. Stability in thoughts means, one is able to come to good decision, able to understand different arguments, and come to some logical conclusion. A stable mind is nothing but a logical mind and a sound mind which is able to analyze the pros and cons of a given problem. I am confident to say that on the creativity front I am good. But I am weak in the logical front. So I am into an exercise to improve the logical part of my mind. The main requirements for a mind to think logically are the following:

(1) A serene and calm mind is absolutely needed. An agitated mind does not think logically. An agitated mind might think creatively but not logically (For e.g.: A 'stoned' singer may compose a mind-blowing tune but he cannot differentiate between day and night). Thus an agitated mind does not take any good decisions and also decisions taken with an agitated mind are usually very poor. So I am practicing the meditation technique proposed by Sahaj Marg (this was introduced to me by my friend Harish in Eindhoven) to improve the concentration. What is Sahaj Marg ? I am not learning this from a master/guru, but by reading the books found in www.srcm.org and also listening to the recordings of the leader called Shri. Chariji. Also I am learning about meditation from various books by Shri Chinmoy and Shri Deepak Chopra. From my initial experience, reading from books is very easy. But practicing is very very difficult. I try to practice every day in the morning, afternoon, evening and night. By means of meditation, I want to develop concentration, awareness and a balanced mind so that logical decisions can be made. Also doing meditation reduces the level of stress, anger, frustrations, worry, jealousy, and other kinds of negative forces which constantly fight and reduce the efficiency of the brain. I have been recommended by friend to try Art of Living course. The course fee is $200, which I think is very expensive. If it is a good and useful course for the improvement of humanity it should be cheap or at least affordable. I wonder what is the reason for keeping such high fee, which is only affordable by well-off people. In any case, I will do some research on their teachings, try to read something about the way of breathing recommended by them and finally join the course if needed

(2) Eating good and a balanced food is very important to keep the mind and body fresh. Food with excess of sugar like ice-cream, chocolate, smoothes, all causes cravings for that kind of food and also eventually they slow your brain's power. Fresh vegetables, fresh fruits, milk and vitamin rich pulses improve your brain and also makes sure that your body is not starved of basic minerals. Eating at the correct time and also correct amount of food is extremely important for a balanced body which does not interfere with the mind process. I make sure that these conditions are met and I eat properly. Body is the vessel which contains the spirit/soul/mind. If the vessel is defective or weak the rest of the system will sink (meaning will not be able to do its job effectively).

(3) I try to see all my activities and behavior with an open mind. This is some kind of third eye which watches all my actions. I try my best to make sure that my actions are not just certain pre-programmed erroneous behavior.

(4) Time management. Ah!!! The most difficult practice which is always eludes me. At least, I have taken the first step in this direction. I try to write down all the pending tasks and make sure they are finished by the schedule time. At least I make sure trivial bureaucratic tasks are completed. This gives some satisfaction. I also constantly remind myself not to post-port or push-aside simple tasks. Do today's task today is the motto which I am trying to follow. Also most importantly, I have an organizer in which I store all the appointments and dead-lines so that I follow them correctly. The biggest problem because of wrong time-management is that not only you but others are also affected. And I am trying by best to avoid effecting another person’s job or responsibility due to my wrong time management.

I will continue to the research front organizations and decisions in the next part.

Talacavery

2005-05-08T12:45:00.000-07:00

Hall,

I am really happy to enter into the world of blogging. I tried many times to kick-start the process of writing a diary but things did not go as well as I planned. First, my handwriting is not good (to say mildly) so I do not like to read them back. Second, I have lots of diary and in each one I scribble something but latter on I move to another diary which makes it later very hard to a find coherent story. Thirdly, many pages of my diary goes empty because I do not have something interesting to say every day. Finally, I would like to share my diaries with a selected group of people. So I find blogs to be more interesting medium to communicate my thoughts and make my mind flow freely. Flow like a clear stream of water over pebbles, bushes, trees, rocks other things.

This brings me to a nice point of discussion. Can we compare our mind also to a flowing stream of water ? This flowing stream of water finally merges with the ocean (God) and becomes in-separable. Just like in various flowing water/river, the real world or the environment pollutes it. Some rivers are fortunate to flow down-stream directly to the ocean without any obstacles. Some river has to take a tough paths, fall drastically and climb up again and finally reach the oceans. As the rivers flows it enriches the people who live around it by improving their life. Some level of pollution of the river is unavoidable because it has to be in touch with various kinds of life-style of society. But some rivers reach a state where the pollution level reach an alarming state making it difficult to call it a river. I can say now with some confidence that rivers of a country denotes the state of mind of the people living in that country. Which brings to a nice question about the state of rivers in India ? Im not an environmental engineer or a nature expert so I find it difficult to comment on this aspect. But my overall impression is that they are in bad-shape. It would be interesting to get a clear picture of how things are happening from an expert.

(note: the title "tala-cavery" is the name of source of famous "cavery" river in south India)
(meaning: I consider this article as the starting point (source) of my flow of stream of ideas like flow of cauvery river)