Temel Nosce ~ Know Thyself~

damitr.org

2011-10-07T00:49:00.000-07:00

I have switched to wordpress.

This blog will continue at its new address:

http://damitr.org
All the older posts are present at the new address and will continue to be present here, but no new posts will be added here.

D

Transparency Revolution

2011-06-08T03:57:00.000-07:00

To quote A K Antony on the current state of affairs in the nation.

"Our country is passing through a transparency revolution. Walls of secrecy are crumbling gradually. But politicians, bureaucracy, judiciary, business people, armed forces, and journalists are still not ready for this transition to transparency,"

And then he adds:

"But they will have to follow the transition and I don't think anybody can take any step in a different direction,"

Lets see how much of this comes through, within our life times.

D

A self referential post for others

2011-05-15T02:35:00.000-07:00

This post is for those who are reading this :Post!
When you read this post, you will know it is meant for you!

You can fool all people for some time.

You can fool some people for all the time.

But, you cannot fool all the people for all the time.

Hope that the message reaches those for whom it is meant!

That is for those poeple who are reading this post!!

You anyway are wasting your time by reading this sort of trash written by me!!!

Free Software Tools for scanning and making e-books

2011-05-10T01:07:00.000-07:00

How to give a new life to books which are out of copyright!

When I used Mac OS X I used Adobe Acrobat for processing the raw files from the scanner. But with the shift to GNU/Linux I did not know what tools to use.
So here is a short summary of the tools that I have found useful for doing things in GNU/Linux!

Typically the making a soft-copy from a hard-copy involves following steps:

Step1:
Scan the Hard copy using a scanner / camera. This step generates image files
typically .tiff, .png or .jpeg. Some scanning programs also have option of directly generating to .pdf
Basically at this stage you have all the data, if you compress the folder into a comic book reader format .cbr or .cbz format you are good to go. But for a more professional touch read on. The main step to scan the books properly. Some do's and dont's

Align the pages to the sides of the scanner.
If the book is small size scan 2 pages at once.
If the book is too large adjust the scan in the image preview side so that only one page is scanned.

If these steps are done properly there is a little that we have to do in the second step. And we can directly jump to Step 3.

Preferably scan in the binary form, unless there are colored images in the text. This will help reduce the final size of the file.

Scan at minimum 300 dpi, this is the optimum level that I have come to after trials and errors with different resolutions, their final results and the time taken for each scan. Of course this can differ depending on what is that you are scanning. Many people do the scanning at 600 dpi, but I am happy at 300 dpi.

First of all for the scanning itself. Most of the scanners come with an installation disk for M$-Windows or Mac-OSX. But for GNU/Linux there seems to be no 'installation disk'. The Xsane package allows quite a few scanners which are detected and are ready for use as soon as you plug them in.
The list of the scanners which are supported by Xsane can be found here:

http://www.sane-project.org/sane-mfgs.html

When we bought our scanner we had to search this list to get the compatible scanner.
What is the problem with the manufacturers, why do they not want to sell more, to people who are using Free Software?

If your scanner is not in the list, then you might have to do some R&D before your scanner is up and running like I had to do for my old HP 2400 Scanjet at my home.

Once your scanner is up and running. You scan the images preferably in .tiff format as they can be processed and compressed without much loss of quality. This again I have found by trial and error.

Step2:
Crop the files and rotate them to remove unwanted white spaces or
accidental entries of adjoining pages from the images that were obtained. When the pages are scanned as 2 pages in one image, we may need to separate the pages.

Initially I did it manually, it was the second most boring part after the scanning. But I have found a very wonderful tool for this work.

Imagemagick provides a set of tools which work like magick in images, hence the name I guess :)

This is one of the best tools for batch processing image files.

Then I found out the dream tool that I was looking for.
The is called Scan-Tailor, as the name suggests it is meant for processing of scanned images.

Scan Tailor can be found at http://scantailor.sourceforge.net/ or directly from Ubuntu Software Centre.

Step by step scan tailor cleans and creates amazingly good output files from relatively unclean images.

There are a total of 6 steps in scan-tailor which produces the desired output.
You have to choose the folder in which your scanned images are. Scan-tailor produces a directory called out in the same folder by default. The steps are as follows

Change the Orientation: This enables one to change the orientation of all the files in the directory. This is good option in case you have scanned the book in a different orientation.
Split Pages: This step will tell whether the scans that we have made are single page scans, single page with some marginal text from other page or two page scans. Most of the times the auto detection works well with single page and two page scans. But it is a good idea to check manually whether all the pages have been divided correctly, so that it does not create problems later. If you find that a page has been divided incorrectly then we can slide the margin to correct it. In case of two page scans the two pages are shown with a semitransparent blue or red layer on top of them. After looking at all the pages we commit the result.
Deskew: After the pages have been split we need to change the orientation for better alignment of the text. Here in my experience most of the auto-orientation works fine. But still it is a good idea to check manually the pages, in case something is missed.
Select Content: This is the one step that I have found as the most useful one in the scan-tailor. Here you can select the portion of the text that will appear in the final output. So that you can say goodbye to all the dark lines that come inevitably as part of scanning. Also some library marks can be removed easily by this step. The auto option works well when the text is in nice box shape, but it may leave wide areas open also. The box shape can be changed the way we want. If you want a blank page, remove the content box, by right clicking on the box.
Page Layout: Here one can set the dimensions for the output page and how each page content will be on the page.
Output: Produces the final output with all the above changes.

The output is stored in a directory called Out in the same folder. The original images are not changed, so that in case you want some changes or something goes wrong we can always go back to the original files. Also numbering of the images is done.
So we have cleaned pages of same size from the scanned pages.

Step 3:
Collate the processed files in Step 2 to one single PDF. For this I have used the convert command.

Typical synatax is like this

convert *.tiff output.pdf

This command will take all the .tiff files in the given directory and collate these files into a pdf named output.pdf

http://www.pdflabs.com/tools/pdftk-the-pdf-toolkit/

Step 4:
OCR the PDF file.
Now this is again tricky, I could not find a good application which would OCR the pdf file and embed the resulting text on the pdf file. But I have found a hack on the following link which seems to work fine :)

http://blog.konradvoelkel.de/2010/01/linux-ocr-and-pdf-problem-solved/

The hack is a bash script which does the required work.

Step 5:

Optimize the PDF file generated in Step 4.

Here there is a nautilus shell script which I have found in the link below which does optimization.
http://www.webupd8.org/2010/11/download-compress-pdf-12-nautilus.html

Step 6:

In case you want to convert the .pdf to .djvu there is one step solution for that also

pdf2djvu -o output.djvu input.pdf 

The tips and tricks here are by no means complete or the best. But this is what I have found to be useful. Some of the professional and non-free softwares can do all these, but the point of writing this article was to make a list of Free and Open Source Softwares for this purpose.

Comments and suggestions are welcome!

India would have been a better place without Sathya Sai Baba

2011-04-25T00:26:00.000-07:00

Posting for a wider reading.

India would have been a better place without Sathya Sai Baba
Sanal Edamaruku
President
Indian Rationalist Association & Rationalist International

When Sathya Sai Baba died this morning (24 April 2011) at the age of
85 years, he proved once again that miracles and predictions fail. He
had predicted at a public gathering at his head quarters in
Puttaparthy, in 2000, and repeatedly many times, that he would die at
the age of 96 only. And till the last moment, many of his devotees
clung to his word and waited for a miracle. May it be an eye opener
for the millions of gullible people whom he misguided and deluded.

De mortuis nihil nisi bene, they say, say nothing but good of the
dead. But I think Sathya Sai Baba’s case qualifies for an exception.
Too great is the damage that he did to India. His devastating
influence on reason and scientific temper caused huge setback to the
country. At a time, when scientific progress led to great social and
economic leaps and scientific awakening started spreading all over
India, Sathya Sai Baba launched a “counter revolution” of
superstition, supported by irresponsible politicians and other public
figures who should have known better. In my judgment, this is his
greatest crime. I have succeeded again and again to expose him
publicly as a fraud, so did some other rationalists. But due to his
political protectors he was never held responsible for his crimes
against public reason. Nor was he ever booked for any other crime he
was accused of. Numerous cases of alleged sexual abuse and murder are
yet to be investigated, not to mention the financial secrets of his
empire.

Sathya Sai Baba insisted in all seriousness that he was god, the
creator of the universe, and “proved” his divinity with a couple of
small “miracles”. As son of a village tantric he was familiar with the
hand sleights and tricks of the trade. However, he did not only
fascinate poor and uneducated villagers with his fraudulent
performances. Over the years, he managed to attract a galaxy of
India’s rich and powerful, among them ministers, prime ministers,
presidents, chief justices, top industrialists and superstars.

Sathya Sai Baba had a special modus operandi that was the key for his
astonishing success and the root of his enormous clout. Many of his
high society devotees came to serve their own vested interests. Some
came to rub shoulders with the prominent. Many joined the club because
it was working as a powerful syndicate spreading its tentacles all
over the political system. It was a way to the top jobs and a way to
get things done. Others were seeking financial support or wanted to
get rid of ill-gotten black money: The empire, it is alleged, was
based on money laundering, using foreign devotees and branches. In
fact, the huge foreign donations to Sai Baba stood in contrast to the
comparatively modest number of active foreign devotees and the
sometimes quite weak foreign branches, some of them residing in
private homes. That is no great surprise, when one considers that Sai
Baba did not speak any other language than Telugu and traveled only
once in his whole life abroad – to visit his friend Idi Amin in
Uganda.

On his 80th birthday, Sai Baba’s supporters announced that he would
turn from a miracle man to a philanthropist. That was, after I had
demonstrated his miracles so often in TV shows that many kids in the
streets could imitate them. That he since spent a part of the great
fortunes, swindled out of the gullible, for social development around
his ancestral village, is highlighted now to present him as a saint.
But as useful and welcome hospitals, schools and drinking water
projects for the poor always may be: this kind of alibi-philanthropy
is well known even from mafia-bosses. It cannot be weighed against his
crimes and the damage he has done to the Indian society.

In December 2005, I wrote a letter to then President Dr. Abdul Kalam,
one of Sai Baba’s ardent supporters, which was never answered. I
demanded criminal investigations against Sai Baba. If his social
development projects are meant to be indulgence to nullify his crimes,
this procedure is unprecedented and unacceptable, I wrote. It is a
shame for India that well-founded accusations and numerous reputed
witnesses against Sai Baba are ignored without any investigation. Do
saffron clothes make an offender untouchable for the law? Do we have
to tolerate that political protectionism raises its head so boldly,
mocking India's democracy?

Sathya Sai Baba caused great damage to India. His irresponsible
political patrons corrupted the political culture of India. Encouraged
by the clout of Sathya sai Baba, a new clan of miracle mongers
imitated him. India would have been a better place without Sathya Sai
Baba.

(This or other articles from the Rationalist International Bulletin
may be reproduced by journals, blogs or web sites without change or
alteration in its content, and with due acknowledgment.)

Rationalist International: rationalistinternational@gmail.com

WikiLeaks and India

2011-04-12T23:28:00.000-07:00

Now that Julian Assange's WikiLeaks is causing some people sleepless nights in the West, the effect is slowly being felt in India. With the expose, exposing the incumbent Congress and the opposition BJP every now and then. The counter accusations follow from the parties. Some things that I have noted when an expose happens is as follows:

Typically the party in the soup tries to downplay WikiLeaks itself, saying that this is what has been said by the US diplomats and is nothing more than office gossip.
At the same time the other party mounts an attack on the party in soup, trying to tell us "Isn't it the same thing that we were saying from so many years?" And they will tell you how the other party is bad to its core. In this case they never question the authenticity of WikiLeaks.
The cycle repeats. Only the role of the parties are changed!

So WikiLeaks is like a hot potato, which none of our political parties have courage to handle. As soon as they land with one, they try to throw it away as soon as possible. When it is in someone else's hand they will try to make some brownie points out of it.

Indian media with some exceptions is trying to play down the damage done by WikiLeaks to the political and the civil system. They may be hand-in-glove with those accused, or may be afraid that their own names may appear in the future issues of WikiLeaks.

Sibal Vs Hazare

2011-04-11T06:45:00.000-07:00

Apparently Kapil Sibbal the person who negotiated with the Anti-corruption rally activists cannot make simple deductions about the state in which the country is in. Being the HRD minister he should know better.

Sibal said this in a public meeting

I ask this question, if a poor child does not have any means for education, then how will Lokpal Bill help? If a poor man needs help for medical services then he will call up a politician. How will Lokpal Bill help.

When Mr. Hazare responded by saying that Mr, Sibal should not be in the committee if he thinks Lokpal bill is useless, then Sibal clarified his position by saying:

the scope of the Bill is different. The problems of the common man are different. ...

I said that if you want to educate children, then this has no connection to Lokpal. If there is no convenience of water...Lokpal is only connected to corruption and we will bring a good bill that will stop corruption.

To get to what I am saying you do not even have to read between the lines. The very fact that there are problems in the Indian system, the likes of which Sibal mentions, viz. poor child not having means for education, poor man needing medical services and others at least in part are linked to India being a very corrupt state. Since we are a corrupt state, that is the reason people cannot get access to basic needs of a good life, like education for their children and medical services, without clout of some politician, as Mr. Sibal puts it. And this is accepted, by saying that going through a politican will perhaps help a poor person, than cleaning the system itself.

How can a bad governing system which is corrupt as deep as it can be, and public inconvenience it causes and a strong anti-corruption bill be not related? The Lokpal Bill is in every related to problems of common man, and that is the reason why it gathered such a wide support.

The Children's Machine

2011-03-02T04:35:00.000-08:00

These are some unfinished notes that I have taken while reading the Children's Machine by Seymour Papert. Hope that someday I will weave them into something more fluid.

Why, though a period when so much human activity has been
revolutionized, have we not seen comparable change in the way we
help our children learn?

* Quotes

116

One could indeed make kitchen math part of the School by making School part of the kitchen.

127

Are there any snakes in the house?
Yes there are, there are zero snakes in the house!

So. negative numbers are numbers too, and their reality grows in the course of playing with turtle.

130
You can't retire from a good project simply because it has succeeded.

139

Constructionism: It does not call in question the value of  instruction as such

The kind of knowledge that children most need is the knowledge that will help them get more knowledge.

140
If the children really want to learn something, and have the opportunity to learn it in its use, they do so even if the teaching is poor.

Constructionism looks more closely than other educational -isms at  the idea of mental construction. It attaches a special importance to role of constructions in the world as a support for those in the head, thereby becoming less of a purely mentalistic doctrine. It also takes the idea of constructing in the head more seriously by recognizing more than one kind of construction and by asking questions about the methods and materials used.

How can one become expert in constructing knowledge?

What skills are required?

Are these skills different for different kinds of knowledge?

144

School math, like the ideology, though not necessarily the practice, of modern science, is based on the idea of generality - the single, universally correct method that will work for all problems and for all people.

145

Use what you've got, improvise, make do.

147

The natural context for learning would be through particiaption in other activities other than math itself.

148

The reason is that the educators who advocate imposing abstract ways of thinking on students almost practice what they preach - as I  tried to do in adopting a concrete style of writing - but with very different effects.

149

But however concrete their data, any statistical question about  ``the effect" of ``the computer" is irretrievably abstract. This is because all such studies depend on use of what is known as the ``scientific method," in form of experiments designed to study the effect of one factor which is varied while taking great pains to
keep everything else same. ... But nothing could be more absurd than  an experiment in which computers are placed in a classroom where nothing else has changed. The entire point of all the examples I have given is that the computers serve best when they allow everything to change.

150

The concept of highly rigorous and formal scientific method that most of us have been taught in school is really an ideology  proclaimed in books, taught in schools and argued by philosophers but widely ignored in actual practice of science.

154

They count the same, but it's more eggs.

161
My overarching message to anyone who wishes to influence, or simple understand, the development of educational computing is that it is not about one damn product after another (to paraphrase a saying
about how school teaches history). Its essence is the growth of a  culture, and it can be influenced constructively only through understanding and fostering trends in this culture.

167
I would be rather precisely wrong than vaguely right.
- Patrick Suppes

    It had been obvious to me for a long time that one of the major difficulties in school subjects such as mathematics and science is that School insists on the student being precisely right. Surely it is necessary in some situations to be precisely right. But these situations cannot be the right ones for developing the kind of thinking that I most treasure myself and many creative people I know.

    168
    What computers had offered me was exactly what they should offer children! They should serve children as instruments to work with and to think with, as means to carry out projects, the source of concepts to think new ideas. The last thing in the world I wanted or needed was a drill and practice program telling me to do this sum of spell that word! Why should we impose such a thing on children?

    183
    The opportunity for fantasy opens the to a feeling of intimacy
    with the work and provides a peep at how emotional side of
    children's relationship with science and technology could be very
    different from what is traditional in School. Fantasy has always
    been encouraged in good creative writing and art
    classes. Excluding it from science is a foolish neglect of an
    opportunity to develop bonding between children and science.

    184

    Errors can become sources of information.

    185

    Although the ultimate goal was the same, the means were more than
    just qualitatively different; they were episte,mologically
    different in that they used a different way of thinking.

    Traditional epistemology is an epistemology of precision:
    Knowledge is valued for being precise and considered inferior if
    it lacks precision. Cybernetics creates an epistemology of
    ``managed vagueness."

    197

    The real problem was that I was still thinking in terms of how to
    ``get the children to do something." This is the educator's
    instinctive way of thinking: How can you get children to like
    math, to write wonderfully, to enjoy programming, to use
    higher-order thinking skills? It took a long time for me to
    understand in my gut, even after I was going around saying it,
    that Logo gaphics was successful because of the powet it /gave/ to
    children, not because of the performance it /got from/ them.

    Children love constructing things, so let's choose a construction
    set and add to it whatever is needed for these to make cybernetic
    models.

    198

    What will they [children] learn from it [Logo]? And won't it favor
    boys over girls?

    The first question concerns what piece of the school curriculum is
    being learned but I attach the most importance to such issues as
    children's relationship with technology, then idea of learning,
    their sense of self. As for the gender issue, I am thinking more
    about, how in the long run comoutational activities will affect
    gender than how the gener will affect the activities.

    Their work provies good examples of material that overlaps with
    School science and math, and of an alternative style applied to
    these subjects - instead of formal style that uses rules, a
    concrete style that uses objects.

    202

    It is worth noting that the students appreciated the
    self-organizing nature of the traffic jam only because they had
    written the programs themselves. Had they been using a packaged
    simulation, they would have had no way of knowing the elegant
    simplicity of the programs underlying the jam.

    Emergent stuctures often behave very differently than the elements
    that compose them.

    207

    The cathedral model of education applies the same principle to
    building knowledge structures. The curriculum designer in cast in
    the role of a ``knowledge architect'' who will specify a plan, a
    tight progra, for the placement of ``knowledge brick's'' in
    children's minds.

    208

    What is typical of emergently programmed systems is that
    deviations from what was expected do not cause the wholw to
    collapse but provoke adaptive responses.

    209

    We are living with an edicational systsem that is fundamentally as
    irrational as the command economy and ultimately for the same
    reason. It does not have capacity for local adaptation that is
    necessary for a complex system even to function effieciently in a
    changing environment, and is doubly necessary for such a system to
    be able to evolve.

    Defininf educational success by test scores is not very different
    from couting nails made rather than nails used.

    212

    But calling hierarchy into question is the crux of the problem if
    educational change.

    216

    Each of these cases suggests ways in which a little school created
    in a militant spirit can mobilize technology as an assertion of
    identity.

    217

    I could continue in this spirit, but this may be enough to make
    the point that little schools could give themselves a deeper and
    more conscious specific identity. Everything I have said in this
    book converges to suggest that this would produce rich
    intellectual environments in which not only children and teachers
    but also new ideas about learning would develop together.

    I see little schools as the most powerful, perhaps an essential,
    route to generating variety for the evolution of education.

    The prevailing wisdom in the education establishment might agree
    with the need for variety but look to other sources to provide
    it. For example, many - let us call them the Rigorous
    Researchers - would say that the proper place for both variation
    and selection is in the laboratory. On their model, researchers
    should develop large numbers of different ideas, test them
    rigorously, select the best, and disseminate them to schools.

    In my view this is simply Gosplan in disguise.

    218

    The importance of the concept of the little school is that it
    provides a powerful, perhaps by far the most powerful, strategy to
    allow the operation of the principle of variation and selection.

    This objection depends on an assumption that is at the core of the
    technicalist model of education: Certain procedures are the best,
    and the people involved can be ordered to carry them out. But even
    if there were such a thing as "the best method" for learning, it
    would still only be the best, or even mildly good, if people
    believed in it. The bueracrat thinks that you can make people
    beleive in something by issuing orders.

    221

    The design of learning environment has to take account of the
    cultural environment as well, anad its implementation must make
    serious effort at involvement of the communities in which it is to
    operate.

    223

    It is no longer necessary to bring a thousand children together in
    one building and under one administration in order to develop a
    sense of community.

    224

    I do not see that School can be defended in its social role. It
    does not serve the functions it claims, and will do so less and
    less.

*

MegaChange!

Talking about megachange feels to them like fiddling when Rome
burns. Education today is faced with immediate, urgent
problems. Tell us how to use your computer to solve some of the
many immediate practical problems we have, they say.

Impediments to change in education such as, cost, politics, the
immense power of the vested interests of school bureaucrats, or lack
of scientific research on new forms of learning.

Large number of teachers manage to create within the walls of their
own classrooms oases of learning profoundly at odds with the
education philosophy espoused by their administrators...

But despite the many manifestations of a widespread desire for
something different, the education establishment, including most of
its research community, remains largely committed to the educational
philosophy of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and
so far none of those who challenge these have hallowed traditions
has been able to loosen the hold of the educational establishement
on how children are taught.

Do children like games more than homework because, the later is
harder than the former?

Most [games] are hard, with complex information - as well as
techniques - to be mastered, in the information often much more
difficult and time consuming to master than the technique.

These toys, by empowering children to test out ideas about working
within prefixed rules and structures in a way few other toys are
capable of doing, have proved capable of teaching students about the
possibilities and drawbacks of a newly presented system in ways many
adults should envy.

In trying to teach children what adults want them to know, does
School utitlize the way human beings most naturally learn in
non-school settings?

If it has so long been so desperately needed, why have previous
calls for it not caught fire?

K[G]nowledge Machine

Is reading the principal access route to knowledge?

Ask a symapathetic adult who would reward her curiosity with praise.

  Literacy is being able to read and write. Illiteracy can be
remedied by teaching children the mechanical skill of decoding black
marks on white paper.

/Letteracy/ and /Letterate/

Reading from Word to Reading from World

... the Knowledge Machine offers children a transition between
preschool learning and true literacy in way that is more personal,
more negotiational, more gradual, and so less precarious thant the
abrupt transition we now ask chidlrento malke as they move from
learning through direct experience to using the orinted word as a
source of important information.

.... School's way is the only way beacause they have never seen or
imagined convincing alternatives in the ability to impart certain
kinds of knowledge.

    * Babies learn to talk without curriculum or formal lessson

    * People develop hobbies at skills without teachers

    * social behavior is picked up other than through classroom
      beahvior

     Parable of the Automobile:

      ... certain problems that had been abstract and hard to grasp
      became concrete and transparent, and certain projects that had
      seemed interesting but too complex to undertake became
      manageable.

      Paulo Freire: "Banking model" information is deposited in
      child's mind like money in a savings account.

      /Tools/ for creating new experiments in effective fashion.

      * Ideas

    * Dewey: children would learn better if learning were truly a
          part of living experience

    * Freire: chidlren would learn better if they were truly in
          charge of their own learning processes

    * Piaget: intelligence emerges from an evolutionary process in
          which many factors must have time to find their equilibrium.

    * Vygotsky: Conversation plays a crucial role in learning.

    Why did the discovery method fail?

    By closing off a much larger basis of knowledge that should
        serve as a foundation for formal mathematics taught in school
        and perhas a minimal intuitive basis directly connected with
        it.

    The central problem of mathematics education is to find ways
        to draw on the child's vast experience of oral
        mathematics. Computers can do this.

    Giving chidlren opportunity learn and use mathematics in a
        nonformalized way of knowing encourages rather than inhibits
        the eventual adoption of formalized way, just as the XO,
        rather than discouraging reading, would eventually stimulate
        children to read.

    The design process is not used to learn more formal geometry.

    Traditionally teh art and writing classes are for fantasy but
        science deals with facts; union of technology with biology.


    It allows them to enter science through a region where
        scientific thinking is most like there own thinking.

    Reading biographies and iterrogating friends has convinced me
        that all successful learners find ways to take charge of their
        early lives sufficiently to develop a sense of intellectual
        identity.

    Piaget's first article: a paradox?

    Schools have inherent tendency to infantilize the children by
        placing them in a position of have to do so as they are told,
        to occupy themselves with work dictated by someone else and
        that, morever, has no intrinsic value - school work is done only
        because the designer of the curriculum decided that doingthis
        work would shape the doer into a desirable form[for the
        authorities?].

    NatGeo: Kidnet??Robert Tinker

    Researchers, following the so-called scientific method of
        using controlled experiments, solemnly expose the children to
        a "treatment" of some sort and then look at measurable
        results. But this flies in the face of all common knowledge
        of how human beings develop.

    The method of controlled experimentation that evaluates an
        idea by implementing it, taking care to keep everything else
        the same, and measuring the result, may be an appropriate way
        to evaluate the effects of a small modification. However, it
        can tell us nothing about ideas that might lead to deep
        change... It will be steered less by the outcome of tests and
        measurements than by its participant' intuitive understanding.

    The prevalent literal-minded, "what you see is what you get"
        approach measuring the effectiveness of computers in learning
        by teh achievements in present-day classroons makes it certain
        that tomorrow will always be prisoner of yesterday.

    Example of Jet attached to horse wagon.

    ... most people are more interested in what they learn than in how
        the learning happens.


    But math is not about feeling the relationship of your body to
        numbers.

    Turtle lets you do this!

    Intellectual work is adult child's play.

    Example that if observation of schools in some country where
        only one writing instrument could be provided for every fifty
        students suggested that writing does not significantly help
        learning.

    The change requires a much longer and more social computer
        experience than is possible with two machines at the back of
        the classroom.

    /Balkanized Curriculum and impersonal rote learning/

    What had started as a subversive instrument of change was
        neutralized by the system and converted into an instrument of
        consolidation.

    Schools will not come to use computers "properly" because
        researchers tell it how to do so.'

    It is characteristic of a conservative systems that
        acoomodation will come only when the opportunities of
        assimilation have been exhausted.

    Supposed Advantages
    * Immediate Feedback
    * Individualized instruction
    * Neutrality *

    CAI will often modestly raise test scores, especially at the low end
    of the scale. But it does without questioning the structure or the
    educational goals of the traditional School.

    Today, because it is the 15th Monday of your 5th grade year,
          you have to do this sum irrespective of who you are or what
          you really want to do; do what you are told and do it the
          way you are told to do it.

    Piaget was the theorist of learning without curriculum;
    School spawned the projectof developing a Piagetian curriculum.

    The central issue of change in education is the tension
    between technicalizing and not technicalizing, and here the teacher
    occupies the fulcrum position.

    Shaw: He who can, does; he who cannot, teaches.

    The system defeats its own purpose in attempt to enforce them.

    School has evolved a heirarchical system of control that
          sets narrow limits within which the actors - administators
          as well as teachers - are allowed to exercise a degree of
          personal initiative.

    Hierarchy vs. Heterarchy

    The major obstacle in the way of teachers becoming learners
    is inhibition about learning.

The problem with `developed' countries as opposed to `developing' ones
is that the developed countries are already there, there is no further
development possible.

In education, the highest mark of success is not having imitators but
inspiring others to do something else.

As long as there is afixed curriculum, a teacher has no need to become
involved in the question what is and what is not mathematics.

Society cannot afford to keep back its potentially best teachers
simply because some. or even most, are unwilling.

The how-to-do-it literature in the constructivist subculture is almost
as strongly biased to the teacher side as it is in the instructionist
subculture.

Some etymology:

/Mathematikos/ disposed to learn
/mathema/ a lesson
/manthanein/ to learn

\ldots mathetics is to learning what heuristics is to problem solving.

What is that feeling when you look at a familiar object, with a sense
that you are looking at the object for the first time?
It is /jamais vu/.

Attempts by teachers and textbook authors to connect school fractions
with real life via representations as pies simply reuslyed in a new
rigidity.

* What is the difference in learning at school and all other learning?
Generally in life, knowledge is acquired to be used. But school
learning more often fits Freire's apt metaphor: Knowledge is treated
like money, to be put away in a bank for the future.

* What does /Computer Literacy/ mean?


* The Technology of the Blackboard and The Technology of The Computer



* Lines You can use:

**
   The computer to program the student...
   OR
   The student to program the computer...

**
   Computer as an expensive set of flash cards.

**
   If the students scores improve, our approach must be right.

**
   Self-directed activities versus carefully guided ones
**
   If the scores improve does it mean that the strategy is effective/
   approach is right?
**
   Heterarchical versus Hierarchical
**
   Totalitarian Education or Trivialized Education

How science should be taught

2011-02-11T02:11:00.000-08:00

Science is an adventure of the whole human race to learn to live in and
perhaps to love the universe in which they are. To be a part of it is to
understand, to understand oneself, to begin to feel that there is a capacity
within man far beyond what he felt he had, of an infinite extension of
human possibilities ....

I propose that science be taught at whatever level, from the lowest to the
highest, in the humanistic way. It should be taught with a certain historical
understanding, with a certain philosophical understanding with a social
understanding and a human understanding in the sense of the biography, the
nature of the people who made this construction, the triumphs, the trials, the tribulations.

I. I. RABI

Nobel Laureate in Physics

Kabuki

2011-02-02T00:35:00.000-08:00

Kabuki is a comic series from artist and writer David Mack. It is about an assassin who struggles with her identity in near future Japan.

Kabuki is one of the 8 eight assassin in the Noh, a secret Government agency which balances the power in Japan's underworld.
As far as the storyline is concerned one can trace a lot of influences on the art and the characters of the story [at least the ones I am familiar with]. Not to mention the industrial style that we see in Blade Runner.

The first Volume Circle of Blood tell us about the origins of Kabuki. The art form in this Volume is black and white. Some of the other volumes are in color. In this volume there is a strong influence from Lewis Caroll's Alice in Wonderland.Especially in the Issue where Kai is killed by Kabuki the entire setup of the Mad Hatter's tea party has been taken. When Kai takes Kabuki to visit his collections, the book that she picks up is Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
The passage she reads is this :

'But I don't want to go among mad people,' Alice remarked.
'Oh, you can't help that,' said the Cat: 'we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad.'
'How do you know I'm mad?' said Alice.
'You must be,' said the Cat, 'or you wouldn't have come here.'

And I think I can relate very well to the quote of Kai on books [who has a formidable collection], when he compares the paper books with those that are digital :

But I love the intimacy of books. I love the physical act of turning
the pages and the tactile sensations of fine rice paper contrasting
with an embossed hardcover in my hand.

Influence from Carroll can also be found in other as pack of cards.

We are only faces, yet we are faceless... nothing but a pack of cards
in wonderland.

And in case of Kabuki when she says

I am a reflection, trapped in the world of a little girl.

It seems that David Mack has a fascination for M. C. Escher like I do. There are many influences of Escher in the later Volumes of Kabuki and especially in Metamorphosis. Incidentally metamorphosis is the theme in numerous Escher's drawings, in which one thing transforms into another. Similarly in all the Metamorphosis issues the theme is of transformation. Also one of the characters is named M. C. Square which I think is a sort of tribute to Escher.
Also there is one quote in Skin Deep # 1 from Escher, which is quoted below.

The crossing of the divide between abstract and concrete,
representations between `mute' and `speaking' figures leads us to the
heart of what fascinated me. - M. C. Escher

In the later Volumes when Kabuki is in the reformation center, one cannot but help to think that there is an influence of Alan Moore's V for Vendetta and thus indirectly of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty Four. Somehow I a find myself bumping into Orwell every now and then, is there a deep connection, or is this theory ladenness of data as per Thomas Kuhn on my part? Particularly the character of Akemi the way she builds up the morale of Kabuki has very strong resemblance in which 'V' builds up Evey's mental state

If it can be taken from you, it was never you to begin with.
After they take away all they can what remains is you.
Only in these situations, we truly know who we are.

The passing of notes on Origami constructions of different animals also reminds us of the same modus operandi in case of Evey's build up by the Actress in V for Vendetta.

Though the masks form an integral part of the style of the Kabuki dancers in Japan, the kind of attachment that our lead female Kabuki has with the mask resembles the character of V. Under their masks both have scars on their face, but as one the characters in Kabuki puts it

I think your scars are far deeper than the eyes can see.

Which I think is true in both cases of V and Kabuki. There is a trauma attached to the scar behind the mask, which they cannot forget, they do not want to forget. What they remember is revenge which RGV quoting in Rakhtacharitra [Blood History] from Gita says:

Revenge is the purest form of emotion.

The masks gives them a new identity, which they can relate to. The masks that they were have become them. They cannot be separated from them. They have become their identity, which they cannot forsake, at any costs.

This post is not complete, will update it when time permits.

* Quotes
** Circle of blood
# 3

One must aim beyond the target. One must aim a long way. Our whole
life, our whole spirit travels with the arrow. And when the arrow has
been fired, it is never the end.

# 4

When in the company of deceptive hearts, be only honest, and your
opponents will fool themselves.

I am a reflection, trapped in the world of a little girl.

# 5

I am invisible, untraceable... like tears in the rain.

But I love the intimacy of books. I love the physical act of turning
the pages and the tactile sensations of fine rice paper contrasting
with an embossed hardcover in my hand.

But then, everybody has their own ghosts, don't they?

Kai, is life a straight line or a circle?
Both and neither. It's a spiral like your DNA.

There is no morality in virtual reality. What kind of person will he
grow up to be?

#6

She is going to break your heart into two.
Its true.
Its not hard to realize.
She is going to smile to make you frown,
what a clown.
'Cause everybody knows
She's a femme fatale
The things she does to please
she's just a little tease.

It is time to master duality of your nature you must decide who you
really are.

I play my games, but the hand of fate is much quicker than the lie.

Just as the locusts cloak the sun, my perceptions blinded me.

The warrior unencumbered and willing to go further than his opponent
would always win.

I swallowed the locusts, and with it my fear

Look at the swan skimming the water. Angel wings of ivory feathers, its
eyes veiled in a mask of black. Its beauty rivaled only by its very
own reflection. Ghostly and regal, it seems to glide effortlessly on
the ponds surface, but below the surface... its feed are peddling like
hell...

We are faceless pawns.
Funny thing about pawns. If they make it to the other side, they
become the most powerful player on the board. That is where I am
going. The other side.

I am armed only with the power that my physical presence commands.

I feel the burning of their gaze and it keeps me warm.

A voice in my head tells me the bullet had my name on it.
I tell the voice that they misspelled my name.

# Fear the Reaper

A city whose technology has surpassed its humanity.

If you gaze into eyes of the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.

Sometimes there is no comedy, there is no tragedy only a closing
curtain. Sometimes the curtain falls slowly, sometimes it just falls.

We are only faces, yet we are faceless... nothing but a pack of cards
in wonderland.

I am drifting in the dark halfway between the Sun and the Moon.

** Masks of the Noh

#1
Crying and laughter... pain and desire are sisters.

#2

Time always catches up with you.

Never in words had I experienced the chilling satisfaction of words.

#4

Nothing is black and white anymore, it all blurs together.

** Skin Deep

#1

I used to get lost in the shuffle, now I just shuffle along with the
lost.

I think your scars are far deeper than the eyes can see.

The crossing of the divide between abstract and concrete,
representations between `mute' and `speaking' figures leads us to the
heart of what fascinated me. - M C Escher

The transformation takes place within our minds.

The only way to define your own identity is to be completely alone.

I don't seek to find myself.
I seek to loose myself.
Escape is a burning hope.

If horror is not your friend it is your enemy.

** Metamorphosis

#2
You have an interesting way of putting things. And interesting places
to put them.

If it can be taken from you, it was never you to begin with.
After they take away all they can what remains is you.
Only in these situations, we truly know who we are.

#6
Your yesterday is about to collide with your tomorrow.

Your environment reflects your internal disposition.

You can't face the future until you resolve the past.

Thinking Humans

2011-01-26T20:54:00.000-08:00

There is at least one philosophical problem in
which all thinking men are interested: the problem of under-
standing the world in which we live, including ourselves,who are
part of that world, and our knowledge of it.
- Karl Popper

Conjectures and Refutations

शिवाजी महाराजांचा आत्मा [The Soul of Shivaji Maharaj]

2011-01-19T12:24:00.000-08:00

I am grateful that you are honoring my statue. But perhaps if you show equal enthusiasm for principles, I would be a hundred times more happier. [July 1928]

What Shankarrao Kirloskar has written about 80 years ago still holds true today!

जे शंकरराव किर्लोस्करानी ८० वर्षां आधी व्यक्त केले ते आज पण तेवढेच खरे आहे!
शिवाजी महाराजांचा आत्मा

सन्दर्भ : शब्द व रेषा - शं. वि. किर्लोस्कर

New Year Resolution!

2011-01-12T10:22:00.001-08:00

My New Year Resolution is that I won't be purchasing anything from the Malls anymore. As far as possible I am going to avoid the `Mall Culture.'

Lets see how far I can go...

Absurdity of TV Censorship

2010-12-31T01:50:00.000-08:00

Recently I was watching a movie on the TV, a movie that I had seen earlier. But then as I watched on there seemed to be scenes, dialogs and words missing from the movie. According to the new laws of censorship in cinema one cannot show cigarette being smoked on the screen and forget about liquor not to mention anything about strong language or nudity. Similar things have been adopted for the TV channels. Don't show this, don't talk about that.

I ask the question why?

Why is that we need to censor things which according to some individuals is vile, corrupting? As a democracy Indians do have a right to elect whom they see fit to govern them, so aren't enlightened citizens good enough to select what they want to see? Because, if they are not, then even giving them voting rights would be dangerous, they might elect vile and corrupt politicians to power! And if at all the things such as cigarette and liquor, harsh language with all the Effour letter words,love acts, nudity will corrupt the population, why not banish them from the society. One one hand the government is keen on taxing the industries which manufacture these products in the first place, on the other hand this thing happens! Also one of the arguments that is given is that closing of such industries will take away employment from a whole lot of people. So by censoring cigarettes and liquor is not the government doing exactly that? There is a contradiction which I think I will never be able to understand.

I remember there was a question raised in parliament about this some years back by somebody. It must be sometime in August the logo for a music channel had the Indian tricolor on it. At the same time late in the night [11ish] there used to be a program for dancers. PYTs used to dance on music wearing as you might have guessed a bit skimpy clothes. So some morally upright MP raised this question, that how could be such a thing allowed? In response somebody else pointed out what was the MP doing watching such a thing in the first place at such an unholy hour in the night. The story here reflects the typical attitude, they want all for themselves but when it comes to public, the public needs to be told what they should watch on media. This the Government is doing, controlling the media and trying to control your thoughts.

But fortunately for us, and unfortunately for the government, this is the age of Internet. The example of Wikileaks has shown us that even the mighty US Government cannot stop the flow of information on the Internet. But who can forget Indian Governments attempt to kill Savita Bhabhi? India's first own porn star was put to death by an Government by issuing the ISPs to not allow to access the said web site which hosted her. But that did not kill her, did it? Instead she became immortal.

Perhaps the Government should look at the implications and be practical when they are trying to implement the laws of morality over general public. Do not we see people smoking and drinking in public, isn't molesting of women and their brutal rapes a part of our daily lives, aren't children getting the worst of the things that we as a civilization have to offer to them? Then why make a facade of moral values to try to take control of the media? This is my take on it. The Government doesn't bother whether you or your children grow up as shitbags, but what it bothers about is the control, the thought control precisely.

Government wants the control.

Controlling media would also control what people think and see. And its not just about any Government, the politicians that we see are just the tip of the iceberg. The Government is a system which wants above everything else, the control. There was a time when the control was easy, but we still haven't got over the License Raj, have we? Now they want to introduce the UID, a solution for all the ills in this country. UID, at best, is a solution looking for a problem. The UID project is in place just because the industry has something to sell, and tax payers money has no guardians. They say they will monitor all the progress of an individual. And you know how safe are we when we give all the control to a central authority.

From what we have happening in India in the recent years it wont be long before we have our own version of Orwellian dystopia.

Big ~~Brother~~ Babu is watching you.

The UID will enter into all aspects of your life, birth, education, property, communications, death, travel. UID does not make your country safe, but makes it easier to target "the most dangerous man" as told by Spyder Jerusalem in the Vertigo comics series Transmetropolitan.

The most dangerous man, to any government, is the man who is able to
think things out for himself, without regard to prevailing
superstitions or taboos. Almost inevitable he comes to the
conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane and
intolerable, and so, if he is romantic, he tries to change it. Even
if he is not romantic personally he is apt to spread discontent among
those who are.

- H L Mencken

Till then beware of what decisions that you support, as they will be paid for by your own children...

Turtle Art Galore...

2010-12-21T23:49:00.000-08:00

Here is one for the Turtle Art!

The idea that the child should program the computer and not the other way round was initiated by Seymour Papert in his book Mindstorms. Papert calls the field constructionism instead of Piaget's constructvism. Will elaborate the detailed differnces in some other post. But we at gnowledge.org lab are tryingto bring that in India using Sugar as a learning platform and we are not exclusively using OLPCs for that. We conduct regular teacher training workshops throughour India. One of our basic guidelies in all this is the use of Free and Open Source Software in education.
One of the first things that we introduce to newcomes in Sugar is the Turtle Blocks.

How to define Turtle Art? Well it is a studio! It has components of mathematics. logic, and art embedded in it. Artemis Papert [related to Seymour Papert?] has a website on the art that can be created using Turtle Art here www.turtleart.org

Have a look at the amazing gallery with the source code also available in case you want to have a peek at how such lovely pictures can be made using Turtle Blocks!!

Here is mine, adopted from the cover of the Turtle Art Book 3 by Artemis Papert.

And this is how I did it.

An Open Letter to the Railway Minister

2010-12-20T02:33:00.000-08:00

This is an open letter to The Railway Minister of India. Whoever it is. Though currently Mamta Banerjee aka Didi is the one who is holding the post. This post is related to the derailing and death of the Gyaneshwari Express:

The Gyaneshwari Express derailment occurred on 28 May 2010 in the West
Midnapore district of West Bengal, India. It was disputed as to
whether sabotage or a bomb caused damage on the railway track, which
in turn led to a train's derailment before an oncoming goods train hit
the loose carriages killing at least 141 passengers.[1]

Now the aftermath of this incidence is that instead of accepting that there is a problem of law and order as regards to the Maoists, the Government is steadily denying that there is a problem. As a result of that all the night running trains in the affected areas have been halted. Instead of trying to look for a solution to the problem, the Government is trying to hide it from the people. So as a result the common people are suffering. The media is supporting the Government in totally being oblivious to the delay in the trains caused by this. I don't know of any coverage, but if it is there, I have not seen it.

The trains get late everyday on an average by 8 - 10 hours! Can you believe this? Once in a while is okay, but everyday? And that too from last 7-8 months? Miss Banerjee what do you have to say for all this delay? If you and the Government is so scared of the Maoists that you cannot run trains in their dominated areas after sundown, at least admit it! You can at least change the train timings... But you are too clever to do that, as you have the state elections lined soon, so instead you will not do this, citing no reason whatsoever?

Think about the trouble it is causing to people, who have to catch trains at odd times, have to sleep on platforms, just because the trains are running late on a regular basis. The railways are there for the public, are the not? And if the public is being left out of the equation, there is something missing. Are you not ashamed as the railway minister, that trains are running regularly late? Or is it the chalta hai attitude that you want to show off? If you cannot solve the Maoist problem at least you can change the train timings so that the passengers are not left in turmoil at the railway station waiting 10 hours after the scheduled time of the arrival of their train...

On Cameras...

2010-11-28T23:01:00.000-08:00

A worthy quote from issue 1 of 4 part limited series comics Gangland from Vertigo Comics on cameras and photos..

   I've been always fascinated by cameras. Little boxes and inside
   each one, a tiny thief, ready to steal at touch of a button. To
   pocket a moment of time.

   What they steal can never be returned; what they take they keep
   forever...

   Stealing moments in time with my invisible eye...

   As if I could replace what's missing in my heart with a few spare
   moments clipped from other people's lives.

Sophie's World

2010-11-22T05:00:00.000-08:00

I had heard about Sophie's World from quite a number of sources. Finally I got a worn out copy from Fort for 100 bucks. Finished it in the next couple of days. This was about two years back. It is one of the best bedside introductions to philosophy...
Embedded in mystery and weirdness.
The best part of the climax is a p"hilosophical party", which I also wish to have...

Quotes:

Who are you?

“You are me.”

“I am you.”

You can’t experience being alive without realizing that you have to die, she thought.

Where does the world come from?

How could it be “the easiest way”?

… the only thing we require to be good philosophers is the faculty of wonder...

Why was it so difficult to be absorbed in the most vital and, in a way, the most natural of all questions?

So it is easier to ask philosophical questions than to answer them.

Actually, we are the white rabbit being pulled out of the hat.

and anyway it would be pointless to chase after someone who was determined to get away.

It all has to do with habit.

Do you think it can do what it does?

A philosopher never gets quite used to the world.

She understood that people had always felt a need to explain the processes of nature. Perhaps they could not live without such explanations. And that they made up all those myths in the time before there was anything called science.

… nothing can come from nothing …

Once we have determined what a particular philosopher’s project is, it is easier to follow his line of thought, since no one philosopher concerns himself with the whole of philosophy.

How can I “see” a flower, for example?

You probably wouldn’t admire a friend who was good at everything if it cost her no effort.

She decided that philosophy was not something you can learn; but perhaps you can learn to think philosophically.
Why is Lego the most ingenious toy in the world?

Why did people quit playing when they grew up?

“I’m not playing!” Sophie retorted indignantly, “I’m doing a very complicated philosophical experiment!”

Do you believe in Fate?
Is sickness the punishment of the gods?
What forces govern the course of history?

Who had the right to call other people’s belief superstition?

One day we will meet, but I shall be the one to decide when and where.

Thus the “fortune-teller” is trying to foresee something that is really quite unforeseeable.
This is characteristic of all forms of foreseeing. And precisely because what they “see” is so vague, it is hard to repudiate fortune-tellers’ claims.

Over the entrance to the temple at Delphi was a famous inscription: KNOW THYSELF! It
reminded visitors that man must never believe himself to be more than mortal—and that no man can escape his destiny.

…wisest is she who knows she does not know…

Is there such a thing as natural modesty?
Wisest is she who knows she does not know...
True insight comes from within.
He who knows what is right will do right.

But today, most people think it is “natural,” even though
it is still strictly forbidden in lots of countries.

But the more she did, the more clearly she saw that knowing what you don’t know is also a kind of knowledge.

But didn’t all knowledge come into people’s heads from the outside?

The history of ideas is like a drama in many acts.

In order for democracy to work, people had to be educated enough to take part in the
democratic process.

“The question is complex and life is short.”

Modesty—or the lack of it—is first and foremost a matter of social convention.

“You can seek him in the present, you can seek him in the past, but you will never find
his equal.” on Socrates

So it is no easy matter to distinguish between the teachings of Socrates and the philosophy of Plato.

Socrates saw his task as helping people to “give birth” to the correct insight, since
real understanding must come from within. It cannot be imparted by someone else. And only
the understanding that comes from within can lead to true insight.

Something within him left him no choice.

A “philosopher” really means “one who loves wisdom.”

A philosopher knows that in reality he knows very little.

...it troubled him that he knew so little.

“One thing only I know, and that is that I know nothing.”

Any one question can be more explosive than a thousand answers.

All he knew was that he knew nothing—and it troubled him. So he became a
philosopher—someone who does not give up but tirelessly pursues his quest for truth.

Can you live a happy life if you continually do things you know deep down are wrong?

“We don’t learn anything there. The difference between schoolteachers and philosophers is that school-teachers think they know a lot of stuff that they try to force down our throats. Philosophers try to figure things out together with the pupils.”

“It’s not him who’s disturbed. But he likes to disturb others—to shake them out of their rut.”

... several tall buildings had risen from the ruins …

We still speak of Socratic or Platonic philosophy, but actually being Plato or Socrates is quite another matter.”

Plato's four tasks.
First you must think over how a baker can bake fifty absolutely identical cookies.
Then you can ask yourself why all horses are the same.
Next you must decide whether you think that man has an immortal soul.
And finally you must say whether men and women are equally sensible.

… a longing to return to the realm of the soul…

Because even though some horses were as brown as bears and others
were as white as lambs, all horses had something in common.

All she knew was that dead bodies were either
cremated or buried, so there was no future for them.

Why are horses the same, Sophie? You probably don’t think they are at all. But there is
something that all horses have in common, something that enables us to identify them as
horses. A particular horse “flows,” naturally. It might be old and lame, and in time it will die. But
the “form” of the horse is eternal and immutable.

Because clearly, the mold itself must be utter perfection—and in a sense, more beautiful—in comparison with these crude copies.

... the girl in the mirror winked with both eyes…

Was it the path she had taken earlier?

How could a person who had never seen a live chicken or a picture of a chicken ever have any “idea” of a chicken?

What came first—the chicken or the “idea” chicken ?
Are we born with innate “ideas”? What is the difference between a plant, an animal, and a human?
Why does it rain?
What does it take to live a good life?

...a meticulous organizer who wanted to clarify our concepts …

You’ll have to content yourself with the fact that you are not the only one who can’t exceed your own limits.

Everybody is more or less peculiar. I am a person, so I am more or less peculiar. You have only one girl, so I am the most peculiar.

Common sense and conscience can both be compared to a muscle. If you don’t use a muscle, it gets weaker and weaker.”

The world is me, she thought.

And as you know, when a thing gets bigger and bigger it’s more difficult to keep it to yourself.

It is the only way to become more than a naked ape. It is the only way to avoid floating in a vacuum.

... going only part of the way is not the same as going the wrong way…

Sorry. My lips are sealed.”

But she had been nervous, and when you’re nervous its comforting to break all taboos.

“It’s easy to know better after the fact.”

We shall become better acquainted by and by

But philosophy is not a harmless party game.

One generation ages while another generation is brought forth.

Life is both sad and solemn. We are let into a wonderful world, we meet one another here, greet each other—and wander together for a brief moment. Then we lose each other and disappear as suddenly and unreasonably as we arrived.

“It’s not a silly question if you can’t answer it.

“Does all this really matter?” “Does it matter? You bet it matters!

“Smart. But not so smart really.”

“Is it really as simple as that?”

For the wages of sin is death.

That was a serious slip of the tongue.”
“But a slip of the tongue is never wholly accidental.”

…such stuff as dreams are made on…

She knew her mother knew that Sophie knew her mother wouldn’t believe it either.

“No, there’s a lot I don’t know.”

“Well, nearly everything that’s important comes either from Greece or from Italy.”

That was actually quite a lot in the space of one second.

carpe diem’—‘seize the day.’

‘memento mori,’ which means ‘Remember that you must die.’

But any display of magnificence presupposes a display of power. It has often been said that the political situation in the Baroque period was not unlike its art and architec

... he wanted to clear all the rubble off the site…

“You begin to work out your own philosophy.”

‘How can you be certain that your whole life is not a dream?’

Y - The Last Man

2010-10-17T10:41:00.000-07:00

Recently read the comics series Y The Last Man.

Tale of a single human male and his pet monkey, who survive an instant death to all the mammals that have the 'Y' chromosome; read males. All the mammal males, even the sperms die at the same time. This leads the world in chaos. Yorick the only male to survive this disaster is escorted by Agent 355 with Dr. Mann a scientist, who seems to be the only woman who is capable of doing anything about the catastrophe. So starts the adventure, with only one male remaining in the world

Quotes

#1

Who wants peace, when we have not yet begun to fight?

I am not afraid of the world.... I am afraid of the world without you.

# 5

When the game is over, the Queen and the Pawn go in the same box.

# 7

No price is too great for your opponents king.

# 8

There's a line I never thought I'd have to hear again.

# 09

Your imprisonment was also your emancipation.

# 12

Euphemisms are only for those who feel guilt about what they are
describing.

With little power comes little responsibility.

# 13

None of us is innocent.

# 14

... but sometimes you must do terrible things for peace.

# 15

This is what happens to friends when a man comes between them.

# 18

Ain't nothing worse than ladies in numbers.

Is this some kinda joke?
That's what I keep asking myself.

The Day of The Locust

# 20

It was like, they had crossed the finish line already, you know? But I
still had a million laps to run.

Everyone else just thinks I'm dumb and impulsive and .. well not that
I am not...

Endings have to be earned.

# 21

Isn't this the part where you do something stupid?

# 22

Good thing, our shit lawys goes according to plans...

Just because you can dance doesn't mean that you are a dancer...

# 25

I came here for forgiveness... but now I've just got more shit to be
sorry for.

The things we do make us what we are.

You fuck better than you preach.

# 27
You, young man are wise beyond your years.

# 29

Karma is a fucking urban legend.

# 32

Waters won't be always this calm.

# 35

And I'm no more guilty than you are qualified to sit on that bench.

# 37

The future never shapes up like you figure it will...

# 38
Come on, we have a rumour to kill...
# 42

Love isn't an emotion it's an abstract construct mammals assign to a
biological imperative they don't fully understand.

# 43

Everybody needs somebody.

Sure, this will probably end up being another in a long line of
emotionally crippling misadventures.

No, real relationships can only be forged by hate.

The gangster of love knows how to simulate all passages great and
small.

Yes, you are very beautiful when you cry.

# 44

Everybody has got something to hide.

Everybody's got something, right?

# 47

How is it wrong if no one ever knows about it?

We may be changing countries, but we will net let that country change
us.

# 49

Mixed messages in my bane existence.

# 50

Faith and science can be friends, but they make for a disastrous
marriage.

Answers to the unknown are all around us.

# 51

Our bodies tell us that we love so many, but there's room in our
hearts for so few.

# 52

Our sexes maybe equal, but they are not the same.

Because you confused your protective instincts with romantic
feelings.

# 53

Still, you can take the girl out of htthe amazon, but you can't always
take the amazons out of the girl, right?

# 55

A good relationship isn't where one the other person makes you feel
better, but where they make you better.

# 57

So you would have said no to the man, but yes to the last man.

I have so many different ways to respond to that, I don't know even
where to begin.

# 60

We spend nine months trying to get out of a women and rest of our
lives trying to get back in.

Gel'fand's Quote

2010-10-12T11:50:00.000-07:00

This is taken from The Method of Coordinates by I. M. Gel'fand
E.G. Glagoleva A.A. Kirillov

Of course, it was not our intention that aIl these
students who studied from these books or even
completed the School should choose mathematics as
their future career. Nevertheless, no matter what they
would later choose, the results of this training re
mained with them. For many, this had been their first
experience in being able to do something on their own
-- completely independently.

1 would like to make one comment here. Sorne of my
American colleagues have explained to me that
American students are not really accustomed to think
ing and working hard, and for this reason we must
make the material as attractive as possible. Permit me
to not completely agree with this opinion. From my
long experience with young students aU over the
world 1 know that they are curious and inquisitive and
1 beIieve that if they have sorne clear mate rial pre
sented in a simple form, they will prefer this to aIl
artificial means of attracting their attention -- much as
one ,buys books for their content and not for their
dazzling jacket designs that engage only for the
moment.

The most important thing a student can get from the
study of mathematics is the attainment of a higher
intellectualleveL In this light 1would like to point out
as an example the famous American physicist and
teacher Richard Feynman who succeeded in writing
both his popular books and scientific works in a
simple and attractive manner.

I. M. Gel'fand

A Woman's Snare...

2010-09-14T23:25:00.000-07:00

They chatter with one man,
Look at another with amorous gestures;
And in their minds think of yet another,
Who then is loved by a woman?

From: Bhartrihari [7th Century]

When you read these lines, the immediate thing that you want to do is to find a woman in your memory lanes that fits the above bill. One will perhaps find not one, but many. But, perhaps this also applies to men, in fact I think they are more likely to do so, if you accept the explanations from evolutionary psychology and comparative psychology.

In evolutionary psychology they say that the males want to produce as many offspring as possible. So they try to mate with as many females as possible, many times the quality does not matter, only quantity does. This is so because the males do not have to invest [sic] a lot in mating. The analogy that is often given to the sperm production in males is to spam mails that hit your mailbox daily. Even if one in 10 million makes it, your job is done. But for the females the bodily investment is much larger. So females they say prefer quality over quantity. After the copulation it is the female who has to bear the child, and the responsibility of male becomes minimal. Imagine if a human male copulated daily with a fertile female, which I guess one can, how many children can he produce in a life time? Perhaps in thousands. Similarly if we think of human females producing children when they can, that is taking into consideration their biology; perhaps one child in a year, considering all other factors, the total number will be max at 2 dozen or so. So it is the males who would are more likely to be mating more than women to produce children and that too with many different ones, if they have the capabilities.

This particular observation is not general, and of course does not apply to all species. There are species of sea-horse in which the males rear the young ones, in almost all birds the rearing of offspring is the joint responsibility of the couple. In animals who have social structures, as in case of humans and monkeys, the young ones are raised socially.

But we being humans, do not copulate just for procreation, we do also copulate for recreation [of ourselves that is]. They say that dolphins and chimps are the only other creatures which do so, no wonder they are called intelligent. All other animals copulate when their natural cycle tells them to. So in this light of recreational copulation the above verses acquire a different meaning. There are women and men who copulate and want to copulate for recreation, it is perhaps their nature to do so, but perhaps they are bound too strongly by the social sanctions that surround them.

The next question to ask is that is it right for them to do so?

Well, the answer depends on what one thinks of such social norms. Are they to be followed in to to, or they have an interpretation dependent logic.

The answer is something that I do not know...

PS: Perhaps the essay might sound silly, it is; I have to expand on certain sections.

Why children hate maths...

2010-09-14T00:47:00.000-07:00

Today, because it is the 15th Monday of your 5th grade year,
          you have to do this sum irrespective of who you are or what
          you really want to do; do what you are told and do it the
          way you are told to do it.

From: The Children's Machine by Seymour Papert

मेरी दु‌आ...

2010-09-09T08:13:00.000-07:00

मेरी दु‌आ है तेरी आरजु बदल जा‌‌ए

तेरी दुआ से कजा तो बदल नही‌‌ सकती
मगर है ईससे ये मुमकीन की तु बदल जाए

तेरी खुदी मे अगर इनकलाब हो पैदा
अजब नही के ये चार सो बदल जाए

वही शराब वही हया अो हु रहे बाकी
तरीक-ए-सबिक अो रस‌मे कदो बदल जाए

तेरी दु‌आ है की हो तेरी आरजु पुरी
मेरी दु‌आ है तेरी आरजु बदल जा‌‌ए

अलामा ईकबाल

Blossoms in Bangalore...

2010-09-02T00:14:00.000-07:00

Well, Blossoms in Bangalore? I was in Bangalore during the spring and start of summer 2010, and have seen quite a lot of them. Here is a sample!

But it is not this blossom that I am talking about. But there is a special Blossoms in Bangalore. It is round the year blossom of books! With the bibliophile that I am, the book is like a three storied candy shop.

But anyways, I came to know about this "candy shop" from Tanu. She told me that you MUST VISIT this place.

http://www.blossombookhouse.com

Okay, then me and GN directly landed from the airport to the Blossoms Book House in Church Street. The store has a unique feature to store your bags, they have small lockers and you lock your bag and keep the key!

That apart the book store is one of the best that I have ever visited, no questions about that.
The lower floor has books on philosophy, nature, films, music, architecture, media. General reading etc.

The second floor is full of literature. This is a floor I have had not found time to visit in my two trips there.

The best is the third floor. It has books on science, mathematics, computers, psychology, history and biographies among others.

And the popular science section is amazing!
They have all the titles arranged according to author names: like in a library and they maintain a computer catalog of these books. I got some really good titles here. Many of Mir books, Dover editions which were out of print. And that too at a reasonable if not cheap price always. The most commonly found book is Contact by Carl Sagan. I must have seen at least ~ 20 copies of this book in different editions in this store.

The best part is that along with new books they also have old and second hand books. Which really sets the day for you. Out of print and rare books to be found here!!

Apart from that I met long forgotten volumes, it was like meeting old friends unexpectedly in a strange place. (Perhaps they were happy to meet me also ;)

We could not just finish in time, it was already their closing time. And I did not feel how the three hours went by. Me and GN were just collecting, filling basket after basket by books. Finally the time came to leave, and books amounted to two cartons! How were we supposed to carry? They suggested that they will send it by parcel to Mumbai! So were are done!

No matter what kind of books you read, you are sure to get them here!

The next time story was no different. And we were in till there closing time again!

I wanted to spend an entire day there, but could not. May
be will try next time.

But if you are in Bangalore its a MUST VISIT.

A paradise and candy shop for bibliophiles!!

Saurav is planning a visit to Bangalore just for Blossoms!!

[Blossoms photos by Tanu, please get some shots from the inside!!]

Other Candy shops:

http://me-damitr.blogspot.com/2009/05/candy-shops-for-bibliophiles-3.html
http://me-damitr.blogspot.com/2009/05/candy-shops-for-bibliophiles-2.html
http://me-damitr.blogspot.com/2009/05/candy-lanes-for-bibliophiles-1.html

For actual blossoms

http://me-damitr.blogspot.com/2008/05/summer-and-spring-special.html

Cigol

2010-08-30T05:04:00.000-07:00

I have coined a new term: cigol.
The term may have some meaning, google gives it as a surname for many.
But for me it is something, which I am suffering due to.
To guess the meaning read the term backwards.

And you will get it!

Now there is a term illogical which is already existent, but when I mean cigol, it is
not exactly illogical. There is a differnece. The difference is that
illogical would mean devoid of logic. But in case of cigol, the logic is
very much there, but is reversed. They are very much applicable to babus.
For example if something is supposed to help you, they make it in such a way
that it becomes unhelpful, deliberately.

I would love to cite a lot of examples, but alas I cannot for reasons known to all.