Truth is not always sweet

Muscle memory

2010-11-10T15:47:00.000-08:00

I just noticed a peculiar fact: I have not memorized the keys layout on my keyboard, yet I type so fast and accurately without actually looking at the keyboard. I am surprised that my finger muscles have memorized what my brain couldn't. All I know of the layout is ASDFGHJKL. Ask me to type the alphabets in order, a,b,c,d,e,f,g,h,i,j,k,l,m,n,o,p,q,r,s,t,u,v,w,x,y,z... Amazing, my fingers

hang glider and information heat engine

2010-11-01T19:26:00.000-07:00

Ok, so professional hang gliders can stay afloat for hours and move from city to city. Hey wait a minute. Hang gliders don't have motors. So no work is done. So entropy can never decrease and the gliders should eventually come down. Well this is a Maxwell's daemon. Well this is information heat engine. The glider collects information on vertical air currents and exploits them. He must do work to

Improve mathematics of high school students!

2010-10-22T14:50:00.001-07:00

This cartoon is fun hah? Ok the google buzz discussions centered on finding the minimum number of currency notes that add up to a certain value, say 27 dollars. The greedy algorthim: $20 + $5 + $1 + $1 = 4 notes. You cannot get $27 with less than 4 notes. Conjecture: If for any 3 distinct currency notes x <= y <= z we have x+y <= z, then the greedy algorithm of choosing denominations is

Endhiran Review:

2010-10-03T10:41:00.000-07:00

Summary: First half was real good comedy. Second half was a copy of an English movie "The bicentennial man" and was too predictable. Animations in second half were good. Overall: Better than most movies, but fails to cross the bridge from "good" to "great". In particular it is nowhere near Asimov's imaginations. Don't do my mistake, never hope that the imagination and story line will compare to

Free information

2010-09-23T13:59:00.000-07:00

Currently, humans can have private thoughts that are inaccessible to others. What will the state of humanity be if no one can hold private thoughts? That is, what if whatever any one person thinks is always available to any other person in the world? All your innovation and research, your intimate moments with your lover, your credit card information, everything, available to everyone. You cannot

That capitalism beats communism is a shame for humanity...

2010-09-23T12:53:00.000-07:00

It is a shame for humanity that Capitalism beats Communism. Don't you agree? Wouldn't it be better if all humans put humanity ahead of their individual selves? That way, you don't need to incentivize the most efficient person to perform well, and can still advance humanity? In that situation communism will work, won't it? I definitely hate capitalist society because it kills the freedom of most

I hate DELL, I hate capitalism. Damn you...

2010-07-29T23:49:00.000-07:00

A Blackberry addict discovers grassroots enterprise in India - Shekharkapur.com A greater ‘hole in the wall’ you cannot imagine. A small fading sign on the top saying “Cellphoon reapars” barely visible through the street vendors crowding the Juhu Market in Mumbai. On my way to buy a new Blackberry, my innate sense of adventure (foolishness) made me stop my car and investigate. A shop not more

They say the problem is choice. Is that so?

2010-07-27T16:57:00.000-07:00

Below is an interesting video that one of my friends pointed me to. If you watch the video: I love her ideas on making a collective choice, but I am against her idea of having choice removed from me altogether. I have kept my philosophical thoughts at the end. Her talk contains 2 main arguments against choice: 1. There are too many choices to make. The user does not have enough time to decide

Divine action and Natural selection

2010-05-14T08:58:00.001-07:00

Well So far I thought that the living cell is so complex, it cannot have come by chance. My father once told me that the simplest living cell is so complex that the chances that it is created by chance are that of a helicopter being created as a result of people dumping stuff randomly in the garbage can. Now consider the alternate hypothesis that God created the living cell. Then who created

Foundation and earth

2010-05-03T11:36:00.001-07:00

I actually realized this novel is the greatest SF I have ever read. It did not get good ratings, yet it captured a very fundamental trade-off that we may face as a civilization. Right now we are facing it in the form of a cold-war between Russia and America: The clash between 2 opposing philosophies. In the future, the choice is between Foundation (US) and Gaia (Russia). More on this later!!!

Upset stomach causes depression

2010-04-29T23:59:00.000-07:00

It seems most of the stress starts from the stomach. That's what one of my friends in the dining hall told me! I was feeling mentally disturbed and seemed to be in a depression. For a long time, I was unable to discern the cause of the stress. I couldn't shut my sad thoughts. I then decided to keep calm and find where the mental stress was originating from. It seemed to be from the stomach. Then

Strangest of statistics

2010-04-22T00:49:00.000-07:00

Here is a link to the Indian driving experience. And here are the death statistics: US and India. lol at 2004 statistics: In USA, there are 42636 deaths, while the number is 92618 in India. Divide it by the total population, and you get something really remarkable. Hey wait a minute. Divide it by the total number of vehicle owners in the country. Will they be the same then? Well, a lot of

Monkeys and Nuclear proliferation

2010-04-13T15:46:00.000-07:00

This blog may perhaps help Prof. Martin Hellman in his current project to defuse the nuclear threat . Well, my aim is to explore a more fundamental debate like I always do. Ok monkeys first, because I like monkeys. Why monkeys? We make fun of monkeys, but we fail to acknowledge that we all behave like monkeys: We tend to copy others! You all know that people made the same mistakes: Everyone

The best run ever! I am my best companion.

2010-03-28T14:43:00.000-07:00

Run on a random route on campus and get lost. Run in to the nice old lake lag. No idea how you got there. The board reads "Sign a petition to get the lake filled; it's not going to work, but you can try anyway". Get lost again and end up at the tennis courts. Get chased away from the golf course for trying to run there. Watch a couple trying to ride a horse. A random exit takes me to sand hill

Miseries of a blog

2010-03-24T16:36:00.000-07:00

Readers please vote on the poll to the right BEFORE READING THIS BLOG. If you have time, please comment why you voted what you voted in perhaps 1 line. Your feedback is helpful. Thank you. (Scroll down to read) I thought online space was an open place where I can really put in whatever I felt. Apparently it isn't so and that is of course a bitter truth. Its even more bitter

MMORPGs are real bad! There is only one interesting story about it!

2010-03-23T14:11:00.000-07:00

Especially runescape! I mean, do you really expect me to click all the time for fun? This is my short adventure in MMORPGs, given that I have my spring break and I am not going out! Mission: Go capture a pike fish. To capture a pike fish: You need a fishing level of atleast 25. To have level 25: Keep fishing, that is keep clicking on the fish. Mission: Make a steel bar. Requirements: 2

Do entrepreneurs grow exponentially fast?

2010-03-23T13:17:00.000-07:00

I realized that those who work in companies have a linear growth of wealth, at least more or less so. Of course, they can get interest from savings, but adjusted to inflation, the growth is more or less linear. Now consider an entrepreneur. Is his growth really exponentially fast? Perhaps when the capital available is large enough, but atleast for a while his growth rate is not exponential.

Pi day special: Elementary proof that the circle maximizes the area for a fixed perimeter

2010-03-14T09:51:00.000-07:00

Ok so today is Pi day , therefore I would like to present some properties of the irrational number Pi. I decided to put in a simple proof of the isoperimetric inequality: Let C be any closed simple curve constrained by perimeter P (there are mathematical definitions of simple, but I won't go in to that here). Then the area of C is atmost P^2/(4*Pi), and equality occurs if and only if C is a

Champions of the mind

2010-03-12T09:06:00.001-08:00

Why my democracy model will not work

2010-03-11T13:51:00.000-08:00

Suppose I am a totally ignorant person who cannot get any support and decide not to participate in elections. Suppose Obama is the winner of page rank and he decides to vote for me. Then I win the elections! In other words, page rank creates too much influence in co-ordination. It works for websites because popular websites are not necessarily competing: They co-operate to make each other more

Fun

2010-03-09T13:47:00.000-08:00

Contra vs Tetris If you become a TA Humor

Reply to Muski AND TO EVERYONE

2010-03-06T22:58:00.000-08:00

Its just as the novel fountainhead and Bhagawat gita said: People are more interested in finding problems than in finding solutions. Every of the people I talked to had the same idea. They all hate democracy the way it is, but when a potential new idea is put before them, they never give one argument for it. They never even consider an idea. They are all programmed against change; programmed to

A MUCH BETTER SYSTEM OF DEMOCRACY

2010-03-06T11:59:00.000-08:00

Ok we all know that "Democracy is the worst form of government except for the ones that have been tried before." My brother and I had a long and hard argument over whether democracy is better than dictatorship. We were unable to reach a conclusion. My political system may perhaps be considered great. Unlike the previous blogs, I will go straight to the point here! I propose a new form of

Rhine paradox: I found this funny.

2010-03-04T16:49:00.000-08:00

Joseph Rhine was a parapsychologist in the 1950’s who hypothesized that some people had Extra-Sensory Perception. He devised (something like) an experiment where subjects were asked to guess 10 hidden cards – red or blue. He discovered that almost 1 in 1000 had ESP – they were able to get all 10 right! He told these people they had ESP and called them in for another test of the same type. Alas,

Stanford law professor Lessig, Lindows vs microsoft and my hatred towards God

2010-03-04T13:53:00.000-08:00

I found this link interesting. Its dated 2002, but its about a Stanford professor who fought against extended copyright of old stuff, to prevent the monopolization of entertainment industry. Its sad that not many people seemed to support his great ideals. Click here and here for the story. How many people do talk of freedom, but didn't even bother to fight for their freedom? Seriously, should