Quid Discimus

Blogging from Overleaf

noreply@blogger.com (Arin Basu) — Thu, 16 Feb 2017 21:15:00 +0000

Using Overleaf as a blogging client

I use Overleaf for all my writing and presentations. Iâd like to use Overleaf for blogging as well. I usually write my blog like posts in Medium but Medium cannot yet show posts that contain tables, figures, and citations. So, I was looking for a workflow that might be useful for bringing in the power of Overleaf and blogging where one can customize the appearance of the paper and share in an html format.
I suppose one can go in a number of directions. From the simple to a little more complex,

I can convert a LaTeXdocument Iâd write in Overleaf to HTML and email the document to a Blogger or Wordpress site. That might be the easiest?
If I want a little more flexibility in terms of how I want the site to appear and tweak things, I can use Github to use Github pages to push and serve my article as a static file that people can read
An alternative way is to use static site generators and a web hosted solution such as Surge or Netlify to serve the paper.

Publishing an Overleaf Article as a blog post through Wordpress or Blogger

For this, you need the following:

An Overleaf Account (Free, you get 1 GB free space)
A Blogger or Wordpress Account.
An installation of Pandoc
An installation of Git
An Email Client

Here is a workflow for using Overleaf with blogger to set up blogging.
Go to blogger, set up an account if you do not have one, or select a blog where you want to work. Then set up your account so that you can email files to blogger directly and get published instantly. Here is a screenshot:

Configure blogger to set up your email address

Once you have set it up, you can write your post in Overleaf. Write posts in the LaTeXmarkup. In the main.tex file, input the file. Then, use git to clone the Overleaf article repository to your local repository.
git clone URL
Now you use Pandoc to generate the html from the LaTeXdocument, and the code is
pandoc -f latex -t html â"filter pandoc-citeproc â"bibliography sample.bib -o post1.html main.tex

Explanation of this code

pandoc is for invoking the pandoc programme
-f and -t are from and to, so from latex to html
filter: use it if youâd like to use a bibliography file and references, in this case the file name is sample.bib
-o is for output and give it a file name, in this case post1.html
main.tex is the name of the file that gets converted

In your blogging folder it will generate a file titled post1.html. If the image files, the bibliography files and the html files are then emailed to your blogger email address this will show up.

Issues

While this gives a quick workable solution for posts with few images, if you have to include a large number of images, this might work but quite cumbersome. An alternative approach would be to keep the images in the Web and use markdown to write your posts. This is where creating Jekyll sites powered by Jekyll-Pandoc and serving with Surge becomes quite a useful option, a topic I will turn to next.

Classeur01

noreply@blogger.com (Arin Basu) — Mon, 30 May 2016 09:44:00 +0000

How to connect between Markdown and Medium

Medium is a great place to share articles, thoughts, ideas, and stories. Markdown is a great way to write text. It supports plain text, codes, citations, a whole lot of features. But Medium does not support Markdown. Markdown does not enable one to directly export to Medium. Markdown can however be written on a regular web page and then can be formatted to export to other blog clients, for example Wordpress and Blogger.

Enter Classeur.io

Classeur.io is a great service and I learned about classeur.io while surfing Stackedit.io, my favourite web based markdown editor. Unlike stackedit.io, classeur.io has a desktop app as well. Like Stackedit.io, classeur.io has a nice front end where I can write really nice post. I really like the aesthetics of the classeur.io now. It has a very pleasing interface. It also has a desktop app for your platform. I really like it. Here’s how it looks:

You can add tables which Medium natively doesn’t support

Medium natively	Markdown to Medium
Lovely Interface	Classeur has nice interface as well
Does not support Math	This one supports Math

Quite nice features. One of the things you can do with this one is to use footnotes ¹

How to connet the two

Write everything in Classeur
Publish as an html file

Can be used to insert references, solves an issue of writing scientific texts or scholarly texts in Medium
Also, this can be used to push articles towards Authorea. ↩

Nepal Earthquake Notes - 2 - Response

noreply@blogger.com (Arin Basu) — Sun, 26 Apr 2015 22:27:00 +0000

Our experiences their experiences

(This photo was taken from the Canterbury Public Health Response Document)

In 2011 February 22nd, Christchurch was struck with a 6.4 earthquake at about 12.51 PM in the afternoon. The epicentre of the earthquake was around a place known as Lyttleton. The city centre was badly affected, many buildings collapsed and particularly in the Eastern suburbs of Christchurch, the devastation was remarkable as hundreds of houses were immediately destroyed or were rendered useless for living. People were displaced and were accommodated in several shelters across the city and a massive restoration operation was launched. Immediately following the earthquake, the death tally stood at 185. Following the initial earthquake, the city suffered about 12,000 more aftershocks over the next three years. The citizens battled the aftershocks as they rebuilt the city. Four years later, Christchurch is again coming back to her former glory and plans are afoot for the renvewal of the city. But in the rebuild and reconstruction of the city of Christchurch hangs a tale that can have important lessons for everyone around the world.

In 2015 April 25th, Nepal, in Kathmandu suffered the result of a similar earthquake of much larger intensity 7.9 Richter scale epicentre located at Lamjang in the Kathmandu Valley and not far from Everest. This also led to massive damage, about 1900 lives lost in the first 24 hours itself, and massive losses of property. Several villages disappeared, and there were avalanches from Mount Everest and other mountains that added to the woe. At the time of writing this, rescue operations are underway and several aftershocks have already taken place.

At the time of writing this, a massive recovery operation is taking place, and you can learn more about the recovery operations here

I write this on the third day of the Nepal earthquake and would like to highlight some aspects of earthquake disaster management and strategies that I saw implemented in Christchurch. Some public health and disaster management measures certainly helped people of Christchurch and led to far fewer deaths and destructions that would otherwise occur. In no particular order,

Immediately after the earthquake, the public health department issued warnings about boiling drinking water and restriction of the “flushing the toilet”. Which meant, the advisories were about conservation of water and keeping in mind that it was possible that the drinking water might be contaminated. It turns out that these two activities alone led to really less load of people with stomach related diseases that would otherwise occur.
The city government formed a crisis management team and the mayor oversaw the operations. The control room effectively managed hundreds of visitors and worker bees who turned up to set up search and rescue operations that led to the recovery of bodies and clearing of people who were trapped in the debris.
Several volunteer organisations set up shelters that allowed people to camp out and provided food, shelter, and clothing.
In addition to medical services, several additional services such as mental health services and care were pressed into action.
A thorough evaluation of every building was undertaken, and each building in each residential zone was “sticker”-ed, or colour coded so that the status of the building would be known.
Fresh water was provided to the affected neighbourhoods
Recovery operations were televised and tally of the deceased and recovered were made available to people.

A good description of the steps are available with the Wikipedia entry

Nepal Earthquake Notes Day One -- Donation

noreply@blogger.com (Arin Basu) — Sun, 26 Apr 2015 01:59:00 +0000

On 25th April, 2015, around 12 PM Nepal time and 6 PM NZ Time, a devastating earthquake of 7.9 Richter scale (?10 kilometre) deep epicentre in Lamjang, struck Nepal. The tremors were felt in several cities across North India and in China.

The news of this earthquake brought to my mind our experience of the 2011 Christchurch earthquake and its aftermath. Right now it is time for relief operations to see as few lives are lost, and salvage as much as possible, and save as many people as possible, get people out of the disaster zones.

Following the news item, I tried peeking into the blogs and twitter feeds and Facebook pages. I have to picked up or stored images here (these are available throughout the web, quite gruesome), but I have started putting together some themes that I think are important for me to learn more about the earthquake that happened and what we can do about it. I shall continue to curate and learn about this earthquake and link to our own research and experiences as much as I can over the next few months. For that, I have saved “nepal” as a search term in twitter and will continue to search google for more information.

To summarise the main information sources, it seems that immediately after the earthquake about 1400 people died in Kathmandu and Pokhara. About 18 people, who went to the Everest mountains for trekking, died on the base camp. The base camp was damaged by avalanche from Mount Everest. These are significant losses. Equally, some agencies have set up relief camps and are accepting donations. There is a website that nicely lists them and it is important that we support these sites in their relief work.

One of the first things that come to mind about disasters is to help. For many of us, helping with materials may work, but it is easier and topical to help with money, particularly with online donations. There are some interesting perspectives that people have offered about online donations for disaster relief.

Finding out People

An important area of concern is to find out people. Here,

Google and Facebook are doing really well online. See this article by John Fingas, over at Endgadget where he reported that
Facebook has rolled out its recently introduced (recently refers to April 2015) Safety Check feature to tell people if contacts in the area are okay – survivors only have to report in to ease the mind of searchers.
Google India office revived its longstanding Person Finder to assist you in both locating loved ones and sharing news with others. You’ll want to get in direct contact or reach out an embassy if you’re still concerned about affected locals, but these internet tools could spare you from a lot of uncertainty.
Nepal Earthquake Search

Donating and doing Something

The other area where you can help is by donating online. Christopher Dawson at CNN sums up,

The Nepal Red Cross Society is the epicenter of the relief efforts and is a direct way to help the people of Nepal. Here is its online donation link, NRCS, please note that their website connectivity is on and off, so you might not be able to get through.
AmeriCares has sent its response team to the impact zone and relief workers are preparing shipments of medical aid and relief supplies for survivors. You can help by donating online to their disaster relief fund.
CARE is on the ground and preparing to provide temporary shelter, ready-to-eat meals and water purification and latrine construction. You can learn more about their relief plans here or go directly to their donation page to help.
Global Giving has created a Nepal Earthquake Relief Fund to immediately help both local Nepalese nonprofits and international aid organizations. Supporters can donate online or text GIVE NEPAL to 80088 to donate $10.
Handicap International has been in Nepal since 2000 and the 47-person team is safe. They are providing wheelchairs and assistance to the local hospitals which they report are overwhelmed. You can go online to directly support their Nepal Earthquake Response .
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) is preparing an emergency response operation and is prepping resources from its hubs in New Delhi, Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok. The federation is releasing funds from its Disaster Response Emergency Fund to support the initial emergency response, and you can further support their efforts by donating here.
International Medical Corps is on the ground coordinating their response and sending additional staff and resources to support relief efforts. You can support the Nepal Earthquake Response online, or by texting MED to 80888 to give $10.
MercyCorps has launched the Nepal Earthquake Response fund to help provide food, water and temporary shelter in the aftermath of this disaster.
Oxfam International is working to help provide clean water, sanitation and emergency food for those affected by this disaster. Donate via Oxfam America here
Save the Children is working to protect vulnerable children and provide relief to families. You can donate online to directly support the Nepal Children’s Emergency Relief Fund

UNICEF is working with the government and other partners to meet children’s immediate needs in water and sanitation, protection, health and nutrition. You can help by donating online.

Caveat Emptor while donating?

Donation itself is great, however, it is also important that one should be careful while donating funds.
Amrita Khalid has written this set of words to the wise,
Amrita Khalid writes,

Only hours after a 7.8 magnitude earthquake claimed an estimated nearly 1,000 lives in Nepal on Saturday morning, requests for donations are making the rounds on Twitter. Aid groups such as American Red Cross, CARE, and Save the Children are deploying on the ground assistance to help the Nepal earthquake victims. But it’s been five years since chaotic relief efforts in the wake of the Haiti earthquake drew worldwide controversy. If texting your $10 to help the victims of Nepal did nothing to eliminate that pit of worry in your stomach, it’s hard to blame you.

According to The New York Times, the earthquake in Nepal was about 16 times more powerful than the 2010 Haiti earthquake. Lack of communication from the country further amplifies concerns over the exact scale of the earthquake’s destruction. While nothing should discourage you from contributing to such badly needed relief efforts, it’s normal to question whether aid groups have improved their disaster response since the last incident of such a massive scale.

Many organizations such as the United Nations, aid groups and experts in the field have weighed in on what went wrong in Haiti and what needs to change in the light of another natural disaster of such a massive scale. Now is a timely opportunity to review the problems that first cropped up and what nations, aid workers and the general public can do to make sure the mistakes that happened with Haiti don’t repeat in Nepal.

Research before donating

If you were one of Wyclef Jean’s many Twitter followers who donated to Yéle in Haiti’s aftermath, you probably learned this lesson the hard way. Financial mismanagement riddled most of Yéle’s efforts in Haiti, with had raked in more than $16 million from the musician’s fans concerned about the earthquake. Following the Yéle’ fiasco, the Better Business Bureau came out with a list of mistakes to avoid when donating to disaster relef campaigns. First off, it’s best to stick with well-known organizations such as American Red Cross and Oxfam. If a charity’s name includes the name of the disaster, make sure it’s affiliated with an older, reputable organization and didn’t crop up overnight. Be sure the charity details the exact efforts your money is going towards. Will your dollars go to purchasing food and water for the victims, or to paying staff? BBB always warns against shipping off unsolicited donations such as food and clothing. Relief organizations prefer to buy such items near the site of the disaster in order to eliminate the time and costs associated with delivery.

If you’re unsure of whether the charity you’re considering donating to is legit, BBB’s Wisegiving Alliance can give you a comprehensive report on how the organization measures up.

Engage with the local community

A big criticism of the international community’s response with Haiti was its lack of involvement with the people of Haiti in vital decisions.

Francois Grünewald of Groupe URD noted that many aid workers arrived in Haiti with no knowledge of the local language. Many NGOs bypassed working with local municipal governments entirely.

Writes Grünewald:

“In the future, the aid system won’t be able to function as an ‘occupying alien’ as it largely did in Port-au- Prince, and instead will have to engage with local people, local authorities and local realities.”

That being said, engaging with the local community is easier said than done, especially during times of turmoil and confusion in politically turbulent nations, as was the case with Haiti. United Nations Emergency Relief Coordinator John Holmes writes candidly of the first few months of his time in Haiti and details how frustratingly impossible a balancing act this can be, such as when the Haitian president refused food aid after the first few weeks of the earthquake. Especially during times of turmoil and confusion, the needs of a host country and the missions of a aid organization can conflict more often than one would think.

Writes Holmes:

“One of the most common criticisms of the response is that we failed to engage enough with local actors, even when they had begun to recover from the devastation of the earthquake, and failed to understand well enough the local political, economic and social dynamics. The early problems of access to the Minustah base, and of too many meetings in English, have been well-documented. These are certainly valid points. Many mistakes were made.”

Don’t Fail to Keep NGO’s Accountable and Figure Out Who’s In Charge

Because 99 percent of the aid provided to Haiti came from the way of outside nations and organizations, Haiti is often referred to as “The Republic of NGOs”. A weak, national government and a bevy of NGOs with no one entity to reign them all in was a recipe for disaster. The Nation reported that NGO’s in Haiti used a meager one percent of the money that poured in after the disaster on actually recovery assistance As Vijaya Ramachandra of the the Center for Global Development notes, “A system for registration of NGOs would be a good start, especially as the government still has limited capacity. Eventually, the government might be able to monitor NGO activities and ensure coordination.”

Keep Expectations Realistic

It’s likely the international community’s response to Nepal will be an indication of whether the status quo has changed for international aid. But aid workers and other experts often point out that what went wrong with Haiti has gone wrong during natural disasters in the past, and will continue to do so in the future. Lessons learned or not, the unplanned nature of natural disasters, the sheer scale of their destruction and the differing geographical, political and societal factor of the regions affected can make each recovery effort an entirely different challenge.

Dr. Mirta Roses Periago of the United Nations sums up the problem with Haiti, and other natural disasters in a nutshell:

“If the impact was unprecedented, the organization of the response was not. It followed the same chaotic pattern as past disasters. Information was scarce, decisions were not evidence-based, and overall sectoral coordination presented serious shortcomings. Management gaps noted in past crises were repeated and amplified in Haiti. The humanitarian community failed to put into practice the lessons learned

Notable Sites where you can send help

The World Food Programme
A Gofundme Fund Raising Site for Nepal Earthquake Victims
UNICEF
Save the Children Australia has a good site
Geohazards International, not sure if they have Nepal specific page
Interaction.Org
Relief Web
Indian Prime Minister’s National Relief Fund, more information here,

So, there are mixed messages, and a lot of opportunities out there to go and help out there.

Cold Brewed Coffee

noreply@blogger.com (Arin Basu) — Wed, 22 Apr 2015 11:11:00 +0000

About cold brewed coffee

Can’t remember where I read about the cold brew process, but it sounded quite interesting when I read this. I decided to give it a try today. Essentially cold brewed coffee is where you just coarse grind coffee beans, then steep in water overnight (the recommended period is at least 8 hours and about 18-24 hours), and then pour the resultant supernatant fluid over muslin or cheese cloth or kitchen towel or strainer and a combination of paper towel into the container and store it in refrigerator. Then use it cold or hot. That's about it.

Does it make a difference?

A chef from Jamie Oliver’s group blogged that cold brewed coffee offered “… a very different, far more refined creature" that made him "realise the unique magic of cold coffee, just in time for the pleasant English summer". This blog has a nice summary of the difference between cold brew and iced coffee.

But cold brewed coffee is not iced coffee

For one, cold-brewed coffee is coarse ground coffee steeped in cold water, and iced coffee is generally brewed hot and poured over ice.
Iced coffee tends to be bitter, whereas the cold brewed coffee should be sweeter (based on the reviews I read).
Cold brew, takes 18-24 hours according to some, but it can be I understand also be done within 8-10 hours, but the gentler infusion process produces a drink of lower acidity, which is why cold brew coffee is naturally sweeter.

How to cold-brew coffee at home (these instructions are from this site

You need beans for this: coarse grind the beans, roughly the same consistency as breadcrumbs. Any finer and you risk cloudy, grimy-tasting coffee.
Sterilise a jar (or any large receptacle with a lid). Working to roughly a 1:8 coffee-to-water ratio, place your grounds in the bottom of the jar, and cover with cold water. I did a 1:6 coffee to water ratio and decided to steep it overnight. Will know the results later.
Stir gently until well combined, cover, and leave to steep for 18-24 hours, either in or out of the fridge.
When brewed, strain into a large bowl through a sieve to remove the larger grounds. Discard these (ideally into compost), and then, tucking either your muslin or a few sheets of paper towel into the cleaned sieve, strain back into the jar.
Repeat two or three times, until you are seeing no murky residue at the bottom as you finish your pour.

The general advice is to drink it cold, but I was wondering if it is possible to drink it hot as well, and it turns out that it is OK to drink it hot. I searched Reddit and I found that people have first heated water or milk in microwave or water heater, or kettle, and then added or filed in the prepared coffee and most people were raving about the preparation. So there. Depending on the taste of course, but for hot coffee, most people recommend mixing 1:1 ratio (water: coffee concentrate), or for cold coffee 1:3 ratio (one part coffee and three parts water).

Shape of things to come in medicine

noreply@blogger.com (Arin Basu) — Tue, 21 Apr 2015 09:05:00 +0000

Jon Brassey posted a picture on his blog,

Interesting future. Not far away.

Pick one thing and do it until done

noreply@blogger.com (Arin Basu) — Tue, 21 Apr 2015 08:55:00 +0000

http://timemanagementninja.com/2015/04/pick-one-thing-and-do-it-until-done/

Time management ninja writes, "At the end of the day, you may have worked on fewer tasks… but the ones you did will be done."
I agree.

Design, Meet Gender Violence

noreply@blogger.com (Arin Basu) — Tue, 06 May 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Design, meet Gender violence
// This is a work in progress //

Introduction

In this essay, I propose that “design thinking” can be very useful in framing a response to the challenge we face in India and elsewhere, of the violence against women (VAW) . In India in particular, VAW continues to be a vicious problem (often referred to as “wicked problem” due to its nature and something that is so hard to solve) that confronts a young, emergent nation. Considering the age and demographics of India, we are an emergent yet a nation that have largely young population. What are the causes? There is no single answer to this that can be addressed and a response can thus be framed around it. While the causes may be many and not all of them well explained, two related problems exist. First, we need careful yet novel systematic research to find out the root causes and second, address the issue at the same time. Finally, as time is of the essence here, it is also necessary to take urgent action to protect the lives and dignity of thousands of women. An approach that combines the power of systematic inquiry and possiblity of action is essential and is quite possible. This is the promise of design thinking.
Any approach to solving this problem requires an “out of the box” approach. In this essay, I’d like to briefly introduce how designers think and share ideas as to how we might address the issue of gender violence from a designer’s perspective. In the next few paragraphs, I’d like to briefly introduce the concepts of design thinking, and describe a few scenarios as to how we may address gender violence.

What is Design Thinking? What does it mean?

Design thinking refers to a human-centred, hands-on, pragmatic approach (the principle being “show, don’t tell”) to frame a response to a defined problem. This term and the concept is borrowed from how expert designers work through a problem from the users’ perspective, but the usage is almost universal, as it is possible to apply the concepts of design thinking to bear on any problem, including societal problems to address them. The core element in design thinking is centred around humans and human lives. This appproach consistes of the following five elements: (1) define the problem, (2) develop empathy and insights from deeper understanding from the perspectives of people involved in the problem or challenge, (3) generate and ideate lots of solutions – some on paper, (4) build prototypes to address the key issues around the problem, and (5) finally test the solutions in real world and modify as needed. The five elements are detailed below.
// Insert here a diagram of design thinking

What are the Elements of Design Thinking? What is Human centricity?

As written above, at the heart of design thinking is human-centredness, so that human beings and their needs take the centre stage. The processes typically flow along the five stages - starting with defining the problem from different angles. The second stage is to generate deep insights and empathy building from the perspective of the stakeholders and key players. Typically, this takes the form of mapping the journey of a person who undergoes the experience of the problem that we are trying to address here – putting ourselves in the same situation of the person who is undergoing the experience and mapping the emotional states at various stages of the experience. There are other techniques as well but essentially all of them involve some form of experiential content sharing with the design team. The hard facts that are obtained from other sources and the emotional contents that are collected as part of the journey mapping and indeed other forms of inquiry (it could be in the form of actually the design team experiencing the situation, or using videography, or audio recording, or in depth interviews, indeed the creative ways to explore the emotional states is endless but all of these are highly qualitative inquiry mixed with the play of numbers) then lead the designers to devise one or other forms of prototypes of solutions. These prototypes are different forms of artefacts, or at times, these are metaphors of the solutions themselves. These metaphors are then modified and more or varied or a range of solutions in the form of prototypes are prepared. In the final stages, these prototypes or one or more preferred prototypes in collaboration with the “clients” are put into actually actionable projects or “testable solutions” and put into field tests to see how they work. This is an iterative process, meaning that these can be repeated till a point is reached where the designers working with the “clients” can reach a workable solution to the satisfaction of everyone and can successfully address the problem at hand.

What do we know about gender violence in India and what elements are missing?

Putting these concepts to the problem at hand, that of gender violence, we see that there are several pieces of information that are valuable, and at the same time, there are elements that are missing from the jigsaw puzzle.
We know the statistics of violence against women (some states are worse, perhaps some areas are worse than others, time trends and rising trends). We have documented evidence of the insensitivity of a certain class of people. We also know that there are situations where some social positions make some vulnerable to violence.
While statistics, expert based consensus, and speculations are widespread and perhaps easily available, there are other missing pieces. First, we do not know or there is not enough deep understanding how do women who have undergone violence have felt or detailed maps of their journey through the system starting before, through, and after the acts of violence against them. This mapping is not easy for a number of reasons, and there are significant ethical and difficult emotional and humanistic and legal issues around those situations. Third, we do not know the emotional states of people who perpetrate the crimes beyond knowing the crime statistics and perhaps getting a snapshot of the demographics and to some extent the mental make up of these individuals. From a human centred perspective, men who are the perpetrators of those crimes if you will have not been mapped and there is a need to understand to levels of depth as to what happens during those states only if the aim is to prevent or deter in future.

Where can we bring in the five elements of design thinking for addressing gender violence?

Each of the five elements - the definition of the problem, in-depth understanding of the empathy building process where women who have undergone in the past, where women who are at risk of gender based violence now, and possible perpetrators or the demographics that are comparable to those who have perpetrated the crimes in the past whether they undergo criminal charges and therefore imprisonment or not, there is a need to view the problem from their perspective as well. These facts and figures and emotional states will in turn lead to identification of patterns that will emerge and those, that, in turn will lead to generation of simulations or models or prototypes in the form of either metaphors or toy examples that can be built to test in artificial situations how we can prevent violence against women. Will these work? That is the million dollar question but something worth asking and field testing. If there are formative elements of workable models from the prototypes that will help or at least in the social laboratory settings, then these elements are worth keeping; else, there is a case to go back to the drawing board, or perhaps a step back to reformulate the prototype and design again.

Where to from here?

The future is not certain. As far as we know, a design approach to tackle the issue of violence against women has not been put to test in India. It is time that we put together programmes and ideas to test and see how we can collectively bring together the power of design and address this social problem.

Reflections on "Satellite data shows missing Malaysia plane may have flown thousands of miles-source | Reuters

noreply@blogger.com (Arin Basu) — Sat, 15 Mar 2014 23:16:00 +0000

This is a very interesting analysis as it suggests that this plane could successfully evade the air traffic and defense system of various countries that are highly strategic in not only South East Asia but also China and India, the two major emerging powers. As such, if this is true, then this is ominous. As it might be part of an exercise carried out by some agents that may be interested to carry out a deadlier strike exploiting the loopholes they learned. One more reason why the world must united cooperate and find out what happened to flight MH370.

UPDATE 2-Satellite data shows missing Malaysia plane may have flown thousands of miles-source | Reuters

UPDATE 2-Satellite data shows missing Malaysia plane may have flown thousands of miles-source

By Mark Hosenball
(Reuters) - Analysis of electronic pulses picked up from a missing Malaysian airliner shows it could have run out of fuel and crashed into the Indian Ocean after it flew hundreds of miles off course, a source familiar with official U.S. assessments said on Friday.
The source, who is familiar with data the U.S. government is receiving from the investigation into the disappearance of the Malaysia Airlines plane, said the other, less likely possibility was that it flew on towards India.
The data obtained from pulses the plane sent to satellites had been interpreted to provide two different analyses because it was ambiguous, said the source, who declined to be identified because the investigation was continuing.
But it offers the first real clues as to the fate of Flight MH370, which officials increasingly believe was deliberately diverted off its scheduled course from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. The Boeing 777-200ER was carrying 239 people.
Two sources familiar with the probe earlier said Malaysian military radar data showed a plane that investigators suspect was Flight MH370 following a commonly used navigational route toward the Middle East and Europe when it was last spotted by radar early on March 8, northwest of Malaysia.
The electronic pulses were believed to have been transmitted for several hours after the plane flew out of radar range, said the source familiar with the data.
The most likely possibility is that after travelling northwest, the airliner did a sharp turn to the south, into the Indian Ocean where officials think, based on the available data, it flew until it ran out of fuel and crashed into the sea, added the source.
... For more information, see http://blogs.reuters.com/fulldisclosure/2010/09/27/toward-a-more-thoughtful-conversation-on-stories/

Motivation to learn behavioural economics

noreply@blogger.com (Arin Basu) — Sun, 09 Mar 2014 01:01:00 +0000

Over the next few weeks, I have enrolled myself in the study of behavioural economics in a class in Coursera offered by Dan Ariely and his colleagues at Duke University. It is an open format, massive online course. I know nothing about behavioural economics when I write this, but this course has several readings and assignments and hopefully, learning through at least the seleciton of articles hosted at the site, I hope to learn the basic principles of behavioural economics.

My primary motivation of learnng about behavioural economics stems from my interest to blend in behavioural genetics and patterns of how and why people access health services that are made available to them. Economic reasons are dominant reasons, but equally how economics and their behaviours are related with each other is a matter of interest.

So, over the next few weeks, I am planning to put many of these thoughts as they occur to me during myreadings and my reflections on these pages and will hopefully review these. If you happen to read this blog and would like to post your own thouhts and reflections, please feel free to add your materials or correct me.

Test Post

noreply@blogger.com (Arin Basu) — Mon, 30 Sep 2013 10:44:00 +0000

This is a test post to post from Scrivener to Blogger using markdown.

Steps used:

Draft the post in scrivener in markdown
Convert to html
Emailed to blogger email address

Life in Sheffield

noreply@blogger.com (Arin Basu) — Mon, 30 Sep 2013 10:19:00 +0000

Tulips in full blossom

Trying to Understand App.net: It's Microblogging As a Service, is it?

noreply@blogger.com (Arin Basu) — Sat, 27 Apr 2013 10:45:00 +0000

Understanding App.net: It's Microblogging As a Service – ReadWrite:
Trying to get my head around app.net, found this in @ricmac's post, "So what is App.net? It's a self-described "social feed" service - a.k.a. a microblogging service. It's unclear at this point if this is a service many consumers will actually want. App.net is more likely to find success as an infrastructure service for third party developers who need microblogging functionality in their apps."
Interesting point.

'via Blog this'

The Giraffe Project

noreply@blogger.com (Arin Basu) — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 14:07:00 +0000

About Us: "To move people to stick their necks out for the common good, and to give them tools to succeed."

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10 strange ways to stay healthy [infographic]

noreply@blogger.com (Arin Basu) — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 20:19:00 +0000

Interesting graphic staying health

http://holykaw.alltop.com/10-strange-ways-to-stay-healthy-infographic

This is a wonderful travel list from Paul Theroux, pretty much speaks my heart.

noreply@blogger.com (Arin Basu) — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 19:16:00 +0000

http://travel.nytimes.com/2013/01/13/travel/paul-therouxs-travel-wish-list.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&pagewanted=all&_r=0

What It’s Like To Work, Future-Style | HoppyCow

noreply@blogger.com (Arin Basu) — Sun, 30 Dec 2012 17:55:00 +0000

What It’s Like To Work, Future-Style | HoppyCow:

'via Blog this'

What It’s Like To Work, Future-Style | HoppyCow

noreply@blogger.com (Arin Basu) — Sun, 30 Dec 2012 17:55:00 +0000

What It’s Like To Work, Future-Style | HoppyCow:

'via Blog this'

Darryn George (Ngapuhi) - History - Art Awards

noreply@blogger.com (Arin Basu) — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 10:17:00 +0000

Darryn George (Ngapuhi) - History - Art Awards:

Met Darryn George today. He is a fascinating artist and had a great time discussing with him his work. It's a pleasure getting to know him.

How JuiceDefender helped me to solve my Android Phone Battery Problem

noreply@blogger.com (Arin Basu) — Tue, 04 Dec 2012 04:00:00 +0000

JuiceDefender - battery saver | Battery manager app for Android:

Over the last few days, since I got this new android phone, had a problem with the battery. Keep the phone up for a couple of hours, the battery would run down. Looking for solution at a couple of places (e.g., the wonderful androidforum) led me to download and use JuiceDefender free.

Great programme, download, install and use. Keeps battery use really low, and prolongs battery life. Sweet.

Most Popular How-To Guides of 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Arin Basu) — Tue, 04 Dec 2012 02:37:00 +0000

Most Popular How-To Guides of 2012:

'via Blog this'

Great set of how to tutorials from Lifehacker.

human.io, one lives and learns

noreply@blogger.com (Arin Basu) — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 05:04:00 +0000

human.io: Great tool for Mobile Based Computing

'via Blog this'

Last month, at the Google Maps Meeting in Sydney, I learned about ODKCollect, an android app that makes form based data collection so much more easy. This one goes a step further, you can actually do some cool stuff. Something to play with and get to work.

Which apps are draining my Android device's battery

noreply@blogger.com (Arin Basu) — Sun, 02 Dec 2012 06:34:00 +0000

How to see which apps are draining your Android device's battery | How To - CNET:

'via Blog this'

Do this to check which apps are draining the battery:

Menu Button >> Settings >> About Phone >> Battery Use

Do this to manage:
1. Force Stop the App that you are not using but draining a lot of battery

Got a new android phone that was draining battery power right on the first day. Hopefully this will address some of the problems. Otherwise the phone is good.

Editorial Published in a Bengali Language Paper

noreply@blogger.com (Arin Basu) — Sat, 17 Nov 2012 20:29:00 +0000

This is a brilliant piece of analysis of what's going on in India now, the imbalance or rather the ugliness of imbalance in the distribution of wealth and plenty across Indians. The income gap has widened across the world, this is restrictive of growth. The scriptures and the epics proscribed this imbalance (at least in the context of Indian epics), but it continues unabated.

The article is in Bengali language.

আনন্দবাজার পত্রিকা - সম্পাদকীয়:

'via Blog this'

The bright side of sitting in traffic: Crowdsourcing road congestion data | Official Google Blog

noreply@blogger.com (Arin Basu) — Thu, 15 Nov 2012 18:00:00 +0000

This is a brilliant concept of how to crowdsource traffic data

The bright side of sitting in traffic: Crowdsourcing road congestion data | Official Google Blog:

'via Blog this'

Quid Discimus

Blogging from Overleaf

Using Overleaf as a blogging client

Publishing an Overleaf Article as a blog post through Wordpress or Blogger

Explanation of this code

Issues

Classeur01

How to connect between Markdown and Medium

Enter Classeur.io

You can add tables which Medium natively doesn’t support

How to connet the two

Nepal Earthquake Notes - 2 - Response

Our experiences their experiences

Nepal Earthquake Notes Day One -- Donation

Finding out People

Donating and doing Something

Caveat Emptor while donating?

Research before donating

Engage with the local community

Don’t Fail to Keep NGO’s Accountable and Figure Out Who’s In Charge

Keep Expectations Realistic

Notable Sites where you can send help

Cold Brewed Coffee

About cold brewed coffee

Does it make a difference?

But cold brewed coffee is not iced coffee

How to cold-brew coffee at home (these instructions are from this site

Shape of things to come in medicine

Pick one thing and do it until done

Design, Meet Gender Violence

Introduction

What is Design Thinking? What does it mean?

What are the Elements of Design Thinking? What is Human centricity?

What do we know about gender violence in India and what elements are missing?

Where can we bring in the five elements of design thinking for addressing gender violence?

Where to from here?

Reflections on "Satellite data shows missing Malaysia plane may have flown thousands of miles-source | Reuters

UPDATE 2-Satellite data shows missing Malaysia plane may have flown thousands of miles-source | Reuters

Motivation to learn behavioural economics

Test Post

This is a test post to post from Scrivener to Blogger using markdown.

Steps used:

Life in Sheffield

Trying to Understand App.net: It's Microblogging As a Service, is it?

The Giraffe Project

10 strange ways to stay healthy [infographic]

This is a wonderful travel list from Paul Theroux, pretty much speaks my heart.

What It’s Like To Work, Future-Style | HoppyCow

What It’s Like To Work, Future-Style | HoppyCow

Darryn George (Ngapuhi) - History - Art Awards

How JuiceDefender helped me to solve my Android Phone Battery Problem

Most Popular How-To Guides of 2012

human.io, one lives and learns

Which apps are draining my Android device's battery

Editorial Published in a Bengali Language Paper

The bright side of sitting in traffic: Crowdsourcing road congestion data | Official Google Blog