Get used to it: $SHINY_NEW_THING comes and most of the comments around here would be of the form, "But $HACKABLE_STUFF already exists; why would you ever need $SHINY_NEW_THING?"
Come to think of it, it's amazing to see how resistant, even cynical, a distributed group of folks calling themselves 'nerds' are, to change.
How can they think that people accessing google news via RSS is bad for them, especiallysince google is not making money from google news via advertising?
That's a misrepresentation; read the guy's webpage. Google asked him to take down a publically accessible web front for his RSS aggregator, not the aggregator itself. There are quite a few RSS aggregators that you can set to actively google for keywords.
First of all, I think the link is incredibly selective in its analysis of influences in Indian astronomy. For instance, it talks zilch of the Vedanga Jyotisa, possibly the most influencial astronomical treatise in the 4000 years of Indian astronomy (assuming the Vedas and the related Vedangas were written around 1500 BCE or so). It is also strangely silent on the extra-ordinary influence that Greco-Chaldean traditions, namely the solar calendar, the 12 month-year and the seven-day week, had on Indian astronomical practices. Then again, I guess the author's main intention was to gather together whatever astronomical books he's heard of into one single page, so I guess it's kinda excusable. Just to critique the document histiographically.
Anyway, from the link:
Computing the shadow of the Moon aided the calculation of time and planetary positions. Many works were composed on this topic, the major ones being: Candracchyaganita I by Paramesvara, followed by Candracchayaganita II by Nilakantha, and Candracchayaganita III and IV that remain anonymous. Other works include Chayaslaka by Acyuta Pisarati, and three anonymous texts Candracchayanayanopavah, Chayaganita (four different volumes), and Suryacchayadiganita (two different works).
Note that the Chandra Chaya Ganita (literally the 'Mathematics of the Shadow of the Moon'; you probably knew this already, but just to de-exoticize the name) first two authors are, indeed, known. Even though the dude who wrote this used the A-word, I think he just meant to say that the other two authors are unknown as of now; a bit like we not knowing who the original author of, say, Scarborough Fair is. That's pretty common in many texts and is not usually indicative of a tradition of authors being willingly anonymous.
Which was my main itch in the first place, really; of the few Sanskrit texts I've read, there have been none where the author seemed to have willingly chosen to remain anonymous; the concept of a 'Sutradhar' (literally 'director', but more accurate to translate here it as 'narrator') was pretty strong back then (even in mathematical texts, incidentally; Leelavati in Bhaskaracharya's works as an example), and most authors used to offer themselves as willing narrators. And indeed, they often used to present themselves as characters of their works, much like Night-saab, Hitchcock and Subhash Ghai these days; both Valmiki and Maharishi Veda Vyas were actual characters in the Ramayana and the Mahabharata respectively.
This, of course, is not to say that the authors of the CCG III and IV weren't willingly anonymous; just that, it's impossible to tell from this text. It is also not to say that you're wrong in your assertion; quite possibly, it is I who needs to read even more and even further.:-)
Nevertheless, shameless self-plug time: Many moons ago, I was a student of Indian astronomy.:-)
But in a way, I guess you have a point; the Vedas were, indeed, a collective work of sorts, and has been known to, for instance, have at least 20 women authors. Then again, it'll be interesting to see if that authorship model scales to, say, the open source model; really dont think the Vedic caucus would have included anything from anyone!
Incidentally, there's an incident similar to Noah's Flood in Vedic mythology. A Maha- pralaya occured when Hayagriva The Asura stole the Vedas from the sleeping Lord Brahma. The world was rescued only when Lord Vishnu appeared as a fish (matsya avatara) and slew the asura, thus rescuing the Vedas. (There's also a sub-plot involving a boat and protecting the Sapta Rishis, but I'm too tired to narrate that).
Since it's quite likely that this guy was violating Australian copyright laws, though probably more leanant than any US ones, why does the US feel the need to punish him HERE???
Two points: the bigger case, really, was that of a piracy ring in MIT. This guy was the only remaining member of the group, just that he was in Australia.
Now the real reason what made this possible (as opposed to 'Why America?') is because American law enforcement and Australian law enforcement cooperate with each other on many levels. There was an earlier case where a Chicago-based dude was served summons for an Aussie-land forgery; dude registers sydneyopera.org or something and proceeds to sell fake tickets to victims from Europe and other places. Can't recall if he was merely served papers or whether he was extradited to Oz to face a trial there. (sorry, couldnt find an article on Google)
Personally, wont be surprised if the Aussie prosecutor (in the Aussie court which allowed this guy's extradition) is close buddies with his American counterpart. Law enforcement, especially "cyber" law enforcement, in most countries have strong linkages with each other, at diplomatic, political, official and informal levels. Consider presentation for a brief intro on the subject.
Perhaps the more disturbing issue is will this case define the internet's legal jurisdiction to be that of the United States thus ignoring the world wide scope of the internet's audience?
Not really; all that was spin by NZ Herald. You still can't have, for instance, FBI agents with American warrants knocking down Australian homes.
It's simple really. Note that he put it under a communication skills heading, and talks of animating "remote individuals". Think about it: how can you animate remote, international individuals and that too by communication alone? Through the net of course! And how would you animate individuals (by which I presume he meant 'humans') through the net? By posting something that irks them!
In other words, dude's saying he is a professional troll.
and over priced, its 200rs for a DVD, 110 for a vcd
NO wonder that female couldn't stop smiling! And there I was, thinking I've gotten a huge bargain... (just spent like four times on DVD's that amount at Singapore before flying over to SL)
but in a realistic sense, we didn't have much of an IP law system, basing it on the British legal system and Roman Dutch Law. most of the precedents in use today have been set in the 1800's (yes really)
Yup, the precedent I can think of is in India during a cricket series. ESPN/Star and the (state-run) Doordarshan basically fought over those rights; the courts finally gave their decision based on, I'm not kidding, The Telegraph Act of 1897. My point is that most countries have some fair amount of IPR protection, although you're right, not to the extent to which the US has now.
Btw, we're facing a similar situation out here in Singapore; gov.sg recently signed an FTA with the US. Which (may be?) is good and all for trade, but fact is, we now have a DMCA-clone here, and yup, playing around with your satellite stream is a criminal act.
Should be interesting to read your JE on this; looking forward to it!
Would be interesting to see exactly what has changed with the new IP protection treaty. Like I said in an earlier post, most post-colonial nations actually have pretty stringent copyright laws; my gut feeling is that the Windows bootleg was illegal even without the treaty.
Wait... you telling me that Harry Potter VCD I bought at Sirimavo Intl Airport for SL Rs 300 is ILLEGAL?!:-)
A lot of third world countries do not recognize copyright, so it wouldn't acutaly be pirated software there.
There's this 1985 study by the World Bank on exactly this issue. Turned out the actual graph of nations versus IPR protections (ie, copyrights, trademarks AND patents, although not necessarily software patents) was an inverse bell-curve; that is, the more improverished nations (sub-Saharan Africa?) actually had protection-levels equivalent to that of the (so-called) First World nations. Essentially, all their IPR laws were colonial-era laws; with other pressing issues taking center-stage, their governments didn't fiddle around with them. It was only nations that were (are) developing economies, notably countries such as Malaysia, China (?) and India (drugs industry as an example), that had lesser IPR protection because their industries needed tech fast.
Of course, the WTO changes all that; now the graph is more or less a straight line. That is to say, that Windows XP SP2 CD you bought off Kuala Lumpur's streets for 8 ringgits is still illegal, even if it's affordable.
Oh, might as well mention this:- the local LUGS believes all MRT screen-thingies (those LCD panels that announce when a train is coming) have Red Hat (9?) installed on them, but I remember seeing a pic of a BSOD at Raffles Place; don't know if it was a photoshopped piece of art or not.
But I suppose the most amusing photo-op was when MS.sg released Windows XP at Takashimaya; some dude held up a lone sign saying Windows sucks or something to that effect. Singaporean police being what they are, couldn't resist having a chat with the guy (and basically asking him to either tone it down or bugger off); now, that pic, was awesome in a tabloid kind of way. Did rally up the local Linux crowd quite a bit, that, although they finally ended up doing nothing except laugh nervously.
But don't feel bad about MS penetration levels here; I mean, there's not much you can do anyway when someone has a lot of money and wants to, well, spend it, but the impression I get is that most "big" companies at Raffles Place all swear by Apache/J2EE/non-MS stuff. Heck, just the other day, a project manager for one of the bigger estate companies (can't remember if it was JTC or Ascendas) was even asking about Mono; apparently, folks are afraid that they might be relying "too much" on MS tech.
PS:- Yup, Singaporean resident myself.
PPS:- Am also drunk, so I'll probably wake up tomorrow morning, read through all this, feel ashamed, sign up for a new account, and karma whore just to get enough mod points to mod myself down.
PPPS:- Don't mistake Thursday nights for Friday nights. You might pay less for beer, but you still have to go to work tomorrow.
in India where there's a 70 / 30 ratio of men / women in Computer Science
It's called "reservation", or what you in the US called as Affirmative Action. 33% of seats in most engineering colleges in India are reserved for women applicants.
Given the cultural push towards education over there, computer science isn't stereotyped as a male oriented field as it seems to be here in the US.
As a male Indian, I've gotta admit this:- the HOWTO, seems to me, is listing all the wrong reasons!:-) Women in India don't get into engineering not because they get gawked at more often or anything, but because there are many families out there who don't see the need for women to do a job. It's like, why spend four years studying your daughter when you can wait all along and get a six-figure-earning husband for her. Things are changing of course, all my female classmates at school, for instance, have passed through college, but all the same, family discrimination is the real challenge India faces, not un-social men.
Which is not to say that Indian geeks don't gawk at girls or scare them away [heck, pretty sure I do!;-) ], but... girls running away from IT coz some men are un-social? Ummm, don't they want to earn good salaries?!:-)
Not really true. There is *pathetic* little female representation at the IITs (and other engg. colleges); ask any IIT-an about it;-).
Frustrated IIT-ians might complain about not having a social life, but let's face some facts:- the majority of freshly minted engineers in India are not from the IIT's. They are from those engineering colleges in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and other places. These are places where, I might remind folks here, there is 33% reservation for women.
In any case, girls have consistently outperformed boys in school-leaving examinations for many years now, so it's simply not true to say that competent women are under-represented in engineering circles in India.
Slashdot Mirror
Come to think of it, it's amazing to see how resistant, even cynical, a distributed group of folks calling themselves 'nerds' are, to change.
Ah, but the mods' sense of humour is indeed very subtle. :-)
Anyway, from the link:
Note that the Chandra Chaya Ganita (literally the 'Mathematics of the Shadow of the Moon'; you probably knew this already, but just to de-exoticize the name) first two authors are, indeed, known. Even though the dude who wrote this used the A-word, I think he just meant to say that the other two authors are unknown as of now; a bit like we not knowing who the original author of, say, Scarborough Fair is. That's pretty common in many texts and is not usually indicative of a tradition of authors being willingly anonymous.Which was my main itch in the first place, really; of the few Sanskrit texts I've read, there have been none where the author seemed to have willingly chosen to remain anonymous; the concept of a 'Sutradhar' (literally 'director', but more accurate to translate here it as 'narrator') was pretty strong back then (even in mathematical texts, incidentally; Leelavati in Bhaskaracharya's works as an example), and most authors used to offer themselves as willing narrators. And indeed, they often used to present themselves as characters of their works, much like Night-saab, Hitchcock and Subhash Ghai these days; both Valmiki and Maharishi Veda Vyas were actual characters in the Ramayana and the Mahabharata respectively.
This, of course, is not to say that the authors of the CCG III and IV weren't willingly anonymous; just that, it's impossible to tell from this text. It is also not to say that you're wrong in your assertion; quite possibly, it is I who needs to read even more and even further. :-)
Nevertheless, shameless self-plug time: Many moons ago, I was a student of Indian astronomy. :-)
But in a way, I guess you have a point; the Vedas were, indeed, a collective work of sorts, and has been known to, for instance, have at least 20 women authors. Then again, it'll be interesting to see if that authorship model scales to, say, the open source model; really dont think the Vedic caucus would have included anything from anyone!
Wasn't making any point as such, just an observation.
Oh wait.
(Seriously, I really can't think of any books with authors like that! Any pointers?)
Incidentally, there's an incident similar to Noah's Flood in Vedic mythology. A Maha- pralaya occured when Hayagriva The Asura stole the Vedas from the sleeping Lord Brahma. The world was rescued only when Lord Vishnu appeared as a fish (matsya avatara) and slew the asura, thus rescuing the Vedas. (There's also a sub-plot involving a boat and protecting the Sapta Rishis, but I'm too tired to narrate that).
Now the real reason what made this possible (as opposed to 'Why America?') is because American law enforcement and Australian law enforcement cooperate with each other on many levels. There was an earlier case where a Chicago-based dude was served summons for an Aussie-land forgery; dude registers sydneyopera.org or something and proceeds to sell fake tickets to victims from Europe and other places. Can't recall if he was merely served papers or whether he was extradited to Oz to face a trial there. (sorry, couldnt find an article on Google)
Personally, wont be surprised if the Aussie prosecutor (in the Aussie court which allowed this guy's extradition) is close buddies with his American counterpart. Law enforcement, especially "cyber" law enforcement, in most countries have strong linkages with each other, at diplomatic, political, official and informal levels. Consider presentation for a brief intro on the subject.
Not really; all that was spin by NZ Herald. You still can't have, for instance, FBI agents with American warrants knocking down Australian homes.In other words, dude's saying he is a professional troll.
Oh yes I do get the h2g2 reference, but was trying to pun. Too bad it seems to be lost out here.
Methinks you misspelt 'Babblefish'. :-)
Btw, we're facing a similar situation out here in Singapore; gov.sg recently signed an FTA with the US. Which (may be?) is good and all for trade, but fact is, we now have a DMCA-clone here, and yup, playing around with your satellite stream is a criminal act.
Should be interesting to read your JE on this; looking forward to it!
Wait... you telling me that Harry Potter VCD I bought at Sirimavo Intl Airport for SL Rs 300 is ILLEGAL?! :-)
Of course, the WTO changes all that; now the graph is more or less a straight line. That is to say, that Windows XP SP2 CD you bought off Kuala Lumpur's streets for 8 ringgits is still illegal, even if it's affordable.
Seriously, it's an interesting book that you mention; thanks for the reference. Should be fun to read it this weekend.
But I suppose the most amusing photo-op was when MS.sg released Windows XP at Takashimaya; some dude held up a lone sign saying Windows sucks or something to that effect. Singaporean police being what they are, couldn't resist having a chat with the guy (and basically asking him to either tone it down or bugger off); now, that pic, was awesome in a tabloid kind of way. Did rally up the local Linux crowd quite a bit, that, although they finally ended up doing nothing except laugh nervously.
But don't feel bad about MS penetration levels here; I mean, there's not much you can do anyway when someone has a lot of money and wants to, well, spend it, but the impression I get is that most "big" companies at Raffles Place all swear by Apache/J2EE/non-MS stuff. Heck, just the other day, a project manager for one of the bigger estate companies (can't remember if it was JTC or Ascendas) was even asking about Mono; apparently, folks are afraid that they might be relying "too much" on MS tech.
PS:- Yup, Singaporean resident myself.
PPS:- Am also drunk, so I'll probably wake up tomorrow morning, read through all this, feel ashamed, sign up for a new account, and karma whore just to get enough mod points to mod myself down.
PPPS:- Don't mistake Thursday nights for Friday nights. You might pay less for beer, but you still have to go to work tomorrow.
Which is not to say that Indian geeks don't gawk at girls or scare them away [heck, pretty sure I do! ;-) ], but... girls running away from IT coz some men are un-social? Ummm, don't they want to earn good salaries?! :-)
In any case, girls have consistently outperformed boys in school-leaving examinations for many years now, so it's simply not true to say that competent women are under-represented in engineering circles in India.
SysAd at you Sci fac's secret hornet nest?! Any people I know? :-)
What, are you kidding? Google has LONG ceased to be a standards-obeying company; I mean, just look at Gmail or Blogger for chrissake!
You're slow on cynicism, arent you? :-)
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