Does anyone think it's really going to be that many years before hotels that currently provide broadband for $10/night give it away for free? The up front installation may be expensive, but once it's paid for itself the service is really cheap.
Already there in S.Korea. At least, in the three backpacker hostels I checked out. No Wi-Fi though; you had to access the net through their PC's.
Let's just say the situation has become better than before.:-)
(The Registrar's Office is now all kosher about *final* grade results; it's only individual lecturers who upload class assignment results to their course webpages. Mostly Excel spreadsheets neatly tabulating the full name, Matric No and the corresponding assignment grades. Verbally told about this to a couple of lecturers; many have graciously taken those xls files off now. Still, you can find out who my partners were in, say, a module called Programming Languages)
Not sure how Opera can ensure sustained revenue for a freeware browser that has a low share of the browser market
By teaming up with Google. Starting with v7.2, you can get Google's text ads on Opera. I was planning to buy a full version of Opera (there's a student discount), but heck, I like those ads. Very useful if you're searching for something and aren't sure you got the right keyword combination right.
Let's put it this way. Mostly a result of (what I like to think of as) a historical accident, my family has a rather unique surname.
I was just telling this to a fellow/.-tter earlier, but you just need to know my surname, to get to know my research interests, the courses I took in university, the grades that I got in that from two years back onwards, my email, and heck, the EXACT FREAKING LOCATION of my apartment with the nearest subway station, mall, convinience store, petrol pump and ATM all displayed on a neat, clickable map. All this by simply entering my surname into Google's search box and browsing through the 15 or so results you get. (All of them except two results are about me).
Not that I want to blame Google for bringing Big Brother to the common man. It's the same with Alltheweb and SearchBoss as well.
Thanks for the link. This was, as expected, mostly under-reported in the local media.
The agreement also says it will be "a criminal offense willfully to receive or further distribute an encrypted program-carrying satellite signal that has been decoded without the authorization of the lawful distributor of the signal."
This sucks. So much for my plans to hack a TiVo clone together.
Vedic Math and Indian Math.
on
The Golden Ratio
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
I read the book in question a couple of years back. Just would like to say this:- you'd like to distinguish between arithmetic and mathematics, as also, perhaps, between actual scientific history and propaganda.
Vedic 'math' is mostly arithmetic; it's about how to multiply numbers faster (cool method that; helped me throughout most of school) and, like you said, long form division. Even in that, I doubt it was from the Vedas themselves; I remember reading about those 'tricks' (using the term in a broad sense; not a negative connotation) even before I read Tirthaji's book in an old book published in 1936. The book claimed it was a translation of an even earlier Sanskrit book on mathematics (an absolutely fascinating treatise called Leelavati Ganitham); don't quite think it mentioned any Vedic references.
Indian mathematics, OTOH, was mostly from the Medieval Ages, between 5th and 10th centuries CE, when mathematicians such as Bhaskaracharya and, of course, Aryabhatta, wrote their treatises. The reason, apparently, was astronomy and trade; when you are the center of a globalised trade in gems and spices, you want to get your math right.
Quite possible that ancient India knew about calculus, but it's more likely than not that it was a result of a gradual excellence in the sciences, not something that's been left to us automagically by our Vedic ancestors.
If Nairobi happens to figure out how to put together a solid programming base next year, Bangalores' economy will be in the shitter overnight.
I can't help laughing each time I read statements like this. You folks really think Bangalore (or Hyderabad, or NOIDA, or Bombay, or India as a whole) is that dependent on outsourcing? Take a breath, people, and listen to some established facts:- even in Wipro, which is one of the largest outsourcing shops, the largest growing sector was its telecom segment. Any numbers you read mostly talk of how it can grow to become big; it never was big, it isn't big, it only can become big.
The mutinational corporations (in the form of the most wealthy stockholders) are taking advantage of standard of living, population pressures, and the artificial barriers of visas, borders, and the like.
Then again, most of you/.-tters hate H1B's as well. It'll be amusing to see your reactions to a proposal to remove restrictions on Indian developers completely.
(Disclaimer: Indian, but am not in the US, and not on H1-B.)
There is no upward mobility in India, there is destiny and caste
Tell that KR Narayanan, our ex-President and son of a washerman. Or tell that to Dr APJ Abdul Kalam, our current President and son of a (Muslim) fisherman.
We, as American's, can deciede what is acceptable for business to do by creating idea's, orginizations, movements. This is a liberty not afforded to the Indians.
My guess is you don't know what you're talking about.
I doubt if it really happened that way, but even if it is true, I daresay you missed the point of it all.
You see, your notion of India is, indeed, misty images of Taj Mahal. Our notion of US is waaay more than misty images of the Statue of Liberty; it's much more than that. You see, we know your notions of culture; we laugh along with you at your jokes, sing along with you in your songs... we know you. In this respect, we're different from, say, the Japanese; in terms of cultural equations, we aren't just on the other side, but also on yours. Post-colonial Indian culture isn't just about bringing India to the world; more critically, it's about bring the world to India. Which is why you see (an otherwise classical-to-fusion) AR Rehman mastering, say, the jazz music genre for one of his earlier film songs.
Which, incidentally, is also why Brit-Indian comedies such as Bend It Like Beckham or The Kumar's at 42 are so popular.
Look at Wipro's latest filings; it's primary growth area is telecommunications, and what's more, at least 20% of its IT staff is on the bench. All this talk of India being an "IT superpower" is just hype by the industry; it isn't any more an IT superpower than it is a petroleum or a jute superpower.
You really ought to take a trip to the R&D labs at IIIT Hyderabad or someplace likewise.
Incidentally, I'm an Indian (techie of course), and I take immense offence at your categorisation that DRDO and ISRO are the only two R&D places doing cool things:- what, achieving self-sufficiency in food production wasn't cool enough? Take a look the average yield values for the same plot of land from the 60's and now; we have so much food capacity that we can apparently feed a nation the size of England with the grain that gets wasted; this, from a time when we had enough foodgrain to last two weeks only.
Take a trip to your nearest ICAR facility/farm my friend; Indian science is one of the primary reasons why you and your fellow Indians are able to eat.
In this midst of arguing for self-reliance, you forget two very important things:-
a) Before the colonials (that is, Brits, Portuguese, French and Dutch) came, we were actually a thriving center of cultural and financial excellence. Want to take a guess why that was so?
b) I keep pointing this out, but for CENTURIES, calligraphy experts in my hometown Hyderabad have been doing projects originally from the Middle East, making it one of the leading centers of Islamic excellence until the Second World War (still is, in a broad general sense, but the Middle East now has more cash). Calligraphy then, computing/call center ops now... what's the difference?
IDEa is apparently the leanest Java IDE you can get. Eclipse is actually more lean than most of its competitors (jBuilder, Sun's offerings etc), but yeah, it might create problems if you don't have too much RAM.
No. Dikshit, or Dixit, is a popular surname up in the north. The surname particularly shot to prominence because of Madhuri Dixit, a popular Hindi film actress in the late 80's and 90's.
Just mentioned this in an earlier post, but Bubba's Grill at Adyar, Chennai, serves authentic Southern cuisine at, well, not-so competitive rates. Don't know if it still exists of course.
Been answered in the 12th century CE by a certain Jewish trader (from Cairo?) by the name Ben Hiju (if I'm not wrong). He says, YES. Which is why he outsourced the process of calligraph-ising ancient documents to India. That ancient job-line still persists to this day of course; calligraphy shops in my hometown, Hyderabad, still handle hundreds of calligraphy jobs from the Middle East.
You really didn't think this outsourcing business was a 21st century invention, did you?
I'd be curious, if we were to interview these travelling workers, what their response would be if they were given a choice between working that job over in India vs America.
I've travelled to over two continents and some six countries over the past one year, so perhaps you were referring to people like me. I'd say the choice, really, isn't quite between countries, as it is between home and away. All things considered, home wins hands-down for anyone (unless you have been, say, forced into exile by a nepotic regime back home), although it's often fun to go to new places and experience new cultures. Takes a while to adjust to the lifestyle initially, but after a while, all airports and cities begin to look alike; you begin to realise there is no real difference between sleeping at 12AM in Singapore and waking up in Hong Kong the next morning at 8AM. Which is when you want to go home, if only to cool your heels for sometime, before hitting the circuit.
Then again, I dont quite have to provide for a family as such, so I guess my view is tainted in that respect.
If you are a conservative, or could care less about criticizing the government, then these governments are fine. But if you say something, watch out. Same thing with China, except multiply everything I said by 1000x.
At this point, this thread could become very interesting if you could answer this question:- have you, sir, been to China or India? Or perhaps, even to relatively mild authoritarian regimes such as Singapore?
Just curious as to where you came up with this notion that criticizing the government du jour could land you up in trouble in India, like it does in totalitarian regimes.
Perhpas people are even willing to move offshore than lose their respect and work at BKs or McDonalds. But is India really willing to take them in?
I hate going through this routine all the time, but you probably have no idea just how diverse some parts of India are becoming. For starts, we have one of the largest foreign worker populations in the world, mostly as a result of people streaming in from Bangladesh, Nepal and a few African countries. There is one locality in my hometown, Hyderabad, which is a mostly African suburb; the place is called African Cavalry Guards, and is the home of the African community in Hyderabad, a migration process that, mind you, is still on going:- just as you left Chennai for a certain tropical island [nice site, btw;-)], there are students from Kenya, Somalia and other places who come and study in Osmania University, the University of Hyderabad and other universities all around Hyderabad.
There are ex-pat communities in Madras as well; I don't know if it's still there or not, but when I was there four years back, I remember going to this American-owned theme restaurant called Bubba's Grill (or something). I remember chatting with the guy there; guy claimed he liked it over there than in his native Baltimore (or some place).
Which is not to say that Americans, or indeed, people of any non-Indian nationality, will find it easy in India; as a Norwegian friend of mine insists, in terms of culture shocks, India apparently is next only to Japan for international tourists. But all the same, it is important to acknowledge the fact the people all around the world have come to India over the ages to make their living, and still do so, despite fifty-odd years of socialist insularity.
Indian Culture is much different from the American one. Such migration might not help at all.. considering that the Americans will have tough time adjusting to the culture in the first place
Easier than you think (and this, you'll note, was in those early days of liberalisation, before we got all those malls, mobiles and multiplexes in Gurgaon, NOIDA and Cyberabad). Next question.
Moreover, given India is such a big country, many companies would rather do with a talented Indian who understands the work culture and how businesses are run rather than a foreigner
Right, and the tropical island we live on doesn't hire ang mohs. Never underestimate the power of the SPG mentality; civilisational servitude in these parts runs faster than anything else. I'm bitter of course, but telling it from experience.
Can you name more than 3 IDE's for Windows development? No fair using Google....
Let's see... Visual Studio, SharpDevelop and ASP Web Matrix.
This response has been posted "AS IS" and is for entertainment purposes only. In no way does it attempt to either whore for unnecessary Slashdot Karma or provide any meaningful contribution to either side of any debate, technical, religious, temperamental or otherwise.
But ah, there's everything about Opera that does make this a non-issue. As an earlier poster already pointed out, Opera warns its users if they click a link of the type being discussed; it pops up a window saying that the URL might be risky, and asks the user if he does indeed want to go to that link.
You are right about things not being designed with security and UI in mind, of course. Not the web though, but mainly MSIE.
Here is a relevant article on the challenges to free speech faced by independent India. The short summary:- Article 19 (our Fundamental Right to free speech) faces a greater danger in India from mob-raj and special interest groups, rather than Bade Bhai (Big Brother in Hindi), although the danger does exist to a limited extent.
In any case, the YahooGroups incident, methinks, is actually shows that the situation isn't as dire as you might think; consider, for instance, the fact that CERT-India's discussion fora themselves were flooded with angry protests from Indians worldwide, as also the massive negative publicity for a government that wants to project the country as an IT "superpower" (and indeed, the ban, I'm told, has been quietly lifted anyway, although it perhaps can be commented on better by someone like you who is currently in India). This, I believe, is indicative of the very real restrictions that GoI has to face, if it does indeed try to do anything funny; it will be a very long time indeed before CERT-India ventures to ban any other website.
Incidentally, and I pointed this out in another web forum, it's interesting to note a delicious irony regarding American and Indian legal histories:- the First Amendment to the US Constitution gaurantees free speech, while the First Amendment to the Indian Constitution placed restrictions on speech that the original Constituent Assembly didn't call for. Food for thought.
Slashdot Mirror
(The Registrar's Office is now all kosher about *final* grade results; it's only individual lecturers who upload class assignment results to their course webpages. Mostly Excel spreadsheets neatly tabulating the full name, Matric No and the corresponding assignment grades. Verbally told about this to a couple of lecturers; many have graciously taken those xls files off now. Still, you can find out who my partners were in, say, a module called Programming Languages)
I was just telling this to a fellow /.-tter earlier, but you just need to know my surname, to get to know my research interests, the courses I took in university, the grades that I got in that from two years back onwards, my email, and heck, the EXACT FREAKING LOCATION of my apartment with the nearest subway station, mall, convinience store, petrol pump and ATM all displayed on a neat, clickable map. All this by simply entering my surname into Google's search box and browsing through the 15 or so results you get. (All of them except two results are about me).
Not that I want to blame Google for bringing Big Brother to the common man. It's the same with Alltheweb and SearchBoss as well.
I read the book in question a couple of years back. Just would like to say this:- you'd like to distinguish between arithmetic and mathematics, as also, perhaps, between actual scientific history and propaganda.
Vedic 'math' is mostly arithmetic; it's about how to multiply numbers faster (cool method that; helped me throughout most of school) and, like you said, long form division. Even in that, I doubt it was from the Vedas themselves; I remember reading about those 'tricks' (using the term in a broad sense; not a negative connotation) even before I read Tirthaji's book in an old book published in 1936. The book claimed it was a translation of an even earlier Sanskrit book on mathematics (an absolutely fascinating treatise called Leelavati Ganitham); don't quite think it mentioned any Vedic references.
Indian mathematics, OTOH, was mostly from the Medieval Ages, between 5th and 10th centuries CE, when mathematicians such as Bhaskaracharya and, of course, Aryabhatta, wrote their treatises. The reason, apparently, was astronomy and trade; when you are the center of a globalised trade in gems and spices, you want to get your math right.
Quite possible that ancient India knew about calculus, but it's more likely than not that it was a result of a gradual excellence in the sciences, not something that's been left to us automagically by our Vedic ancestors.
(Disclaimer: Indian, but am not in the US, and not on H1-B.)
You see, your notion of India is, indeed, misty images of Taj Mahal. Our notion of US is waaay more than misty images of the Statue of Liberty; it's much more than that. You see, we know your notions of culture; we laugh along with you at your jokes, sing along with you in your songs... we know you. In this respect, we're different from, say, the Japanese; in terms of cultural equations, we aren't just on the other side, but also on yours. Post-colonial Indian culture isn't just about bringing India to the world; more critically, it's about bring the world to India. Which is why you see (an otherwise classical-to-fusion) AR Rehman mastering, say, the jazz music genre for one of his earlier film songs.
Which, incidentally, is also why Brit-Indian comedies such as Bend It Like Beckham or The Kumar's at 42 are so popular.
Look at Wipro's latest filings; it's primary growth area is telecommunications, and what's more, at least 20% of its IT staff is on the bench. All this talk of India being an "IT superpower" is just hype by the industry; it isn't any more an IT superpower than it is a petroleum or a jute superpower.
Incidentally, I'm an Indian (techie of course), and I take immense offence at your categorisation that DRDO and ISRO are the only two R&D places doing cool things:- what, achieving self-sufficiency in food production wasn't cool enough? Take a look the average yield values for the same plot of land from the 60's and now; we have so much food capacity that we can apparently feed a nation the size of England with the grain that gets wasted; this, from a time when we had enough foodgrain to last two weeks only.
Take a trip to your nearest ICAR facility/farm my friend; Indian science is one of the primary reasons why you and your fellow Indians are able to eat.
a) Before the colonials (that is, Brits, Portuguese, French and Dutch) came, we were actually a thriving center of cultural and financial excellence. Want to take a guess why that was so?
b) I keep pointing this out, but for CENTURIES, calligraphy experts in my hometown Hyderabad have been doing projects originally from the Middle East, making it one of the leading centers of Islamic excellence until the Second World War (still is, in a broad general sense, but the Middle East now has more cash). Calligraphy then, computing/call center ops now... what's the difference?
IDEa is apparently the leanest Java IDE you can get. Eclipse is actually more lean than most of its competitors (jBuilder, Sun's offerings etc), but yeah, it might create problems if you don't have too much RAM.
Been told that, but from the opposite point of view, obviously (that non-Indian Nescafe sucks). :-)
No. Dikshit, or Dixit, is a popular surname up in the north. The surname particularly shot to prominence because of Madhuri Dixit, a popular Hindi film actress in the late 80's and 90's.
Just mentioned this in an earlier post, but Bubba's Grill at Adyar, Chennai, serves authentic Southern cuisine at, well, not-so competitive rates. Don't know if it still exists of course.
You really didn't think this outsourcing business was a 21st century invention, did you?
I've travelled to over two continents and some six countries over the past one year, so perhaps you were referring to people like me. I'd say the choice, really, isn't quite between countries, as it is between home and away. All things considered, home wins hands-down for anyone (unless you have been, say, forced into exile by a nepotic regime back home), although it's often fun to go to new places and experience new cultures. Takes a while to adjust to the lifestyle initially, but after a while, all airports and cities begin to look alike; you begin to realise there is no real difference between sleeping at 12AM in Singapore and waking up in Hong Kong the next morning at 8AM. Which is when you want to go home, if only to cool your heels for sometime, before hitting the circuit.Then again, I dont quite have to provide for a family as such, so I guess my view is tainted in that respect.
Just curious as to where you came up with this notion that criticizing the government du jour could land you up in trouble in India, like it does in totalitarian regimes.
There are ex-pat communities in Madras as well; I don't know if it's still there or not, but when I was there four years back, I remember going to this American-owned theme restaurant called Bubba's Grill (or something). I remember chatting with the guy there; guy claimed he liked it over there than in his native Baltimore (or some place).
Which is not to say that Americans, or indeed, people of any non-Indian nationality, will find it easy in India; as a Norwegian friend of mine insists, in terms of culture shocks, India apparently is next only to Japan for international tourists. But all the same, it is important to acknowledge the fact the people all around the world have come to India over the ages to make their living, and still do so, despite fifty-odd years of socialist insularity.
Easier than you think (and this, you'll note, was in those early days of liberalisation, before we got all those malls, mobiles and multiplexes in Gurgaon, NOIDA and Cyberabad). Next question. Right, and the tropical island we live on doesn't hire ang mohs. Never underestimate the power of the SPG mentality; civilisational servitude in these parts runs faster than anything else. I'm bitter of course, but telling it from experience.Which of course, is less than one-third the number of people who died in France.
Quite clearly, the knowledge that you've retained is infinite. :-)
This response has been posted "AS IS" and is for entertainment purposes only. In no way does it attempt to either whore for unnecessary Slashdot Karma or provide any meaningful contribution to either side of any debate, technical, religious, temperamental or otherwise.
You are right about things not being designed with security and UI in mind, of course. Not the web though, but mainly MSIE.
This through ernet.in? Do you know what's the status is like for private ISP's, especially the smaller ones?
In any case, the YahooGroups incident, methinks, is actually shows that the situation isn't as dire as you might think; consider, for instance, the fact that CERT-India's discussion fora themselves were flooded with angry protests from Indians worldwide, as also the massive negative publicity for a government that wants to project the country as an IT "superpower" (and indeed, the ban, I'm told, has been quietly lifted anyway, although it perhaps can be commented on better by someone like you who is currently in India). This, I believe, is indicative of the very real restrictions that GoI has to face, if it does indeed try to do anything funny; it will be a very long time indeed before CERT-India ventures to ban any other website.
Incidentally, and I pointed this out in another web forum, it's interesting to note a delicious irony regarding American and Indian legal histories:- the First Amendment to the US Constitution gaurantees free speech, while the First Amendment to the Indian Constitution placed restrictions on speech that the original Constituent Assembly didn't call for. Food for thought.