Yup, neither in the university I was in until a few days back.:-)
One of the biggest ironies in my college career was that I actually had to downgrade my "official" calc from a graphing to a "normal" scientific calculator for exams and in-class assignments even as the complexity of the problems I got kept on increasing.
Then again, you get all the practice you want with log tables right in JEE (that's the entrance exam for IIT's bachelors programme, for all you non-Indians) itself, so...:-D
(For the record, I HATED those log tables and still insist that calcs, even if only scientific, should be allowed in JEE's. That hasn't changed in all this years has it?)
Have the questions been adjusted to account for use of all these fancy calculators?
One of the questions I got when I took Math IIC was this:-
sin x = cos x. x =?
To this day, I suspect ETS presumed test-takers would plot both graphs (ie, y = sin x, y = cos x) on their TI's, see where they intersect, and then search for at least one of the results to be one of the solutions.
Then again, I never had a high opinion of fellow test-takers especially in math and science; kinda tells you why I'm a regular here on/., I suppose.
Here's some from the IT minister (he erroneously classifies them as 'hardware', which of course they aren't):-
The Philips DVD video codec; the Apple iPod audio codec; the Texas Instruments' OMAP; Microsoft's JSharp; the Adobe reader for Palm and iPaq; Intel's "start up" utility; Cisco's IOS core components; Hewlett Packard's ux; the OpenView kernel; components of Oracle's Pro-c; (...)
MS' IndiaDev center is developing some more apps, if you are interested.
Hardcore app development wasn't India's biggest forte initially, but we're getting there.
Hello, where did you pull that out of? India has over a billion people with far less the area of the US. There aren't any big houses here except for 100 year old bungalows. Few people have houses with more than 2 or 3 rooms with barely enough space to put a couple of beds.
And you sir, from where did YOU pull this off?:-)
As shortages go, only urban Bombay has a real problem on its hands, and mostly because of its shape and its outdated rent control laws; other so-called Tier 2 cities such as Pune, Chandigarh, NOIDA and Hyderabad have excess capacity at the moment. In fact, for all the hype associated with the FDI flowing in there, Hyderabad's property market is actually in a slump now; a lot of vacant office-space and high-value residential property out there.
Elephant polo.. well, I'll admit, I laughed at it. I mean, you will need, ah, rather loooooong sticks to reach the ball.:-D
Nope, now longer; even when the Industrial Attachment Programme was compulsory and was a full six months, it was only for one semester. Not like your normal coop programme methinks; at least, you really can't fund your studies on a long term basis only through the IAP.
Otoh though, the education (and cost of living) is relatively less expensive and there are amazing facilities out here; most of our lectures here are available on webcast.
And oh, SMA is a graduate-studies-only programme, and is very very competitive to get into.
FYI, the web site is "anti-slash.org" and judging by the kind of forum postings they have, it's comprised of some pissed off 13-year-olds with too much time on their hands. They archive highly rated postings from slashdot.org and encourage their buddies to repost them as a way to dilute the value of Slashdot's forums. I notice they have archived three of my postings. This is of dubious legality; don't Slashdot posters own their postings?
Incidentally, the registrant is listed as follows, according to a GoDaddy.com whois search:
ID:0-776643-Gandi
Name:John Marriott
Organization:John Marriott
Street1:506 E Sherman St
City:St. Joseph
State/Province:Illinois
Postal Code:61873
Country:US
Email:marriott@uiuc.edu
--
it's = "it is"; its = possessive. E.g. it's flapping its wings
(With due apologies to yog, but hey, this time around, the reward is not just karma :-)
Actually, very little of pure Indian tech gets deployed on the western front; we Indians have to thank Israeli military scientists for the Phalcon and the thermal radiation sensors they deployed on the border with Pakistan. Note that in diplomatic terms, we didn't even acknowledge the existence of Israel until ten years back; amazing what a military need can do to foreign policy turnarounds. (Not that there's anything wrong with it of course; I'm all for more contact with Israel, would be great if Indian scientists could go to, say, Technion, and Israeli scientists to the IIT's, just to acknowledge an obvious fact)
The missiles and the nukes are a different matter obviously, but in hard-core conventional weapons terms, the Indian military-industrial complex (or the semblance of it thereof) has a long way to go.
As for the conflict exploding, ironic that you should be saying this today; it was only yesterday that the air-links with Pakistan were restored. Again, I'm probably too cynical to think anything good might come of it soon, but all the same, important to consider the ongoing thaw in the Siachen ice.
it is legal to drive a five times the legal intoxication limit of many european countries, while shaving, watching TV, reading a book, fiddling with the GPS, talking on the phone, etc...
You can't do all that in Europe? You mean, all this while, I was only amusing myself by watching the personal videos of a common European criminal?
No, what's worse is that before sundown, you'll see a Sourceforge project replicating the EXACT SPECS of the game to run on Linux.
They'll even call it OpenLinuxBashers, to which, RMS will politely remind us all that it is, in fact, GNU/OpenLinuxBashers, to acknowledge the contributions made by the GNU community at large.
Personally, I've never really figured out how to use a phrasebook (and trust me, I've tried); I mean, for sure, you can get your questions right, but how do you understand the answers? Phrase-idioms describing directions are very very community-specific and are long; it'll take a LOT of work to write all those directions down in the host language, whip your dictionary out, translate all of them, and then get to your destination.
Instead, I find using a bit of gestures, and some key English (or the native language) phrases very useful; to find the directions to a railway station in Germany, you could, for instance, say, "Hapt Bahnof" to an elderly German lady, point towards yourself, and then make an action gesturing that you want to walk to the place. The lady will answer in German for sure, but since you are making pointing out that you don't know the language, more likely than not, she'll simplify her instructions for you to understand. Again, you pick the right keywords ("Marketplatz", "Alexanderplatz" etc.), make sure you get the direction correct (say 'right' and point to the right etc), and presto, you are on your way.
That is to say, knowing the right sentence or two definitely helps you in picking up the chicks (as opposed to elderly ladies) in European (or even more likely, Asian) bars for instance, but beyond that, I really haven't found a use for all those French-In-A-Minute or Mandarin-In-A-Minute books.
This keeps coming up all the time, and I keep pointing this out:- to say America speaks one single language is a myth. There are more than 200 languages spoken within US borders, most of which are spoken nowhere else. Different matter that you don't need to speak Cherokee, for instance, to survive, but all the same, it is important to recognise that there languages other than English that are spoken in the US.
The barbs on (English-speaking) Americans and their insularity mostly stems from this apparent inability to recognise culturo-linguistic groups beyond that of their own. Of course, being loud, abrasive and rash with the natives wherever they go only adds to the problem (which is not to say I think you or all Americans, are so; just telling you about the general impression out here)
But of course, the Americans are not alone in being linguistically insular. I was speaking with two friends of mine, a New Zealander and a German, both Singapore-based, on travel, when the topic turned to Americans and their lack of knowledge of the world around them. One of them said most Americans seem to think Singapore is in China, to which, the other he had read an MIT-published paper that cited another paper published in "Singapore, China". And both started laughing; oh how silly the Americans can be, they don't know that Singapore is a city-state by itself and not a part of the People's Republic of China.
I smiled with them, and said, "Oh trust me, that's not all; most Americans think we speak a language called Indian in India!". And I started laughing myself.
Both of them stared at me for a full five minutes, before one of them quietly asked, "Ah.. so what do you speak then?"
:-)
Somehow, I felt bad for them; there they were, laughing at someone else's lack of knowledge, while their own limits got exposed, albeit unintentionally.
Well, yes but to a lesser extent than you'd suggest. The best example I can give for this is in Pushkar, Rajasthan in India; Pushkar, I'm told, gets a lot of hitch-hikers from Israel, so the shops have started putting up advertising boards in Hebrew. But that is the extent of their Hebrew knowledge, apparently; presumably, you'll still have to speak with the shop-keeper in Hindi or English.
You see, traditionally, the languages of commerce have been pidgins, linguistic mixtures with no body of literature, and mostly invented for the express purpose of bargaining, among other things.
That is how, for instance, I, a non-Chinese (Cantonese or Mandarin) speaker bargain in Hong Kong's night markets; you point to an item being sold, then look up at the guy and turn your hand in askance. Guy looks at you and then at the article, and types a number on his calculator. You look at the number, frown, point towards your pockets, say you don't have that money, upon which the guy now frowns, types another number.. and so it goes on. Indeed, bargaining is an art that requires no language, only numbers and some heavy body language.
Transfer of knowledge (whether scientific or business-related), on the other hand, requires a fully-grown grammar and vocabulary.
(What do I mean by 'business-related' knowledge? To take a 15th-century example, we're talking stuff like, "The Raja of Cochin sends The Sultan of Aden his warmest greetings and some worrying news. The Portuguese have taken over the ancient port-city of Porbandar and our threatening our traditional trade routes. Let us form a combined army and take them out. In return, we'll offer you a year's worth of spices" You can't do that with body-language.)
I presume the English aren't used to getting stared at, but it's a pretty common occurrence (I'm Indian) for me wherever I go, Asia, Europe... anywhere. May be I've grown too used to it all to actually bother about who's watching me and who's not.
Okay I admit it; there was this time (while transitting through Kuala Lumpur, in case anyone's interested) when I wanted to shout something in Arabic-sounding gibberish just to piss the folks off even more.:-D
As I recall, the City of Cologne had actually introduced a wolf population into one of its parks to try and stem the burgeoning rabbit population there.
You know, amusing to read an American perspective on Bollywood, but I really can't agree with his assertion that regional films have taken a browbeat.
It's just that the Tamil film industry had a slump in the last two years, which affected the rest of the Southern industries as well (in terms of dubs), but the returns for the Telugu film industry, for instance, are still the highest compared to even Bollywood; one in four movies are hits.
Basically, you'll find Indian English movies to be less of a culture shock than hardcore Bollywood masala stuff. Be warned though that most Indian English movies aren't completely 'English'; they feature a fair amount of dialogue in Indian langauges as well, mostly with subtitles, but often without.
Slashdot Mirror
One of the biggest ironies in my college career was that I actually had to downgrade my "official" calc from a graphing to a "normal" scientific calculator for exams and in-class assignments even as the complexity of the problems I got kept on increasing.
Then again, you get all the practice you want with log tables right in JEE (that's the entrance exam for IIT's bachelors programme, for all you non-Indians) itself, so... :-D
(For the record, I HATED those log tables and still insist that calcs, even if only scientific, should be allowed in JEE's. That hasn't changed in all this years has it?)
Then again, I never had a high opinion of fellow test-takers especially in math and science; kinda tells you why I'm a regular here on /., I suppose.
Which reminds us of the new 200 dollar bill with George W Bush's face on it.
You HAVE sat on the subway's seats, haven't you? :-)
Hardcore app development wasn't India's biggest forte initially, but we're getting there.
As shortages go, only urban Bombay has a real problem on its hands, and mostly because of its shape and its outdated rent control laws; other so-called Tier 2 cities such as Pune, Chandigarh, NOIDA and Hyderabad have excess capacity at the moment. In fact, for all the hype associated with the FDI flowing in there, Hyderabad's property market is actually in a slump now; a lot of vacant office-space and high-value residential property out there.
Elephant polo.. well, I'll admit, I laughed at it. I mean, you will need, ah, rather loooooong sticks to reach the ball. :-D
I always thought Norway to be a cold sort of place; is it really that hot?
Just look at the third result for your search.
Otoh though, the education (and cost of living) is relatively less expensive and there are amazing facilities out here; most of our lectures here are available on webcast.
And oh, SMA is a graduate-studies-only programme, and is very very competitive to get into.
But it was there when I first heard of it, some two- three days back.
FYI, the web site is "anti-slash.org" and judging by the kind of forum postings they have, it's comprised of some pissed off 13-year-olds with too much time on their hands. They archive highly rated postings from slashdot.org and encourage their buddies to repost them as a way to dilute the value of Slashdot's forums. I notice they have archived three of my postings. This is of dubious legality; don't Slashdot posters own their postings?
Incidentally, the registrant is listed as follows, according to a GoDaddy.com whois search: ID:0-776643-Gandi
Name:John Marriott
Organization:John Marriott
Street1:506 E Sherman St
City:St. Joseph
State/Province:Illinois
Postal Code:61873
Country:US
Email:marriott@uiuc.edu
--
it's = "it is"; its = possessive. E.g. it's flapping its wings
(With due apologies to yog, but hey, this time around, the reward is not just karma :-)
The missiles and the nukes are a different matter obviously, but in hard-core conventional weapons terms, the Indian military-industrial complex (or the semblance of it thereof) has a long way to go.
As for the conflict exploding, ironic that you should be saying this today; it was only yesterday that the air-links with Pakistan were restored. Again, I'm probably too cynical to think anything good might come of it soon, but all the same, important to consider the ongoing thaw in the Siachen ice.
I'm shocked.
They'll even call it OpenLinuxBashers, to which, RMS will politely remind us all that it is, in fact, GNU/OpenLinuxBashers, to acknowledge the contributions made by the GNU community at large.
(posted with the tongue entirely in cheek. )
Personally, I've never really figured out how to use a phrasebook (and trust me, I've tried); I mean, for sure, you can get your questions right, but how do you understand the answers? Phrase-idioms describing directions are very very community-specific and are long; it'll take a LOT of work to write all those directions down in the host language, whip your dictionary out, translate all of them, and then get to your destination.
Instead, I find using a bit of gestures, and some key English (or the native language) phrases very useful; to find the directions to a railway station in Germany, you could, for instance, say, "Hapt Bahnof" to an elderly German lady, point towards yourself, and then make an action gesturing that you want to walk to the place. The lady will answer in German for sure, but since you are making pointing out that you don't know the language, more likely than not, she'll simplify her instructions for you to understand. Again, you pick the right keywords ("Marketplatz", "Alexanderplatz" etc.), make sure you get the direction correct (say 'right' and point to the right etc), and presto, you are on your way.
That is to say, knowing the right sentence or two definitely helps you in picking up the chicks (as opposed to elderly ladies) in European (or even more likely, Asian) bars for instance, but beyond that, I really haven't found a use for all those French-In-A-Minute or Mandarin-In-A-Minute books.
The barbs on (English-speaking) Americans and their insularity mostly stems from this apparent inability to recognise culturo-linguistic groups beyond that of their own. Of course, being loud, abrasive and rash with the natives wherever they go only adds to the problem (which is not to say I think you or all Americans, are so; just telling you about the general impression out here)
But of course, the Americans are not alone in being linguistically insular. I was speaking with two friends of mine, a New Zealander and a German, both Singapore-based, on travel, when the topic turned to Americans and their lack of knowledge of the world around them. One of them said most Americans seem to think Singapore is in China, to which, the other he had read an MIT-published paper that cited another paper published in "Singapore, China". And both started laughing; oh how silly the Americans can be, they don't know that Singapore is a city-state by itself and not a part of the People's Republic of China.
I smiled with them, and said, "Oh trust me, that's not all; most Americans think we speak a language called Indian in India!". And I started laughing myself.
Both of them stared at me for a full five minutes, before one of them quietly asked, "Ah.. so what do you speak then?"
:-)
Somehow, I felt bad for them; there they were, laughing at someone else's lack of knowledge, while their own limits got exposed, albeit unintentionally.
You see, traditionally, the languages of commerce have been pidgins, linguistic mixtures with no body of literature, and mostly invented for the express purpose of bargaining, among other things.
That is how, for instance, I, a non-Chinese (Cantonese or Mandarin) speaker bargain in Hong Kong's night markets; you point to an item being sold, then look up at the guy and turn your hand in askance. Guy looks at you and then at the article, and types a number on his calculator. You look at the number, frown, point towards your pockets, say you don't have that money, upon which the guy now frowns, types another number.. and so it goes on. Indeed, bargaining is an art that requires no language, only numbers and some heavy body language.
Transfer of knowledge (whether scientific or business-related), on the other hand, requires a fully-grown grammar and vocabulary.
(What do I mean by 'business-related' knowledge? To take a 15th-century example, we're talking stuff like, "The Raja of Cochin sends The Sultan of Aden his warmest greetings and some worrying news. The Portuguese have taken over the ancient port-city of Porbandar and our threatening our traditional trade routes. Let us form a combined army and take them out. In return, we'll offer you a year's worth of spices" You can't do that with body-language.)
Chop suey is American.
(Of course, helps that I switched the Offensive Content Filter to 'on')
Okay I admit it; there was this time (while transitting through Kuala Lumpur, in case anyone's interested) when I wanted to shout something in Arabic-sounding gibberish just to piss the folks off even more. :-D
As I recall, the City of Cologne had actually introduced a wolf population into one of its parks to try and stem the burgeoning rabbit population there.
Oh, is it? Guess exposes how bad I am in Mumbaiyya -boli then! :-D
It's just that the Tamil film industry had a slump in the last two years, which affected the rest of the Southern industries as well (in terms of dubs), but the returns for the Telugu film industry, for instance, are still the highest compared to even Bollywood; one in four movies are hits.
Yeah, I'm a bit of a closet Telugu film geek :-)
Bollywood Calling ('explains' Bollywood's inanities)
Snip
Monsoon Wedding
Hyderabad Blues
Dollar Dreams
Mr And Ms Iyer
English, August etc.
Basically, you'll find Indian English movies to be less of a culture shock than hardcore Bollywood masala stuff. Be warned though that most Indian English movies aren't completely 'English'; they feature a fair amount of dialogue in Indian langauges as well, mostly with subtitles, but often without.