Does anyone on slashdot notice the irony in that whenever India does something wrt science, immediately the flurry of "Why don't they care about their bleeding poor first?" messages come around, and the first thing after a major Tsunami occurs, there are whines of "Why don't they invest in Tsunami warning systems?"- Do Tsunami warning systems come from charity lunches?
How true. However, I have not been astute enough to observe this in Miyazaki's movies.
But in the darker and famous Grave of the Fireflies, the DVD special features contains an interview of the other Studio Ghibli director, Isao Takahata mentions that the moral he wanted to convey was that you could survive in postwar Japan if you worked hard, but the boy-girl couple in the movie did not bother, and died. The movie-watching public took it just as an immensely touching story of sibling love.
Thank God for that. I do not appreciate the darker message.
A "computer" was almost always a woman. Talented mathematical women were employed in longh calculations in scientific establishments, and the common term for these people was "computer".
Even Turing's famous "On Computable Numbers with Applications to the Entscheidungsproblem" refers to "computers" with "she" and "her".
Indians have looked down. One of the most impressive scientific achievements of India (not much spoken of generally) is that there has not been any famine in Independent India.
The efficient British administration bungled on this as late as Bengal Famine, 1943. In fact, 3 million are supposed to have died in this famine, and caused , among other things, caused Amartya Sen to take up economics, in particular, famine studies.
On the other hand, basic science (like space research) deserves to be encouraged by all
(civilized) nations. Imagine medieval Italians or 18th century Britons waiting till all poverty was eradicated. Science and civilization do not progress in such a manner.
Yes. Agreed. But that is how the Indian programme started. It is not that in 30 years, there is zero progress.
Polar Orbit Launchers have been achieved 10 years ago and Geosynchronous lauchers, recently (in the past two months). Note that EDUSAT, of which the original post makes a mention, was launched from India.
The problem is that the Indian scientists have to justify each and every endeavour in terms of the contribution it will make to the country. Just ``curiosity'' is not considered reason enough. This is just plain neglect of basic science.
It's passed on - deceased; stone dead, bleedin' demised, expired and gone to meet its maker, rests in peace, its metabolic process is now 'istory, it's off the twig! It's kicked the bucket, shuffled off the mortal coil and gone on to join the choir invisible, it is a late browser - if it had not been mozillaized, it would have been pushing up the daisies, it's a stiff, bereft of life, dead - it is an ex-browser!
Certain aspects of calculus were developed two centuries prior to Newton in India by Madhava of Sangamagrama. This seems to be widely accepted now. A few links to Madhava and other Keralese mathematicians are also present here.
On the Other Hand, Stephen Hawking points out that the famous "On the Shoulders of Giants" remark was made in a letter to Robert Hooke, who actively despised Newton (and was despised back.).
Hawking claims that this was a caustic remark on the shortness of physical build of Robert Hooke.
As far as I know, it is not about his work on Mechanics that Newton said this, but about his work on Optics.
Indian Media has repeatedly showed a propensity for tameness. A prominent recent counterexample is the sensationalist tehelka who had to reinvent themselves after a brutual clampdown by the NDA government, in reaction to a defense exposé. More on the tehelka controversy by a prominent Indian journalist, Vir Sanghvi.
This was the govt. led by a prominent leader who complained about the press' complaisance during the 1975-77 emergency of Indira Gandhi - the immortal remark - "When they were asked to bend, they crawled!" So true of the press in relation even to the NDA govt.
As far as I understand, this is the plot of distribution of *size* of the email vs. time. The "darker" color is not enough of a visual hint to determine the *number* of spam messages over time, which is what is important. Also interesting is the large splotches of computer viruses suggesting (maybe!) that variants are roughly the same size, but not exactly the same.
A traditional viewpoint on property is that of John Locke as propounded in his "Two Treatises on Government" - He argues that the justification for property is the labour spent in appropriating the property. A herd of deer belongs to nature and to everyone. But if someone hunts one of the deers, it becomes his by virtue of his labour. He has appropriated it.
With IP, the possession is an idea. When can someone say he has appropriated the idea? It is not a body that you can grasp exclusive of everyone. Many people could have the same idea at the same time. In this view, I do not think the traditional justification for possession of property works for IP.
Moreover, in the case of algorithms, should we not consider optimal algorithms as part of nature (the problem has the optimal solution, therefore it is a property of the problem itself.)? Therefore, optimal algorithms should be considered in the class of "discoveries", and hence not "patentable" IP.
Not necessarily so. You are assuming that the only way to censor a concept is by the govt. to impose sanctions. The so called "majority public opinion" is also a great chimera. Were the Dixie Chicks opposed by the vast majority or by a vociferous minority? Was Disney's decision not to release Fahrenheit 9/11 not an act of censorship?
Corporate Censorship is another diabolical form of govt. censorship. ``Profit'' is no more holier than ``the party line''.
It is doubtful whether Encyclopedia Britannica foreign versions maintain the same exacting standard. I also remember a curious incident of the Kerala consumer court banning the Malayalam translation of Encyclopaedia Britannica because of the profuse number of errors.
One of the interesting aspects of journal publication is the restriction on the lengths of the articles. This forces authors (by-and-large!) to adopt a terse manner of writing ("telegraphic style" as Landau puts it). I think with online publications, the style of scientific writing will change, for better or for worse (I fear for worse!).
Articles could be less cryptic, but verbosity is also not nice. [As in Yes Minister - using fifty words where five would suffice!]
Sorry to object to this form of neo-colonial propoganda. Discrimination is a cultural phenomenon in India, not a legal one. In particular, the constitution assures no discrimination as a fundamental right. Whether it is put into practice is another thing. Lapses are largely due to the legal ignorance of the so called educated masses.
There is another aspect of the prevalence of digital media. Inspite of the fact that commonly available high-quality paper which has expected longevity of ~500 years, and is more "resilient" to error, it seems that more and more libraries are pushing for the digital media storage way.
Common "green" arguments against paper include:
(1) It destroys rainforests. As far as I Know, paper is made from soft wood and pulp. So this is just a muddled argument.
(2) You save trees by using less paper and using digital media - I do not know. All you need to read a book is sunlight (or) a 10-watt reading lamp. Compare it with most computers which consume more energy and the argument seems less strong. Is there some study which regards the per copy energy usage of a paper edition vs. per hit of a digital edition?
There is an interesting book called Double Fold about the attempts to replace paper copies in the library with microfilms. It seems that there is an equal subversion when it comes to the digital media debate.
Slashdot Mirror
Does anyone on slashdot notice the irony in that whenever India does something wrt science, immediately the flurry of "Why don't they care about their bleeding poor first?" messages come around, and the first thing after a major Tsunami occurs, there are whines of "Why don't they invest in Tsunami warning systems?"- Do Tsunami warning systems come from charity lunches?
But in the darker and famous Grave of the Fireflies, the DVD special features contains an interview of the other Studio Ghibli director, Isao Takahata mentions that the moral he wanted to convey was that you could survive in postwar Japan if you worked hard, but the boy-girl couple in the movie did not bother, and died. The movie-watching public took it just as an immensely touching story of sibling love.
Thank God for that. I do not appreciate the darker message.
Yay. That's the best news I have heard in a while. There's some home left in the world.
Even Turing's famous "On Computable Numbers with Applications to the Entscheidungsproblem" refers to "computers" with "she" and "her".
The efficient British administration bungled on this as late as Bengal Famine, 1943. In fact, 3 million are supposed to have died in this famine, and caused , among other things, caused Amartya Sen to take up economics, in particular, famine studies.
On the other hand, basic science (like space research) deserves to be encouraged by all (civilized) nations. Imagine medieval Italians or 18th century Britons waiting till all poverty was eradicated. Science and civilization do not progress in such a manner.
Cobol, anyone?
...
Multiply x by y to get something or the other
Yes. Agreed. But that is how the Indian programme started. It is not that in 30 years, there is zero progress.
Polar Orbit Launchers have been achieved 10 years ago and Geosynchronous lauchers, recently (in the past two months). Note that EDUSAT, of which the original post makes a mention, was launched from India.
The problem is that the Indian scientists have to justify each and every endeavour in terms of the contribution it will make to the country. Just ``curiosity'' is not considered reason enough. This is just plain neglect of basic science.
In fact Werner von Braun took some interest in the Indian space programme, in the 60s.
India's first satellite was launched 30 years ago, called Aryabhata-I named after the 6th century Indian mathematician, Aryabhata.
Also, the launching station at Thumba is right on the Magnetic Equator. A story covering this can be seen here. Also,
A map of the world's space centers is available.
It's passed on - deceased; stone dead, bleedin' demised, expired and gone to meet its maker, rests in peace, its metabolic process is now 'istory, it's off the twig! It's kicked the bucket, shuffled off the mortal coil and gone on to join the choir invisible, it is a late browser - if it had not been mozillaized, it would have been pushing up the daisies, it's a stiff, bereft of life, dead - it is an ex-browser!
Certain aspects of calculus were developed two centuries prior to Newton in India by Madhava of Sangamagrama. This seems to be widely accepted now. A few links to Madhava and other Keralese mathematicians are also present here.
Hawking claims that this was a caustic remark on the shortness of physical build of Robert Hooke.
As far as I know, it is not about his work on Mechanics that Newton said this, but about his work on Optics.
India does account for ~1/3 of the global tuberculosis cases. [pdf] . However, the prevention scheme in India has been largely a success.
Manik Saha was killed in Bangladesh.
Indian Media has repeatedly showed a propensity for tameness. A prominent recent counterexample is the sensationalist tehelka who had to reinvent themselves after a brutual clampdown by the NDA government, in reaction to a defense exposé. More on the tehelka controversy by a prominent Indian journalist, Vir Sanghvi.
This was the govt. led by a prominent leader who complained about the press' complaisance during the 1975-77 emergency of Indira Gandhi - the immortal remark - "When they were asked to bend, they crawled!" So true of the press in relation even to the NDA govt.
As far as I understand, this is the plot of distribution of *size* of the email vs. time. The "darker" color is not enough of a visual hint to determine the *number* of spam messages over time, which is what is important. Also interesting is the large splotches of computer viruses suggesting (maybe!) that variants are roughly the same size, but not exactly the same.
A traditional viewpoint on property is that of John Locke as propounded in his "Two Treatises on Government" - He argues that the justification for property is the labour spent in appropriating the property. A herd of deer belongs to nature and to everyone. But if someone hunts one of the deers, it becomes his by virtue of his labour. He has appropriated it.
With IP, the possession is an idea. When can someone say he has appropriated the idea? It is not a body that you can grasp exclusive of everyone. Many people could have the same idea at the same time. In this view, I do not think the traditional justification for possession of property works for IP.
Moreover, in the case of algorithms, should we not consider optimal algorithms as part of nature (the problem has the optimal solution, therefore it is a property of the problem itself.)? Therefore, optimal algorithms should be considered in the class of "discoveries", and hence not "patentable" IP.
Not necessarily so. You are assuming that the only way to censor a concept is by the govt. to impose sanctions. The so called "majority public opinion" is also a great chimera. Were the Dixie Chicks opposed by the vast majority or by a vociferous minority? Was Disney's decision not to release Fahrenheit 9/11 not an act of censorship? Corporate Censorship is another diabolical form of govt. censorship. ``Profit'' is no more holier than ``the party line''.
It is doubtful whether Encyclopedia Britannica foreign versions maintain the same exacting standard. I also remember a curious incident of the Kerala consumer court banning the Malayalam translation of Encyclopaedia Britannica because of the profuse number of errors.
"If I were to awaken after having slept for a thousand years, my first question would be: Has the Riemann hypothesis been proven?"
David Hilbert
One of the interesting aspects of journal publication is the restriction on the lengths of the articles. This forces authors (by-and-large!) to adopt a terse manner of writing ("telegraphic style" as Landau puts it). I think with online publications, the style of scientific writing will change, for better or for worse (I fear for worse!).
Articles could be less cryptic, but verbosity is also not nice. [As in Yes Minister - using fifty words where five would suffice!]
Sorry to object to this form of neo-colonial propoganda. Discrimination is a cultural phenomenon in India, not a legal one. In particular, the constitution assures no discrimination as a fundamental right. Whether it is put into practice is another thing. Lapses are largely due to the legal ignorance of the so called educated masses.
There is another aspect of the prevalence of digital media. Inspite of the fact that commonly available high-quality paper which has expected longevity of ~500 years, and is more "resilient" to error, it seems that more and more libraries are pushing for the digital media storage way. Common "green" arguments against paper include: (1) It destroys rainforests. As far as I Know, paper is made from soft wood and pulp. So this is just a muddled argument. (2) You save trees by using less paper and using digital media - I do not know. All you need to read a book is sunlight (or) a 10-watt reading lamp. Compare it with most computers which consume more energy and the argument seems less strong. Is there some study which regards the per copy energy usage of a paper edition vs. per hit of a digital edition? There is an interesting book called Double Fold about the attempts to replace paper copies in the library with microfilms. It seems that there is an equal subversion when it comes to the digital media debate.
On this note, there is a connection between Star Wars and LoTR. The term for middle-earth in Quenya is "Endor", the planet in Return of the Jedi.