Rajiv Sethi in Notes on a Worldly Philosopher:
"The very first book on economics that I remember reading was Robert Heilbroner's majesterial history of thought The Worldly Philosophers. I'm sure that I'm not the only person who was drawn to the study of economics by that wonderfully lucid work. Heilbroner managed to convey the complexity of the subject matter, the depth of the great ideas, and the enormous social value that the discipline at its best is capable of generating.
I was reminded of Heilbroner's book by Robert Solow's review of Sylvia Nasar's Grand Pursuit: The Story of Economic Genius. Solow begins by arguing that the book does not quite deliver on the promise of its subtitle, and then goes on to fill the gap by providing his own encapsulated history of ideas. Like Heilbroner before him, he manages to convey with great lucidity the essence of some pathbreaking contributions. I was especially struck by the following passages on Keynes:"
Robert Solow's review Working in the Dark
Discussion of Solow review Solow: Keynesian Economics Has Become Dramatically Relevant Again Today as well as a discussion of Rajiv Sethi's post in Economist's View.
P.S. A quick summary of the part in Solow's review on Keynes
Solow on Keynes and Uncertainty by Donald Marron
Another readable book introducing economic ideas which I read along with Heilbrinner's book is "Man's Worldly Goods" by Leo Huberman. Two books of comletely different nature which look at economics and development in practice "North of South" by Shiva Naipaul and "Country Driving" by Peter Hessler.
Sunday, October 09, 2011
Friday, October 07, 2011
Drug prices in different countries
I just noticed this blog post (after hearing from a relative that a cancer drug which costs 100,000 dollars in USA costs about 500 dollars in India and the price comparisons for bone marrow transplants do not seem any better)
DRUG PRICES - AN INTERNATIONAL COMPARISON
The author is a Professor of Pharmaceutical Technology in Andhra University, Visakhapatnam. This seems to be one of the several blogs in
Pharmainfo.net
P.S. Correction March 8, 2012:From a further enquiry; it is 10,000 dollars and not 100,000.
See also http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/business/high-cost-of-medical-procedures-in-the-us/
DRUG PRICES - AN INTERNATIONAL COMPARISON
The author is a Professor of Pharmaceutical Technology in Andhra University, Visakhapatnam. This seems to be one of the several blogs in
Pharmainfo.net
P.S. Correction March 8, 2012:From a further enquiry; it is 10,000 dollars and not 100,000.
See also http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/business/high-cost-of-medical-procedures-in-the-us/
The formidable Steve Jobs
From Close Encounters of the Steve Kind:
"I was sitting in Steve's office when Lynn Takahashi, Steve's assistant, announced Knuth's arrival. Steve bounced out of his chair, bounded over to the door and extended a welcoming hand.
"It's a pleasure to meet you, Professor Knuth," Steve said. "I've read all of your books."
"You're full of shit," Knuth responded."
(via Rajeev Ramachandran's Google Reader)
"I was sitting in Steve's office when Lynn Takahashi, Steve's assistant, announced Knuth's arrival. Steve bounced out of his chair, bounded over to the door and extended a welcoming hand.
"It's a pleasure to meet you, Professor Knuth," Steve said. "I've read all of your books."
"You're full of shit," Knuth responded."
(via Rajeev Ramachandran's Google Reader)
Wednesday, October 05, 2011
Climbing ladders
Recently I was told by some Indian friends that I should not climb ladders at my age (70). But my neighbour Frank Burke climbed a ladder when he was eighty to make temporary repairs to our roof after a heavy downpour. So yestereday I brought out our ladder to spray some fruit trees but then left it outside for further spraying. When my granddaughter Ava arrived, she decided that it was fun climbing ladders. But each time she climbed and got down she decided that it was my turn to climb. It turned out quite tiring after about ten times. May be climbing ladders is not so bad but leaving then outside seems to a bad idea.
Links, October 5th
From The Hidu news From barren land to rose fields, a success story:
"There are over 1,000 acres of agricultural land in the village and it is mostly rain-fed. With poor access to water, farmers had to be content with a single crop during kharif season. Annual average rainfall here is about 700 mm and during a good monsoon, the excess rainwater used to drain away without serving any purpose.
Pepsico, under its corporate social responsibility activity, in association with the ADI conducted a water resource assessment study in 2009. Check-dams were constructed on three rivulets that pass through the village and over 100 water recharge structures in the locality, to facilitate better water access to the farming community, says Vaishakh Palsodkar of ADI.
With check-dams, the groundwater levels have improved over the last two years. Most 30-40 feet deep wells in the vicinity are now filled to the brim. With adequate water, farmers are now also cultivating sweet lime and other crops in the Rabi season, which was once a rarity, points out the former sarpanch, Laxman Bobade."
From The Hibdu opinion Chinese herbal garden leads the way:
"More than 40 years ago, amidst the upheaval and turmoil of the Cultural Revolution in China, and against the backdrop of the Vietnam war, hundreds of Chinese scientists embarked on an ambitious effort to find a drug that would conquer drug-resistant malaria. The result was the discovery of artemisinin, a compound found in plants, which, with its derivatives, is now widely used around the world to treat the disease.
This year, a highly prestigious Lasker Award went to Youyou Tu, an 81-year-old Chinese scientist who played a key part in that discovery."
Concensus seems to emerge quickly in mathematics.From Big News (via Rajeev Ramachandran's google reader):
"Just to be clear, here: That’s Ed Nelson cheerfully acknowledging that the book-length argument he’s been painstakingly constructing for (probably) years, and which was intended to shake the mathematical world to its foundations, doesn’t work. This says so many good things about the culture of mathematics, and so many good things about the Internet, and so many good things about the way they interact (see here and here for more examples), and it says those things so eloquently, that I see no further need for comment." See also The (in)consistency of PA and consensus in mathematics .
From Darwinian Tax Reform via Adam Smith's Lost Legacy :
"Frank observes a similar pattern of arms race-like competition in the quest to obtain social status through luxury purchases. As the wealthiest acquire status symbols so too do the middle and lower classes race to keep up by spending money in a never ending competition for prestige. The result is a society living beyond its means. Whereas elk “voting” to change their antler size is a fantasy, we can use policy to alter wasteful spending patterns and increase savings by replacing our progressive income tax with a progressive consumption tax. This is not to be confused with a valued added tax, national sales tax or flat tax endorsed by some libertarians, which he recognizes is rightly decried as regressive. Frank’s formula goes like this:
Taxes Paid = (Adjusted Gross Income – Annual Savings) * (Progressive Rate Structure)
The result of implanting this tax structure, Frank writes, would be that the wealthiest would reign in excessive spending on status goods to avoid the consumption tax. This would relax the pressure to “keep up with the Jones,” prompting the middle and lower classes to follow suit. Of course, there would still be competition for prestige expressed in consumer goods, cars, and real estate, but everything would be scaled back. The progressive consumption tax would generate an economic surplus at the household level. It is the tax structure Charles Darwin would have endorsed and Adam Smith never would have thought of."
The point of the review seems to be that robert Frank did not understand Darwin well but not really a critique of Frank's ideas. Ideas similar to 'Frank's weird ideas about social prstige' have been proposed along ago by Fred Hirsch:
http://home.vicnet.net.au/~aespop/positionalgoods.htm
http://repositorio-iul.iscte.pt/bitstream/10071/515/1/wp43-2005.pdf
"There are over 1,000 acres of agricultural land in the village and it is mostly rain-fed. With poor access to water, farmers had to be content with a single crop during kharif season. Annual average rainfall here is about 700 mm and during a good monsoon, the excess rainwater used to drain away without serving any purpose.
Pepsico, under its corporate social responsibility activity, in association with the ADI conducted a water resource assessment study in 2009. Check-dams were constructed on three rivulets that pass through the village and over 100 water recharge structures in the locality, to facilitate better water access to the farming community, says Vaishakh Palsodkar of ADI.
With check-dams, the groundwater levels have improved over the last two years. Most 30-40 feet deep wells in the vicinity are now filled to the brim. With adequate water, farmers are now also cultivating sweet lime and other crops in the Rabi season, which was once a rarity, points out the former sarpanch, Laxman Bobade."
From The Hibdu opinion Chinese herbal garden leads the way:
"More than 40 years ago, amidst the upheaval and turmoil of the Cultural Revolution in China, and against the backdrop of the Vietnam war, hundreds of Chinese scientists embarked on an ambitious effort to find a drug that would conquer drug-resistant malaria. The result was the discovery of artemisinin, a compound found in plants, which, with its derivatives, is now widely used around the world to treat the disease.
This year, a highly prestigious Lasker Award went to Youyou Tu, an 81-year-old Chinese scientist who played a key part in that discovery."
Concensus seems to emerge quickly in mathematics.From Big News (via Rajeev Ramachandran's google reader):
"Just to be clear, here: That’s Ed Nelson cheerfully acknowledging that the book-length argument he’s been painstakingly constructing for (probably) years, and which was intended to shake the mathematical world to its foundations, doesn’t work. This says so many good things about the culture of mathematics, and so many good things about the Internet, and so many good things about the way they interact (see here and here for more examples), and it says those things so eloquently, that I see no further need for comment." See also The (in)consistency of PA and consensus in mathematics .
From Darwinian Tax Reform via Adam Smith's Lost Legacy :
"Frank observes a similar pattern of arms race-like competition in the quest to obtain social status through luxury purchases. As the wealthiest acquire status symbols so too do the middle and lower classes race to keep up by spending money in a never ending competition for prestige. The result is a society living beyond its means. Whereas elk “voting” to change their antler size is a fantasy, we can use policy to alter wasteful spending patterns and increase savings by replacing our progressive income tax with a progressive consumption tax. This is not to be confused with a valued added tax, national sales tax or flat tax endorsed by some libertarians, which he recognizes is rightly decried as regressive. Frank’s formula goes like this:
Taxes Paid = (Adjusted Gross Income – Annual Savings) * (Progressive Rate Structure)
The result of implanting this tax structure, Frank writes, would be that the wealthiest would reign in excessive spending on status goods to avoid the consumption tax. This would relax the pressure to “keep up with the Jones,” prompting the middle and lower classes to follow suit. Of course, there would still be competition for prestige expressed in consumer goods, cars, and real estate, but everything would be scaled back. The progressive consumption tax would generate an economic surplus at the household level. It is the tax structure Charles Darwin would have endorsed and Adam Smith never would have thought of."
The point of the review seems to be that robert Frank did not understand Darwin well but not really a critique of Frank's ideas. Ideas similar to 'Frank's weird ideas about social prstige' have been proposed along ago by Fred Hirsch:
http://home.vicnet.net.au/~aespop/positionalgoods.htm
http://repositorio-iul.iscte.pt/bitstream/10071/515/1/wp43-2005.pdf
Tuesday, October 04, 2011
Enjoying one's own cooking
I noticed that I do not enjoy my own cooking, at least soon after cooking. Some of them which last (like pappucharu, chicken curry etc) seem ok the next day though sometimes I got high praise for my cooking on the day the food was cooked. It seems that this may not be uncommon according to this MR post Why Do Sandwiches Taste Better When Someone Else Makes Them?
Slime molds
According to the Wikipedia article on Slime mold :
"Professor John Tyler Bonner, who has spent a lifetime studying slime moulds argues that Slime molds are "no more than a bag of amoebae encased in a thin slime sheath, yet they manage to have various behaviors that are equal to those of animals who possess muscles and nerves with ganglia -- that is, simple brains.""
See also the videos ohn Bonner's slime mold movies ", Slime mold form a map of the Tokyo-area railway system and Rebuilding Iberian motorways with slime mould .
Carl Zimmer wonders Can Answers to Evolution Be Found in Slime?. See also his post .
"Professor John Tyler Bonner, who has spent a lifetime studying slime moulds argues that Slime molds are "no more than a bag of amoebae encased in a thin slime sheath, yet they manage to have various behaviors that are equal to those of animals who possess muscles and nerves with ganglia -- that is, simple brains.""
See also the videos ohn Bonner's slime mold movies ", Slime mold form a map of the Tokyo-area railway system and Rebuilding Iberian motorways with slime mould .
Carl Zimmer wonders Can Answers to Evolution Be Found in Slime?. See also his post .
Sunday, October 02, 2011
Kuffir on Paramakudi killings
Manufacturing complicity: Paramakudi killings via Kuffir's post lessons from paramakudi for telangana
An earlier incident in Tamilnadu Justice, at last . Justice faster than in the Karamchedu case.
An earlier incident in Tamilnadu Justice, at last . Justice faster than in the Karamchedu case.
Food may tweak our genes
From New Scientist editorial The good news about how food tweaks our genes ( via Ed Yong I’ve got your missing links right here (1 October 2011)):
"EVER since we began farming some 10,000 years ago, we have been genetically modifying the plants we eat. Now it seems that plants have been toggling our genetic switches too, by slipping bits of RNA into our intestines and bloodstreams (see "Eating your greens alters your genes" )."
From the article "Eating your greens alters your genes":
"In what is the strongest evidence yet that the genetic material in food survives digestion and circulates through the body, fragments of plant RNA have been found swimming in the bloodstreams of people and cows. What's more the study by Chen-Yu Zhang of Nanjing University in China and his colleagues shows that some of these plant RNAs muffle gene expression and raise cholesterol levels in mice. The discovery opens up a new way to turn food into medicine: we may be able to design plants that change our genes for the better."
It also suggests that further studies are needed for GM foods and the possibility of concocting useful GM foods.
"EVER since we began farming some 10,000 years ago, we have been genetically modifying the plants we eat. Now it seems that plants have been toggling our genetic switches too, by slipping bits of RNA into our intestines and bloodstreams (see "Eating your greens alters your genes" )."
From the article "Eating your greens alters your genes":
"In what is the strongest evidence yet that the genetic material in food survives digestion and circulates through the body, fragments of plant RNA have been found swimming in the bloodstreams of people and cows. What's more the study by Chen-Yu Zhang of Nanjing University in China and his colleagues shows that some of these plant RNAs muffle gene expression and raise cholesterol levels in mice. The discovery opens up a new way to turn food into medicine: we may be able to design plants that change our genes for the better."
It also suggests that further studies are needed for GM foods and the possibility of concocting useful GM foods.
Friday, September 30, 2011
Too much medicine?
Recent experiences with doctors made me wonder whether we are getting too much medical care by the way testing, treatment, follow ups ad so on ( I had some minor discomfort while chewing for a few months and one of the doctors I visit for arthritic problems immediately suspected temporal arteritis and after a battery of preliminary tests wanted me to go for an invasive biopsy near the jaw. I decided that I had enough and resisted for a few weeks ad later blood tests indicated that there was probably an error in the diagnosis. But the doubts linger on. Just as with cars, I decided not to go to doctors, particularly specialists unless the system seems near breakdown). The result is that I googled 'too much medicine' and found various reports like this:
Patients get too much medical care, doctors say:28% of doctors say they overtreat their patients
Too Much Medicine: A Doctor's Guide to Better and More Affordable Health Care
both about US but I have heard similar stories here in Australia and in India. A recent article of Atul Gawande Cowboys and Pit Crews suggests that the problem may be even more basic:
"The doctors of former generations lament what medicine has become. If they could start over, the surveys tell us, they wouldn’t choose the profession today. They recall a simpler past without insurance-company hassles, government regulations, malpractice litigation, not to mention nurses and doctors bearing tattoos and talking of wanting “balance” in their lives. These are not the cause of their unease, however. They are symptoms of a deeper condition—which is the reality that medicine’s complexity has exceeded our individual capabilities as doctors."
In the case of mental illnesses, problems may be even worse suggests Ethan Watters in Crazy like us: the globalization of the American psyche. Compare the third chapter on Schizophrenia in Zanzibar summarized here and the recent report in Neurosceptic Schizophrenia And The Developing World Revisited.
Patients get too much medical care, doctors say:28% of doctors say they overtreat their patients
Too Much Medicine: A Doctor's Guide to Better and More Affordable Health Care
both about US but I have heard similar stories here in Australia and in India. A recent article of Atul Gawande Cowboys and Pit Crews suggests that the problem may be even more basic:
"The doctors of former generations lament what medicine has become. If they could start over, the surveys tell us, they wouldn’t choose the profession today. They recall a simpler past without insurance-company hassles, government regulations, malpractice litigation, not to mention nurses and doctors bearing tattoos and talking of wanting “balance” in their lives. These are not the cause of their unease, however. They are symptoms of a deeper condition—which is the reality that medicine’s complexity has exceeded our individual capabilities as doctors."
In the case of mental illnesses, problems may be even worse suggests Ethan Watters in Crazy like us: the globalization of the American psyche. Compare the third chapter on Schizophrenia in Zanzibar summarized here and the recent report in Neurosceptic Schizophrenia And The Developing World Revisited.
Thursday, September 29, 2011
The world of documents
After reading Country Driving I could not resist picking up another book of Peter Hessler: Oracle Bones.
Very early in the book, he introduces the China scholar Imre Galambos in whose opinion 'China's most important literary unification took place during the Han. They produced their history book, as well as the first dictioary, and their emphasis on written word established the foundation for two millinea of empire'. Hessler quotes Galambos:
"People talk about this idea of literary worlds. There are certain cultures, like the Byzantine and the Chinese, in which the written documents create a world that is more significant than the real world. The officials who ran the country in ancient China — they were selected through exams, through this process of memorizing the classics. They lived in this quasi world of letters. Whoever came in from the outside became a part of it. Even the Mongolian tribes that eventually became the Yuan dynasty — for God’s sake, they were complete nomads, with very little written language. But they became like the Chinese for a time; they assimilated themselves. I think this literary world is the link in time that permits this thing we call 'Chinese history.' It’s not the number of people or anything like that; it’s the enormous written world that they produced. They produced this world that’s so big that it eats them up and it eats up everybody around them."
Somewhat reminiscent of the world of Sanskrit documents explored in Sheldon Pollock's The Language of the Gods in the World of Men: Sanskrit, Culture, and Power in Premodern India (mentioned in this post earlier).
Very early in the book, he introduces the China scholar Imre Galambos in whose opinion 'China's most important literary unification took place during the Han. They produced their history book, as well as the first dictioary, and their emphasis on written word established the foundation for two millinea of empire'. Hessler quotes Galambos:
"People talk about this idea of literary worlds. There are certain cultures, like the Byzantine and the Chinese, in which the written documents create a world that is more significant than the real world. The officials who ran the country in ancient China — they were selected through exams, through this process of memorizing the classics. They lived in this quasi world of letters. Whoever came in from the outside became a part of it. Even the Mongolian tribes that eventually became the Yuan dynasty — for God’s sake, they were complete nomads, with very little written language. But they became like the Chinese for a time; they assimilated themselves. I think this literary world is the link in time that permits this thing we call 'Chinese history.' It’s not the number of people or anything like that; it’s the enormous written world that they produced. They produced this world that’s so big that it eats them up and it eats up everybody around them."
Somewhat reminiscent of the world of Sanskrit documents explored in Sheldon Pollock's The Language of the Gods in the World of Men: Sanskrit, Culture, and Power in Premodern India (mentioned in this post earlier).
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Stretching without wrinkles
This report Stretch, but without the wrinkles of the recent paper Three-Dimensional Polymer Constructs Exhibiting a Tunable Negative Poisson’s Ratio may be interesting to mathematicians. From the report:
"A team of nanoengineers have constructed new materials that don't wrinkle when you stretch them. This makes them similar to tissue found in the human body, so they may in the future be used to repair damaged heart walls, blood vessels and skin.
.....
The secret of the two new materials lies in their geometry. Engineered tissue is made using a porous scaffold structure. It's the shape of the pores that's important. Square and circular pores, or those shaped like regular hexagons, give you a positive Poisson ratio. But it's possible to achieve a negative ratio by cleverly tweaking such basic geometries."
The modern research in this area seems to have started with a paper of Rod Lakes in 1987, partly reproduced in his site
P.S. Videos Negative Poisson Ratio Material and The strange behaviour of auxetic foams
"A team of nanoengineers have constructed new materials that don't wrinkle when you stretch them. This makes them similar to tissue found in the human body, so they may in the future be used to repair damaged heart walls, blood vessels and skin.
.....
The secret of the two new materials lies in their geometry. Engineered tissue is made using a porous scaffold structure. It's the shape of the pores that's important. Square and circular pores, or those shaped like regular hexagons, give you a positive Poisson ratio. But it's possible to achieve a negative ratio by cleverly tweaking such basic geometries."
The modern research in this area seems to have started with a paper of Rod Lakes in 1987, partly reproduced in his site
P.S. Videos Negative Poisson Ratio Material and The strange behaviour of auxetic foams
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
A swamiji wins Bhatnagar prize
Mahan Maharaj, a senior researcher at the Howrah-based Ramkrishna Mission Vivekananda University, was among 11 scientists selected today for the prestigious Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize, India's highest science award.Maharaj and Palash Kumar of the Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata received the prize in the Mathematical Science category.
Swami Vidyanadhananda, originally Mahan Mitra, usually called Mahan Maharaj I have known since 1995 through his work and met him for the first time around 2005. After a Ph.D. in Berkeley he joined the Institute of Mathematical Sciences and suddenly decided to join Ramakrishna Mission and disappeared for about seven years. During this period I slightly revised one of his papers (and also worked on the proof sheets of another) that I used and helped publishing it; I am not sure whether his permission was taken. Towards the end of his training Kalyan Mukherjea got to know about Mahan through Mahan's brother and persuaded him to come back to mathematics. The long break seemed to have no effect and he seemed even stronger than before. He continued with his monkly duties, has been doing strong mathematics, meanwhile helping set up a mathematics department in Vivekananda University in Belur Math. I spent a month in Belur Math during 2009 and had the pleasure of coloborating with him and saw him training several Ph.D. students. It was a fun stay and I hope to visit him again.
There is a 2009 photograph of Mahan in the photos section of this blog (currently on page 3).
P.S. Link to Mahan's papers and a young researcher meets Mahan:"Thankfully he doesn't wear his religion on his sleeve." My impression after staying in Belur Mission for a month: The organization is more into service than religion and there are monks of various religions in the RK Mission. But I have not enquired whether there were any atheists.
A nice picture here
Swami Vidyanadhananda, originally Mahan Mitra, usually called Mahan Maharaj I have known since 1995 through his work and met him for the first time around 2005. After a Ph.D. in Berkeley he joined the Institute of Mathematical Sciences and suddenly decided to join Ramakrishna Mission and disappeared for about seven years. During this period I slightly revised one of his papers (and also worked on the proof sheets of another) that I used and helped publishing it; I am not sure whether his permission was taken. Towards the end of his training Kalyan Mukherjea got to know about Mahan through Mahan's brother and persuaded him to come back to mathematics. The long break seemed to have no effect and he seemed even stronger than before. He continued with his monkly duties, has been doing strong mathematics, meanwhile helping set up a mathematics department in Vivekananda University in Belur Math. I spent a month in Belur Math during 2009 and had the pleasure of coloborating with him and saw him training several Ph.D. students. It was a fun stay and I hope to visit him again.
There is a 2009 photograph of Mahan in the photos section of this blog (currently on page 3).
P.S. Link to Mahan's papers and a young researcher meets Mahan:"Thankfully he doesn't wear his religion on his sleeve." My impression after staying in Belur Mission for a month: The organization is more into service than religion and there are monks of various religions in the RK Mission. But I have not enquired whether there were any atheists.
A nice picture here
Sunday, September 25, 2011
Andrew Leonard faerwells HTWW
A farewell to How the World Works :
"Was the experiment a success? I'd give it a mixed grade. Traffic grew steadily throughout the blog's tenure (and peaked, actually, during the recent debt ceiling nuttiness), but there are definite limitations to how deeply you can report or think or how much you can craft your prose when you are attempting to post three times or more per day. When I was learning new things, the pace was fine -- invigorating, even -- but when I found myself simply reacting to news events with insta-analysis, and repeating myself over and over again, it became considerably less satisfying."
I read HTWW regularly for a couple of years and was introduced to work of Glenn Davis Stone through it and have not been reading it that much in the recent months probably for the reasons mentioned above.
"Was the experiment a success? I'd give it a mixed grade. Traffic grew steadily throughout the blog's tenure (and peaked, actually, during the recent debt ceiling nuttiness), but there are definite limitations to how deeply you can report or think or how much you can craft your prose when you are attempting to post three times or more per day. When I was learning new things, the pace was fine -- invigorating, even -- but when I found myself simply reacting to news events with insta-analysis, and repeating myself over and over again, it became considerably less satisfying."
I read HTWW regularly for a couple of years and was introduced to work of Glenn Davis Stone through it and have not been reading it that much in the recent months probably for the reasons mentioned above.
Friday, September 23, 2011
A Telugu film review
of 1948 film Drohi:Drohi film review in Roopavani magazine. I did not remember that L.V.Prasad (Akkineni Lakshmi Vara Prasada Rao) made one of my favourite films 'shavukaru' or that he was in the first talkies in three languages. Googling about him, I found this film review.
Here are some songs from Drohi and more information including lyrics here and here.
Here are some songs from Drohi and more information including lyrics here and here.
Thursday, September 22, 2011
China on the move
Excellent Country Driving by Peter Hessler reviewd here and here. From the second review:
"There is a myth, one believed by many Chinese, that foreigners do not and cannot understand China. This book shows that this myth is simply nonsense.
Hessler makes the effort. He drives through many of the least developed provinces and villages in China and down little country lanes for months on end. He camps in the open air and lives on Red Bull, chocolate bars and Oreos. He saw the China where villagers worked for months to dig useless tree holes even though the diggers only received two bags of instant noodles each day to show for their work; the China where young people move away to cities or towns to find jobs while the elderly cling to their old life in the villages; the China where desperate migrants have to lie about their age and identities to seize a job in a booming industrial coastal town. Even many Chinese, especially those who live in the cosmopolitan illusion of Shanghai and Beijing, are unaware of this China. It may not always be pretty in pieces, but there is great beauty in the mosaic of a people living their lives in a time of great change and working to make a better life for themselves and their children. It is a China I want more people to know about."
Author Peter Hessler reads from his China memoir Country Driving before a Q & A with Emily Parker of the Center on US-China Relations. (1 hr., 6 min.) from Asia Society which has many other interesting interviews.
Thanks to Jack Morava for sending the book.
"There is a myth, one believed by many Chinese, that foreigners do not and cannot understand China. This book shows that this myth is simply nonsense.
Hessler makes the effort. He drives through many of the least developed provinces and villages in China and down little country lanes for months on end. He camps in the open air and lives on Red Bull, chocolate bars and Oreos. He saw the China where villagers worked for months to dig useless tree holes even though the diggers only received two bags of instant noodles each day to show for their work; the China where young people move away to cities or towns to find jobs while the elderly cling to their old life in the villages; the China where desperate migrants have to lie about their age and identities to seize a job in a booming industrial coastal town. Even many Chinese, especially those who live in the cosmopolitan illusion of Shanghai and Beijing, are unaware of this China. It may not always be pretty in pieces, but there is great beauty in the mosaic of a people living their lives in a time of great change and working to make a better life for themselves and their children. It is a China I want more people to know about."
Author Peter Hessler reads from his China memoir Country Driving before a Q & A with Emily Parker of the Center on US-China Relations. (1 hr., 6 min.) from Asia Society which has many other interesting interviews.
Thanks to Jack Morava for sending the book.
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Tom Slee's review of "Everything is Obvious"
(a book which I read and liked) An Uncertain World III: Everything is Obvious, by Duncan J. Watts
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Glenn Greenwald on public opinion surprises
Public opinion surprises (via Rajeev Ramachandran's google reader):
"I confess to being amazed that 43% of Americans -- close to a plurality -- believe that "U.S. wrongdoing might have motivated attacks" by Terrorists. I'm not amazed because it's untrue -- it plainly is true -- but because that is a view almost never heard in establishment media discourse. To the contrary, the notion that American "wrongdoing" is a cause of anti-U.S. Terrorism is one of the most rigidly enforced taboos. Nothing provokes allegations of "unpatrotism" or "anti-Americanism" -- or intellectually dishonest claims that one is "justifying" Terrorism -- more than pointing out this obvious causation. Despite that, and despite the natural jingoistic bias of believing that one's own country does not engage in truly bad acts (certainly not sufficiently bad to provoke Terrorism), a very sizable portion of the citizenry has come to that conclusion on its own. That's a very encouraging finding."
"I confess to being amazed that 43% of Americans -- close to a plurality -- believe that "U.S. wrongdoing might have motivated attacks" by Terrorists. I'm not amazed because it's untrue -- it plainly is true -- but because that is a view almost never heard in establishment media discourse. To the contrary, the notion that American "wrongdoing" is a cause of anti-U.S. Terrorism is one of the most rigidly enforced taboos. Nothing provokes allegations of "unpatrotism" or "anti-Americanism" -- or intellectually dishonest claims that one is "justifying" Terrorism -- more than pointing out this obvious causation. Despite that, and despite the natural jingoistic bias of believing that one's own country does not engage in truly bad acts (certainly not sufficiently bad to provoke Terrorism), a very sizable portion of the citizenry has come to that conclusion on its own. That's a very encouraging finding."
A duet by S.Varalakshmi and Jikki
Navaneeta Chorudu from the 1961 film 'Krishna Prema'. Many others in the link are from a 1943 film with the same name.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJOlhjlKt5M
Straddling Science and Medicine
Carl Zimmer writes about Arthur Horwich who with his colleagues discovered 'that HSP60 is like a changing room for proteins' Horwich Wins Lasker Award by Straddling Science and Medicine
Monday, September 12, 2011
Five men from Hyderabad
A misfortune for five men [Hyderabad]:
"The five men - Nizam's finance minister Moin Nawaz Jung, Muhammad Hameedullah, Yousuf Hussain Khan, Zaheer Ahmed and Pingle Venkatram Reddy - comprised the delegation that went to the UN to argue Hyderabad's case for independence in September 1948."
Three returned to India and the article sketches their later careers "Upon his return from the unfinished job, Khan, a historian and litterateur at OU, and the brother of Zakir Hussain, the former president, returned to his alma matar. But he soon quit his job and went to Aligarh where he later became the pro vice-chancellor of Aligarh Muslim University.
Venkatram Reddy was arrested on his return and interned at Chanchalguda jail. He was later shifted to his residence but was kept under house arrest for a long time. Anuradha Reddy, a relative, revealed that his loyalty to the Nizam's government was unquestionable as he believed that his presence in the administration would 'save' Hindus from the menace of Razakars.
After the wrath of the government subsided, Reddy took up social work. His son Jagan Mohan Reddy became the chief justice of AP High Court and later vice- chancellor of OU during the crucial emergency years.
But the most rewarding return was that of Zaheer Ahmed. He sailed over to the Indian government smoothly and got plum postings, including a stint in the UN.
After his retirement, he served for several years former prince Mukarram Jah Bahdur - grandson and successor to the seventh Nizam. He also served as ambassador to Saudi Arabia in the early 1970s."
"The five men - Nizam's finance minister Moin Nawaz Jung, Muhammad Hameedullah, Yousuf Hussain Khan, Zaheer Ahmed and Pingle Venkatram Reddy - comprised the delegation that went to the UN to argue Hyderabad's case for independence in September 1948."
Three returned to India and the article sketches their later careers "Upon his return from the unfinished job, Khan, a historian and litterateur at OU, and the brother of Zakir Hussain, the former president, returned to his alma matar. But he soon quit his job and went to Aligarh where he later became the pro vice-chancellor of Aligarh Muslim University.
Venkatram Reddy was arrested on his return and interned at Chanchalguda jail. He was later shifted to his residence but was kept under house arrest for a long time. Anuradha Reddy, a relative, revealed that his loyalty to the Nizam's government was unquestionable as he believed that his presence in the administration would 'save' Hindus from the menace of Razakars.
After the wrath of the government subsided, Reddy took up social work. His son Jagan Mohan Reddy became the chief justice of AP High Court and later vice- chancellor of OU during the crucial emergency years.
But the most rewarding return was that of Zaheer Ahmed. He sailed over to the Indian government smoothly and got plum postings, including a stint in the UN.
After his retirement, he served for several years former prince Mukarram Jah Bahdur - grandson and successor to the seventh Nizam. He also served as ambassador to Saudi Arabia in the early 1970s."
Dan Little revisits 'A Jobless Future'
by Stanley Aronowitz and William DiFazio in A jobless future?
Other reviews here and here
Related posts with similar themes
here, here, here and a recent post by Yves Smith The Decline of Manufacturing in America: The Role of Government Neglect
Other reviews here and here
Related posts with similar themes
here, here, here and a recent post by Yves Smith The Decline of Manufacturing in America: The Role of Government Neglect
Sunday, September 11, 2011
Friday, September 09, 2011
Some telugu words
in several places from Andhra Bhoomi in the links here, particularly in the links titled మాటల మూటలు. For example, from
http://121.241.226.28/nudi/maatala-mootalu-507
"తనివి: అంటే తృప్తి - తమి: అంటే ఆసక్తి - ఆరయిక: అంటే పరిశోధన - మెలన: అంటే చరిత్ర - చవి: అంటే రుచి - గురి: అంటే లక్ష్యం"
One of the links on the last page http://121.241.226.28/nudi/thanks-849 says
"‘థ్యాంక్స్’ అనడం మనకు బాగా అలవాటయిపోయింది. దానికే కొందరు ‘ధన్యవాదాలు’ అంటున్నారు. ఇదే అర్థంలో ఇంతకంటే కమ్మగా చెప్పగల ‘మప్పితాలు’ అనే తెలుగుమాట ఒకటుంది" but this does not seem to agree with the comment of Seshatalpasayee in అచ్చ తెలుగు పదాలు.
http://121.241.226.28/nudi/maatala-mootalu-507
"తనివి: అంటే తృప్తి - తమి: అంటే ఆసక్తి - ఆరయిక: అంటే పరిశోధన - మెలన: అంటే చరిత్ర - చవి: అంటే రుచి - గురి: అంటే లక్ష్యం"
One of the links on the last page http://121.241.226.28/nudi/thanks-849 says
"‘థ్యాంక్స్’ అనడం మనకు బాగా అలవాటయిపోయింది. దానికే కొందరు ‘ధన్యవాదాలు’ అంటున్నారు. ఇదే అర్థంలో ఇంతకంటే కమ్మగా చెప్పగల ‘మప్పితాలు’ అనే తెలుగుమాట ఒకటుంది" but this does not seem to agree with the comment of Seshatalpasayee in అచ్చ తెలుగు పదాలు.
Wednesday, September 07, 2011
India-Pakistan border
Tuesday, September 06, 2011
Vernon Ruttan on the role of Public sector in technology development
The Role of Public Sector in Technology Development: Generalizations from General Purpose Technologies (http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.467.8326&rep=rep1&type=pdf) by Vernon Rutton:
"Abstract: In the new science and technology policy literature that emerged in the
early 1980's it was held , while public support for science is appropriate, that
public support for technology development represents an unproductive use of public resources. The perspective that emerges in my recent book, Technology, Growth and Development: An Induced innovation Perspective, is quite different. Government has played an important role in technology development and transfer in almost every U.S. industry that has become competitive on a global scale."
Towards the end of the article, he also discusses cases which do not fit into this scheme and says "A second lesson that emerges from U.S. experience is the importance of a decentralized national research system. The structure of the U.S. national research system took its present form in the half century between 1880 and 1930. This period witnessed the formation of scientific and technical bureaus within the federal government, the establishment of industrial research laboratories, the formation and growth of public and private research universities, and the emergence of philanthropic foundations to support research and education. These institutions drew on each other for their entrepreneurship and leadership. This decentralized structure has given the United States greater capacity to adjust to changing national and global priorities, and to direct research to the exploration of commercial opportunities, than in countries in which government-funded research is conducted primarily in national laboratories or research institutes only marginally linked with universities and in which private sector research is limited primarily to large firms"
The above article is drawn from his 2001 book mentioned above and in a 2006 article, he goes further to discuss the role of military and defence related research:IS WAR NECESSARY FOR ECONOMIC GROWTH?
P.S. I came across the articles though comments of E. Barandiaran in the MR post Who invented interchangeable parts?. E. Barandiaran also suggests the paper Modeling the Transition to a New Economy: Lessons from Two Technological Revolutions by Andrew Atkeson and Patrick J. Kehoe.
"Abstract: In the new science and technology policy literature that emerged in the
early 1980's it was held , while public support for science is appropriate, that
public support for technology development represents an unproductive use of public resources. The perspective that emerges in my recent book, Technology, Growth and Development: An Induced innovation Perspective, is quite different. Government has played an important role in technology development and transfer in almost every U.S. industry that has become competitive on a global scale."
Towards the end of the article, he also discusses cases which do not fit into this scheme and says "A second lesson that emerges from U.S. experience is the importance of a decentralized national research system. The structure of the U.S. national research system took its present form in the half century between 1880 and 1930. This period witnessed the formation of scientific and technical bureaus within the federal government, the establishment of industrial research laboratories, the formation and growth of public and private research universities, and the emergence of philanthropic foundations to support research and education. These institutions drew on each other for their entrepreneurship and leadership. This decentralized structure has given the United States greater capacity to adjust to changing national and global priorities, and to direct research to the exploration of commercial opportunities, than in countries in which government-funded research is conducted primarily in national laboratories or research institutes only marginally linked with universities and in which private sector research is limited primarily to large firms"
The above article is drawn from his 2001 book mentioned above and in a 2006 article, he goes further to discuss the role of military and defence related research:IS WAR NECESSARY FOR ECONOMIC GROWTH?
P.S. I came across the articles though comments of E. Barandiaran in the MR post Who invented interchangeable parts?. E. Barandiaran also suggests the paper Modeling the Transition to a New Economy: Lessons from Two Technological Revolutions by Andrew Atkeson and Patrick J. Kehoe.
Monday, September 05, 2011
Shiv Visvanathan on saving the Hazare process
Excerpt from Hazare vs Hazare: A Scenario as a Warning by Shiv Visvanathan:
"The question is how do we move from the critique to construct and salvage another impressive movement from going underground? How can we prevent the good Hazare from losing out to the bad Hazare? Let us face it; every movement has the possibility of eventually making an ass of itself. His core team is not very reassuring in terms of presence or competence. I am not saying they have not surprised me so far but I have a sense that the group is heading towards the usual inertias of such struggle.
To open up the playfulness of Phase II requires some change in mentalities. First, Anna Hazare has to move from being prophet to sage, while guaranteeing that his disciples do not become the high priests of legislative reform. Second, the group must break the clichés about the State and governance. The State is often seen as wooden and unresponsive. But of late, whether on the RTI or the debate on genetic seeds, the State in collaboration with NGOs, has sought to experiment with participatory frameworks where stakeholders openly debate the politics of expertise. For instance, Jairam Ramesh in collaboration with sensitive environmental activists like Kartikeya Sarabhai at the Centre for Environment Education, Ahmedabad, created the dialogic possibilities of such controversy, letting scientists, farmers and seed manufacturers debate with each other. We need to create sites for such debate so that governance can also be seen as a ludic exercise at least in terms of the future.
Dogma also has to yield to method and particularly methods of resolution. The politics of movements need to be captured as ethical norms or as institutional methods. What is the goal of the movement beyond the holy grail of the Lokpal? At what level does the Lokpal operate? Or are we creating an alternative behemoth, a byzantine bureaucracy more Kafkaesque and inquisitorial than the current structure?"
"The question is how do we move from the critique to construct and salvage another impressive movement from going underground? How can we prevent the good Hazare from losing out to the bad Hazare? Let us face it; every movement has the possibility of eventually making an ass of itself. His core team is not very reassuring in terms of presence or competence. I am not saying they have not surprised me so far but I have a sense that the group is heading towards the usual inertias of such struggle.
To open up the playfulness of Phase II requires some change in mentalities. First, Anna Hazare has to move from being prophet to sage, while guaranteeing that his disciples do not become the high priests of legislative reform. Second, the group must break the clichés about the State and governance. The State is often seen as wooden and unresponsive. But of late, whether on the RTI or the debate on genetic seeds, the State in collaboration with NGOs, has sought to experiment with participatory frameworks where stakeholders openly debate the politics of expertise. For instance, Jairam Ramesh in collaboration with sensitive environmental activists like Kartikeya Sarabhai at the Centre for Environment Education, Ahmedabad, created the dialogic possibilities of such controversy, letting scientists, farmers and seed manufacturers debate with each other. We need to create sites for such debate so that governance can also be seen as a ludic exercise at least in terms of the future.
Dogma also has to yield to method and particularly methods of resolution. The politics of movements need to be captured as ethical norms or as institutional methods. What is the goal of the movement beyond the holy grail of the Lokpal? At what level does the Lokpal operate? Or are we creating an alternative behemoth, a byzantine bureaucracy more Kafkaesque and inquisitorial than the current structure?"
Sunday, September 04, 2011
Wired.com on Aadhaar
Massive Biometric Project Gives Millions of Indians an ID via Ed Yong. Some of the benefits:
"One of his [Nandan Nilekani's] first major coups was persuading India’s central bank to declare the Aadhaar number adequate identification to issue no-frills accounts. Bringing biometrically verified banking to the poor could lead to enormous savings in government benefit programs—for both the recipients and the state. Today, a pensioner in a village like Gagenahalli has to take a bus to the nearest town to collect his monthly payment in cash. That’s time and money lost for him. Meanwhile, more than 40 percent of the government’s $250 billion in subsidies and other spending on the poor will be siphoned off by scammers over the next five years, according to investment group CLSA. Both problems could largely be solved if instead the funds were sent straight to bank accounts held by biometrically verified recipients. “It’s like having 1.2 billion pipes through which you can send the benefits directly,” Sharma says. Connecting the poor to banks could also enable some of them to get loans to start businesses or pay for their children’s education."
See also the NYTimes article Scanning 2.4 Billion Eyes, India Tries to Connect Poor to Growth
"One of his [Nandan Nilekani's] first major coups was persuading India’s central bank to declare the Aadhaar number adequate identification to issue no-frills accounts. Bringing biometrically verified banking to the poor could lead to enormous savings in government benefit programs—for both the recipients and the state. Today, a pensioner in a village like Gagenahalli has to take a bus to the nearest town to collect his monthly payment in cash. That’s time and money lost for him. Meanwhile, more than 40 percent of the government’s $250 billion in subsidies and other spending on the poor will be siphoned off by scammers over the next five years, according to investment group CLSA. Both problems could largely be solved if instead the funds were sent straight to bank accounts held by biometrically verified recipients. “It’s like having 1.2 billion pipes through which you can send the benefits directly,” Sharma says. Connecting the poor to banks could also enable some of them to get loans to start businesses or pay for their children’s education."
See also the NYTimes article Scanning 2.4 Billion Eyes, India Tries to Connect Poor to Growth
Prosperity without growth
a report by Tim Jackson available here. A review of the later book in The Guardian
Prosperity Without Growth: Economics for a Finite Planet by Tim Jackson
Prosperity Without Growth: Economics for a Finite Planet by Tim Jackson
Saturday, September 03, 2011
Another song by R. Balasraswati Devi
Friday, September 02, 2011
September issue of Eemaata
has several interesting articles. Of particular interest me are
తిక్కన భారతంలో పలుకులపొందు by Bhadriraju Krishnamurthy, and
పలుకుబడి: సంఖ్యా పదాలు – 2 by Suresh Kolichala
తిక్కన భారతంలో పలుకులపొందు by Bhadriraju Krishnamurthy, and
పలుకుబడి: సంఖ్యా పదాలు – 2 by Suresh Kolichala
Thursday, September 01, 2011
Some science links, september 1, 2011
From guts to brains – eating probiotic bacteria changes behaviour in mice,can one extrapolate to humans?
Men’s spatial superiority takes cultural cues
Saffron takes on cancer
The Psychologist on Milgram and the shock of the old
Wakeup Call for College Students: New Research Finds You Need to Catch More Z's
Men’s spatial superiority takes cultural cues
Saffron takes on cancer
The Psychologist on Milgram and the shock of the old
Wakeup Call for College Students: New Research Finds You Need to Catch More Z's
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Monday, August 29, 2011
A poem and a discussion on norms and giving
in Underground Norms via Andrew Gelman
And Happy Telugu Language Day. By some accident, my brother Kamalakar has chosen this day as his birthday since the records were not kept and he was born around this time of the year approximately a week before a cousin whose date of birth is more certain. My brother worked hard after his college education and has given much in charities while buying for himself things on sale and I join many who know him in wishing him a happy birthday.
And Happy Telugu Language Day. By some accident, my brother Kamalakar has chosen this day as his birthday since the records were not kept and he was born around this time of the year approximately a week before a cousin whose date of birth is more certain. My brother worked hard after his college education and has given much in charities while buying for himself things on sale and I join many who know him in wishing him a happy birthday.
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Telugu Language Day, August 29th
in honour of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gidugu_Venkata_Ramamoorty. Some articles by Gidugu and about వ్యవహారిక భాషా ఉద్యమం (common Telugu movement)and about Bhadriraju Krishnamurthy are in this issue of Eemaata ఈమాట జూన్ 2008 ప్రత్యేక సంచిక
A few Telugu songs for the occasion
Maa telugu Talliki
Cheyetti jai kottu Telugoda
Veera Gandham
Andhruda levara
A few Telugu songs for the occasion
Maa telugu Talliki
Cheyetti jai kottu Telugoda
Veera Gandham
Andhruda levara
Saturday, August 27, 2011
Links, mostly to old stuff
Hirsch: The positional economy
The Continuing Relevance of Fred Hirsch's Insights on Markets and Morality
The Great Transformation by Karl Polanyi
The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time, a review by Ann Mayhew
Tacit Knowledge Revisited -- We Can Still Learn from (Michael)Polanyi
and some new:
The Inevitable Superpower by Arvind Subramanian
What is Debt? – An Interview with Economic Anthropologist David Graeber
The Continuing Relevance of Fred Hirsch's Insights on Markets and Morality
The Great Transformation by Karl Polanyi
The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time, a review by Ann Mayhew
Tacit Knowledge Revisited -- We Can Still Learn from (Michael)Polanyi
and some new:
The Inevitable Superpower by Arvind Subramanian
What is Debt? – An Interview with Economic Anthropologist David Graeber
Friday, August 26, 2011
Technology Review's annual list of 35 Innovators under 35
Technology Review's annual list of 35 Innovators under 35
Among the four winners of Indian origin:
Aishwarya Ratan, 30 Converting paper records to digital in real time
Ajit Narayanan, 30 Affordable speech synthesizers
and from Pakistan:
Umar Saif, 32 Improving connectivity in poor nations
Among the four winners of Indian origin:
Aishwarya Ratan, 30 Converting paper records to digital in real time
Ajit Narayanan, 30 Affordable speech synthesizers
and from Pakistan:
Umar Saif, 32 Improving connectivity in poor nations
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Research in Peace
Dangers of research into chronic fatigue syndrome
"As for Professor Wessely, he gave up active research on CFS/ME 10 years ago. He now specialises in the problems of war veterans. “I now go to Iraq and Afghanistan, where I feel a lot safer,” he says.
More discussion in 'The Loom' Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: Death threats for scientists?
"As for Professor Wessely, he gave up active research on CFS/ME 10 years ago. He now specialises in the problems of war veterans. “I now go to Iraq and Afghanistan, where I feel a lot safer,” he says.
More discussion in 'The Loom' Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: Death threats for scientists?
Saturday, August 20, 2011
Science marches on
Incredible Science Discoveries in 'The Big Picture' including 'printing solar panels on pieces of paper' and 'how to triple the yield of plants using only 10% of the water typically needed'.
Friday, August 19, 2011
Nadireyi ye Jamulo (నడిరేయి ఏ జాములో)
on YouTube here
lyrics from here (which has lyrics of many other Telugu songs)
నడిరేయి ఏ జాములో స్వామి నిను చేర దిగి వచ్చునో
తిరుమల శిఖరాలు దిగి వచ్చునో(నడిరేయి)
మముగన్న మాయమ్మ అలివేలు మంగమ్మ(2)
పతిదేవు ఒడిలోన మురిసేటివేళ
స్వామి చిరునవ్వు వెన్నెలలు కురిసేటి వేళ
విభునికి మా మాట వినిపించవమ్మా
ప్రభువుకు మా మనవి వినిపించవమ్మా
ఏడేడు శిఖరాల నే నడువలేను
ఏపాటి కానుకలందించలేను
వెంకన్న పాదాలు దర్శించలేను
నేను వివరించి న బాధ వినిపించలేను
అమ్మా....ఆ...ఆ..ఆ..
మముగన్న మాయమ్మ
అలివేలుమంగా....ఆ...ఆ...
మముగన్న మాయమ్మ
అలివేలుమంగా(విభునికి)
కలవారినేగాని కరుణించలేడా
నిరుపేద మొరలేవి వినిపించుకోడా
కన్నీటి బ్రతుకుల కనలేని నాడు
స్వామి కరుణామయుండన్న బిరుదేలనమ్మా
అడగవే మా తల్లీ అనురగవల్లీ
అడగవే మాయమ్మ అలివేలు మంగా(నడిరేయి)
P.S. From this artucle by Rihiniprasad http://www.pranahita.org/2009/06/music01_cinema_patallo_vayidyalu/ it appears thar Chittibabu played veena for this song.
lyrics from here (which has lyrics of many other Telugu songs)
నడిరేయి ఏ జాములో స్వామి నిను చేర దిగి వచ్చునో
తిరుమల శిఖరాలు దిగి వచ్చునో(నడిరేయి)
మముగన్న మాయమ్మ అలివేలు మంగమ్మ(2)
పతిదేవు ఒడిలోన మురిసేటివేళ
స్వామి చిరునవ్వు వెన్నెలలు కురిసేటి వేళ
విభునికి మా మాట వినిపించవమ్మా
ప్రభువుకు మా మనవి వినిపించవమ్మా
ఏడేడు శిఖరాల నే నడువలేను
ఏపాటి కానుకలందించలేను
వెంకన్న పాదాలు దర్శించలేను
నేను వివరించి న బాధ వినిపించలేను
అమ్మా....ఆ...ఆ..ఆ..
మముగన్న మాయమ్మ
అలివేలుమంగా....ఆ...ఆ...
మముగన్న మాయమ్మ
అలివేలుమంగా(విభునికి)
కలవారినేగాని కరుణించలేడా
నిరుపేద మొరలేవి వినిపించుకోడా
కన్నీటి బ్రతుకుల కనలేని నాడు
స్వామి కరుణామయుండన్న బిరుదేలనమ్మా
అడగవే మా తల్లీ అనురగవల్లీ
అడగవే మాయమ్మ అలివేలు మంగా(నడిరేయి)
P.S. From this artucle by Rihiniprasad http://www.pranahita.org/2009/06/music01_cinema_patallo_vayidyalu/ it appears thar Chittibabu played veena for this song.
Thursday, August 18, 2011
Small words
The test Your "I" Exam:Is your social vision 20/20? . I scored four out of ten but having recently read some books on cognitive dissonance, guessed the score.
From What Your Choice of Words Says about Your Personality:
"No one doubts that the words we write or speak are an expression of our inner thoughts and personalities. But beyond the meaningful content of language, a wealth of unique insights into an author’s mind are hidden in the style of a text—in such elements as how often certain words and word categories are used, regardless of context.
It is how an author expresses his or her thoughts that reveals character, asserts social psychologist James W. Pennebaker /a> of the University of Texas at Austin. When people try to present themselves a certain way, they tend to select what they think are appropriate nouns and verbs, but they are unlikely to control their use of articles and pronouns. These small words create the style of a text, which is less subject to conscious manipulation."
Language Log post with a contribution by James Pennebaker What is "I" saying?
Another Language Log post Little words with an appendix on "Linguistic Structure Matching"
Recent Scientific American interview with James Pennebaker The Secret Language Code via MindHacks
It is a young science with some potential:"Several labs, including ours, have now conducted studies to evaluate the prospect of building a linguistic lie detector. The preliminary findings are promising. In controlled studies, we can catch lying about 67% of the time where 50% is chance. Humans, reading the same transcripts, only catch lying 53% of the time. This is actually quite impressive unless you are a person in the judicial system. If you are waiting for a language-based system to catch real world lying at rates of 90 or 95 percent of the time, it won’t happen in your lifetime. It’s simply too complicated."
From What Your Choice of Words Says about Your Personality:
"No one doubts that the words we write or speak are an expression of our inner thoughts and personalities. But beyond the meaningful content of language, a wealth of unique insights into an author’s mind are hidden in the style of a text—in such elements as how often certain words and word categories are used, regardless of context.
It is how an author expresses his or her thoughts that reveals character, asserts social psychologist James W. Pennebaker /a> of the University of Texas at Austin. When people try to present themselves a certain way, they tend to select what they think are appropriate nouns and verbs, but they are unlikely to control their use of articles and pronouns. These small words create the style of a text, which is less subject to conscious manipulation."
Language Log post with a contribution by James Pennebaker What is "I" saying?
Another Language Log post Little words with an appendix on "Linguistic Structure Matching"
Recent Scientific American interview with James Pennebaker The Secret Language Code via MindHacks
It is a young science with some potential:"Several labs, including ours, have now conducted studies to evaluate the prospect of building a linguistic lie detector. The preliminary findings are promising. In controlled studies, we can catch lying about 67% of the time where 50% is chance. Humans, reading the same transcripts, only catch lying 53% of the time. This is actually quite impressive unless you are a person in the judicial system. If you are waiting for a language-based system to catch real world lying at rates of 90 or 95 percent of the time, it won’t happen in your lifetime. It’s simply too complicated."
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Mobility in science careers: Science magazine links
Content Collection: International Mobility :
"International mobility is becoming increasingly important for a successful research career. But, while international scientific experience offers many career-related benefits, it can be difficult to make it happen. And there are some disadvantages.
Over the years, Science Careers has investigated the pros and cons of training in a foreign lab. We've talked to mobile researchers about the many challenges of moving, working, and living abroad. Our interviewees have offered tips on dealing with the logistics of the move, finding a foreign lab, getting funding, applying for a visa -- even finding a school for the kids. We have asked scientist globetrotters about their experiences in a new culture, in and outside the lab. We have solicited advice on how to maximize the benefits of your research experience and ensure it's an enjoyable one. We have wondered whether it is always possible for expatriated scientists to find their way back home and have looked at ways to improve the odds.
Below is a list of what we consider our most valuable articles exploring international research experiences and what makes them successful."
"International mobility is becoming increasingly important for a successful research career. But, while international scientific experience offers many career-related benefits, it can be difficult to make it happen. And there are some disadvantages.
Over the years, Science Careers has investigated the pros and cons of training in a foreign lab. We've talked to mobile researchers about the many challenges of moving, working, and living abroad. Our interviewees have offered tips on dealing with the logistics of the move, finding a foreign lab, getting funding, applying for a visa -- even finding a school for the kids. We have asked scientist globetrotters about their experiences in a new culture, in and outside the lab. We have solicited advice on how to maximize the benefits of your research experience and ensure it's an enjoyable one. We have wondered whether it is always possible for expatriated scientists to find their way back home and have looked at ways to improve the odds.
Below is a list of what we consider our most valuable articles exploring international research experiences and what makes them successful."
Some useful sites
Top 100 little-known sites Everyone should know about (via Rajeev Ramachandran's google reader)
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
'Controlled disintegration' and related matters
Stop Coddling the Super-Rich says Warren Buffett
Roubini: Is Capitalism Doomed?, a discussion in economist's View
The Failure of Individualism Review of Fred Hirsch's 1977 book 'Social Limits to Growth':
"Hirsch shows that the individualism and competitiveness fostered by capitalism will not work in an affluent society in which people’s basic material needs for food, clothing and shelter are met. He sees an economic impasse stemming not primarily from the depletion of the world’s natural resources through unbridled economic growth, but from an unprecedented situation in which the main things people want from the economic system can be had only by a small minority at the top of the social hierarchy.
Capitalism’s great merit has been the goods it has been able to deliver. Each generation could count on seeing its children enjoy a host of new products. The luxuries of one generation became necessities for the next. Society was a column moving steadily forward, with the rich first tasting the fruits that eventually would be conveyed to the mass of humanity. Hirsch maintains that this process, which gave economic inequality its philosophical justification as the best spur for advancing the living conditions of all, is no longer functioning. In the future we can expect to see people competing in an ever more vicious rat race and completing the course frustrated at a sense of having fallen behind their starting point."
In The Econobubble Revisited Yanis Varoufakis recalls the phrase "Controlled disintegration" used by Fred Hirsch and Paul Volcker in the 70s.
The crisis of the global economy. Was it a planned disintegration? , a recent post by Brenda Rosser with some links like
PROJECT 80S: THE CFR'S PROGRAM FOR "CONTROLLED DISINTEGRATION"
Roubini: Is Capitalism Doomed?, a discussion in economist's View
The Failure of Individualism Review of Fred Hirsch's 1977 book 'Social Limits to Growth':
"Hirsch shows that the individualism and competitiveness fostered by capitalism will not work in an affluent society in which people’s basic material needs for food, clothing and shelter are met. He sees an economic impasse stemming not primarily from the depletion of the world’s natural resources through unbridled economic growth, but from an unprecedented situation in which the main things people want from the economic system can be had only by a small minority at the top of the social hierarchy.
Capitalism’s great merit has been the goods it has been able to deliver. Each generation could count on seeing its children enjoy a host of new products. The luxuries of one generation became necessities for the next. Society was a column moving steadily forward, with the rich first tasting the fruits that eventually would be conveyed to the mass of humanity. Hirsch maintains that this process, which gave economic inequality its philosophical justification as the best spur for advancing the living conditions of all, is no longer functioning. In the future we can expect to see people competing in an ever more vicious rat race and completing the course frustrated at a sense of having fallen behind their starting point."
In The Econobubble Revisited Yanis Varoufakis recalls the phrase "Controlled disintegration" used by Fred Hirsch and Paul Volcker in the 70s.
The crisis of the global economy. Was it a planned disintegration? , a recent post by Brenda Rosser with some links like
PROJECT 80S: THE CFR'S PROGRAM FOR "CONTROLLED DISINTEGRATION"
Monday, August 15, 2011
Links, August 15
Redefining the Public University: Developing an Analytical Framework has some interesting points (via 3quarksdaily):
"The configuration of national university systems is shaped by and shapes its insertion into a global context. Again our two models of regulation and commodification reflect pressures operating at the global level. Regulation refers to the systems of global competition for place in international ranking systems. This entails nation states applying pressure to universities to compete globally along a range of indices, but most fundamentally to publish scholarly papers in major international journals, to teach and research in English, making US or European societies the reference point for everything. This draws the best university faculty into the orbit of an international community but in so doing they lose contact with national issues. While this most obviously affects the social sciences and humanities, it can also affect the hard sciences in that the medical and engineering problems faced by a country in the Global South can be very different from those faced in the Global North."
Abi on Misconduct in India and the West: A Key Difference
From a 2009 article in NYTimes The Looting of America’s Coffers (via 'The Big Picture' post The Meaning of the British Riots ):
"Sixteen years ago, two economists published a research paper with a delightfully simple title: “Looting .”
...
The paper’s message is that the promise of government bailouts isn’t merely one aspect of the problem. It is the core problem.
...
Mr. Akerlof and Mr. Romer finished writing their paper in the early 1990s, when the economy was still suffering a hangover from the excesses of the 1980s. But Mr. Akerlof told Mr. Romer — a skeptical Mr. Romer, as he acknowledged with a laugh on Tuesday — that the next candidate for looting already seemed to be taking shape.
It was an obscure little market called credit derivatives."
From Memory: I Don’t Think It Means What You Think It Means. An Interview with Dan Simons:
"Do you believe that memory works sort of like a video camera, faithfully recording your experiences so that you can go back later and revisit those memories, captured in pristine condition? Do you believe that if something unexpected walked into your field of vision you’d notice? Can forgotten memories be recalled through hypnosis?
If you’re like 50-80% of the US population, you might answer yes to each of those questions, but you’d be wrong."
From Lessons in history: Pakistan’s bright future :
"To value the progress of Pakistani Muslims, we should look at the demographics of pre-1947."
Churimuri Has the IT boom quelled Bangalore’s tensions?. What about Hyderabad?
"The configuration of national university systems is shaped by and shapes its insertion into a global context. Again our two models of regulation and commodification reflect pressures operating at the global level. Regulation refers to the systems of global competition for place in international ranking systems. This entails nation states applying pressure to universities to compete globally along a range of indices, but most fundamentally to publish scholarly papers in major international journals, to teach and research in English, making US or European societies the reference point for everything. This draws the best university faculty into the orbit of an international community but in so doing they lose contact with national issues. While this most obviously affects the social sciences and humanities, it can also affect the hard sciences in that the medical and engineering problems faced by a country in the Global South can be very different from those faced in the Global North."
Abi on Misconduct in India and the West: A Key Difference
From a 2009 article in NYTimes The Looting of America’s Coffers (via 'The Big Picture' post The Meaning of the British Riots ):
"Sixteen years ago, two economists published a research paper with a delightfully simple title: “Looting .”
...
The paper’s message is that the promise of government bailouts isn’t merely one aspect of the problem. It is the core problem.
...
Mr. Akerlof and Mr. Romer finished writing their paper in the early 1990s, when the economy was still suffering a hangover from the excesses of the 1980s. But Mr. Akerlof told Mr. Romer — a skeptical Mr. Romer, as he acknowledged with a laugh on Tuesday — that the next candidate for looting already seemed to be taking shape.
It was an obscure little market called credit derivatives."
From Memory: I Don’t Think It Means What You Think It Means. An Interview with Dan Simons:
"Do you believe that memory works sort of like a video camera, faithfully recording your experiences so that you can go back later and revisit those memories, captured in pristine condition? Do you believe that if something unexpected walked into your field of vision you’d notice? Can forgotten memories be recalled through hypnosis?
If you’re like 50-80% of the US population, you might answer yes to each of those questions, but you’d be wrong."
From Lessons in history: Pakistan’s bright future :
"To value the progress of Pakistani Muslims, we should look at the demographics of pre-1947."
Churimuri Has the IT boom quelled Bangalore’s tensions?. What about Hyderabad?
Saturday, August 13, 2011
Condensed Wealth of Nations
and "The Incredibly Condensed Theory of Moral Sentiments" available at http://adamsmith.org/files/condensed-WoN.pdf via Adam Smith's Lost Legacy
Friday, August 12, 2011
A succinct take on some of the current problems
It’s the Political Economy, Stupid! :
"Idea-smiths provide language, narratives and tools for those in control, but the broad contours of policy depend on who the controllers happen to be."
More discussion at Economist's View
"Idea-smiths provide language, narratives and tools for those in control, but the broad contours of policy depend on who the controllers happen to be."
More discussion at Economist's View
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Grandparenthood
From Are grandchildren better than children?:
"The findings suggest that even though children may not contribute significantly to parents' satisfaction with life overall, there may well be long-term benefits to having children, provided that our children go on and have children of their own."
Source Life Satisfaction and Grandparenthood: Evidence from a Nationwide Survey/a>
"The findings suggest that even though children may not contribute significantly to parents' satisfaction with life overall, there may well be long-term benefits to having children, provided that our children go on and have children of their own."
Source Life Satisfaction and Grandparenthood: Evidence from a Nationwide Survey/a>
Aditya Chakrabortty on UK riots
From UK riots: political classes see what they want to see:
"Many economists have spent the past few days passing around a paper on the Hindu-Muslim riots in India in the 80s and 90s. Written by Anjali Thomas Bohlken and Ernest John Sergeant in 2010, it finds that "just a 1% increase in the [economic] growth rate decreases the expected number of riots by over 5%". Recessions are good for riots: perhaps no surprise, there. What matters, they argue, is when people suffer abrupt drops in living standards – and that goes for Hackney as well as Athens.
That point is rammed home by a new paper from the economists Jacopo Ponticelli and Hans-Joachim Voth. Titled "Austerity and Anarchy", it should be essential reading for all those who want an academic take on what spending cuts made in Whitehall might mean on their local high streets. Ponticelli and Voth look at social unrest across Europe from 1919 to the present – and find a clear link between "fiscal retrenchment and instability" that goes beyond the misery caused by recession."
Ponticelli and Voth paper here.
Vaughan Bell on Riot Technology and Tom Stafford's When explaining becomes a sin.
"Many economists have spent the past few days passing around a paper on the Hindu-Muslim riots in India in the 80s and 90s. Written by Anjali Thomas Bohlken and Ernest John Sergeant in 2010, it finds that "just a 1% increase in the [economic] growth rate decreases the expected number of riots by over 5%". Recessions are good for riots: perhaps no surprise, there. What matters, they argue, is when people suffer abrupt drops in living standards – and that goes for Hackney as well as Athens.
That point is rammed home by a new paper from the economists Jacopo Ponticelli and Hans-Joachim Voth. Titled "Austerity and Anarchy", it should be essential reading for all those who want an academic take on what spending cuts made in Whitehall might mean on their local high streets. Ponticelli and Voth look at social unrest across Europe from 1919 to the present – and find a clear link between "fiscal retrenchment and instability" that goes beyond the misery caused by recession."
Ponticelli and Voth paper here.
Vaughan Bell on Riot Technology and Tom Stafford's When explaining becomes a sin.
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
Hotter than bhut jolokia
One grown in Australia seems to be the hottest now Caliente! Hottest Pepper Tips Heat Scale. From the picture it seems to e the one I tried off and on. It is pretty bad but easy to grow and the chillies are availale through out the year. So now, there seem to be at least two types of chillies hotter than bhut jolokia New “Infinity Chili” Sounds Hotter Than Homer Simpson’s “Insanity Pepper”
Monday, August 08, 2011
Sunday, August 07, 2011
Telugu words for escalator
From Escalator - ఎస్కలేటర్ (posted by Lanka Giridhar)
క. మరయును జంత్రఁపు మెట్టులు
చరసోపానఁములు కదులు చక్కెక్కుడులున్
దొర లేటవంపు టెత్తెన
లెఱుఁగజను పరిపరివిధము లెస్కలెటరమున్
మరమెట్లు, జంత్రపు మెట్లు (యంత్రపు మెట్లు), చరసోపానములు, కదులు చక్కెక్కుడులు
(లేక కదులెక్కుడులు), దొరలు యేటవాలు ఎత్తెన - ఇలా ఎన్నో విధాలుగా ఎస్కలేటరును
గుర్తుపట్టవచ్చు.
క. మరయును జంత్రఁపు మెట్టులు
చరసోపానఁములు కదులు చక్కెక్కుడులున్
దొర లేటవంపు టెత్తెన
లెఱుఁగజను పరిపరివిధము లెస్కలెటరమున్
మరమెట్లు, జంత్రపు మెట్లు (యంత్రపు మెట్లు), చరసోపానములు, కదులు చక్కెక్కుడులు
(లేక కదులెక్కుడులు), దొరలు యేటవాలు ఎత్తెన - ఇలా ఎన్నో విధాలుగా ఎస్కలేటరును
గుర్తుపట్టవచ్చు.
Saturday, August 06, 2011
Stephen Krasner on decoupling
From Conversation with Stephen D. Krasner:
"I got the title from one of my colleagues, John Meyer, who is a sociologist at Stanford. This is actually a common concept in sociology: decoupling. The idea is that norms can be decoupled from behavior. The standard story would be something like the following. Your business: if you go to the bank to get a loan, you have to have a business plan. If you don't have a business plan, people will not take you seriously. But everybody knows you're not going to follow the business plan. So you have a set of rules, you have to behave in a certain way, but everybody knows that at some level it's not what's going to drive your behavior. You have to have a vice president for technology, but if it's some eighteen-year-old computer science major at Berkeley, no one will take you seriously. So the eighteen-year-old may actually be running your technology but you better have some thirty- or thirty-five-year-old out there with a formal title.
There are lots of situations. International relations, and life in general, is complex. We have these rules. The rules may work some of the time; often, they don't. So organized hypocrisy is in some sense inherent. I wasn't kidding when I said it's part of life, not just international relations."
He was talking about his book "Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy" reviewd here.
Here Prof. John Meyer discusses how he and Brian Rowan came up with the idea of decoupling and John W. Meyer and Brian Rowan paper
The Structure of Educational Organizations ( Also http://books.google.com/books/about/Schools_and_society.html?id=_Bxy2_3lVFoC and http://home.earthlink.net/~fheapblog/id35.html, http://www.uazuay.edu.ec/estudios/com_exterior/tamara/Meyer-Rowan-Instlzd_Orgs.pdf and a more recent discussion by another Meyer and Rowan http://www.sunypress.edu/pdf/61339.pdf)
"I got the title from one of my colleagues, John Meyer, who is a sociologist at Stanford. This is actually a common concept in sociology: decoupling. The idea is that norms can be decoupled from behavior. The standard story would be something like the following. Your business: if you go to the bank to get a loan, you have to have a business plan. If you don't have a business plan, people will not take you seriously. But everybody knows you're not going to follow the business plan. So you have a set of rules, you have to behave in a certain way, but everybody knows that at some level it's not what's going to drive your behavior. You have to have a vice president for technology, but if it's some eighteen-year-old computer science major at Berkeley, no one will take you seriously. So the eighteen-year-old may actually be running your technology but you better have some thirty- or thirty-five-year-old out there with a formal title.
There are lots of situations. International relations, and life in general, is complex. We have these rules. The rules may work some of the time; often, they don't. So organized hypocrisy is in some sense inherent. I wasn't kidding when I said it's part of life, not just international relations."
He was talking about his book "Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy" reviewd here.
Here Prof. John Meyer discusses how he and Brian Rowan came up with the idea of decoupling and John W. Meyer and Brian Rowan paper
The Structure of Educational Organizations ( Also http://books.google.com/books/about/Schools_and_society.html?id=_Bxy2_3lVFoC and http://home.earthlink.net/~fheapblog/id35.html, http://www.uazuay.edu.ec/estudios/com_exterior/tamara/Meyer-Rowan-Instlzd_Orgs.pdf and a more recent discussion by another Meyer and Rowan http://www.sunypress.edu/pdf/61339.pdf)
Friday, August 05, 2011
Spaced repetition
Spaced repetition via the post What is the difference? by Steve Hsu provides links to several studies. A short article at Wikipedia on Spaced repetition
Wednesday, August 03, 2011
A song from Jogan
by Geeta Roy (Dutt) and others:
Jogan - Uthat Chale Avadhoot (part i)
Jogan - Uthat Chale Avadhoot (part ii)
P.S. Apart from one bhajan by Lata in Nau Bahaar, I seem to like Geeta Roy's bhajans more. Some information about Geeta Roy and her fabourite songs around 1956 is here:
http://www.fortunecity.com/lavender/ducksoup/26/GeetaDutt.htm
Jogan - Uthat Chale Avadhoot (part i)
Jogan - Uthat Chale Avadhoot (part ii)
P.S. Apart from one bhajan by Lata in Nau Bahaar, I seem to like Geeta Roy's bhajans more. Some information about Geeta Roy and her fabourite songs around 1956 is here:
http://www.fortunecity.com/lavender/ducksoup/26/GeetaDutt.htm
Monday, August 01, 2011
More on the treatment of mental illnesses
MindHacks links to an article on Patients and power struggles:
"Medical History has a brief but good article on the political wranglings and scientific battles between psychiatry, psychoanalysis and clinical psychology in 20th Century America."
The article Contested Jurisdictions: Psychiatry, Psychoanalysis, and Clinical Psychology in the United States, 1940–2010 by Andrew Scull also says:
"Publication of the 1980 edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association proved to be a watershed moment in the evolution of twentieth-century psychiatry. That document, and its subsequent, even more elephantine revisions, marked the advent of the so-called neo-Kraepelinian revolution in psychiatry. Embraced by the insurance industry and linked ever-more tightly to the needs and requirements of the multinational pharmaceutical industry, for whom psychotropic drugs were becoming the single most important and profitable set of products they marketed, it marked the decisive recapture of the profession by a biologically reductionist view of mental disorders."
and earlier
"Psychoanalysis had managed initially to contain the potential threat posed by the drugs revolution, but by the mid-1970s, that resolution was threatening to break down. Antipsychotic drugs had proved to be an enormously lucrative market, and questions were beginning to be raised in many quarters about precisely what therapeutic advantages accrued from adding seemingly interminable and expensive psychoanalytic treatments to the mix. A decade earlier, virtually every academic department of psychiatry was led by a psychoanalyst or a psychoanalytic fellow-traveller, but increasingly, the sums on offer to conduct laboratory research on potentially therapeutic compounds were exercising a powerful appeal, one bolstered by the critical importance of funded research in establishing pecking orders in large research universities."
Two related posts Fascinating book :"Crazy Like Us" and
Scary story
"Medical History has a brief but good article on the political wranglings and scientific battles between psychiatry, psychoanalysis and clinical psychology in 20th Century America."
The article Contested Jurisdictions: Psychiatry, Psychoanalysis, and Clinical Psychology in the United States, 1940–2010 by Andrew Scull also says:
"Publication of the 1980 edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association proved to be a watershed moment in the evolution of twentieth-century psychiatry. That document, and its subsequent, even more elephantine revisions, marked the advent of the so-called neo-Kraepelinian revolution in psychiatry. Embraced by the insurance industry and linked ever-more tightly to the needs and requirements of the multinational pharmaceutical industry, for whom psychotropic drugs were becoming the single most important and profitable set of products they marketed, it marked the decisive recapture of the profession by a biologically reductionist view of mental disorders."
and earlier
"Psychoanalysis had managed initially to contain the potential threat posed by the drugs revolution, but by the mid-1970s, that resolution was threatening to break down. Antipsychotic drugs had proved to be an enormously lucrative market, and questions were beginning to be raised in many quarters about precisely what therapeutic advantages accrued from adding seemingly interminable and expensive psychoanalytic treatments to the mix. A decade earlier, virtually every academic department of psychiatry was led by a psychoanalyst or a psychoanalytic fellow-traveller, but increasingly, the sums on offer to conduct laboratory research on potentially therapeutic compounds were exercising a powerful appeal, one bolstered by the critical importance of funded research in establishing pecking orders in large research universities."
Two related posts Fascinating book :"Crazy Like Us" and
Scary story
Some BT cotton updates
Bt cotton cuts pesticide poisoning - July 29, 2011 from Nature News
GM crop use makes minor pests major problem from Nature news 13 May 2010
More updates in GM Watch
Benefits of Bt cotton elude farmers in China
GM crop use makes minor pests major problem from Nature news 13 May 2010
More updates in GM Watch
Benefits of Bt cotton elude farmers in China
Saturday, July 30, 2011
Better together?
Hugo Mercier in Psychology Today blogs Why So Smart? Why So Dumb? How can reasoning be both so good and so bad? (via 3quarksdaily).
An earlier discussion in Jonah Lehrer's blog The Reason We Reason
An earlier discussion in Jonah Lehrer's blog The Reason We Reason
The allure of Hindi film songs
Recently a telugu relative aged about 65 came down with acute leukemia during a trip to USA. She is given about an year to live and it is not clear whether she can travel back to India. She wanted to listen to some old hindi songs and I was asked to send a list of sites. I know sites in telugu but for hindi/urdu I usually use YouTube and snd go on from there. So I sent her a list
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBkAAcXW54s&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=funBs-fw9GE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AE0ViVMEJMg&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTVoQRm4kR8&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFqGQ54WT9Y&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ja3XCe4e2gc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sPcTvZx6cc&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IJshvH4VJg&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_BmHDD8rSM&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8R2yZ6y3hh4&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XJx7gBLAJE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oFt8O1rrs4&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2CJZiP4_Sc&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQZaG5SZRYk&feature=relmfu
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyrIA2EPHzk&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgwfvDh7cPc&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A35PbjcKoBA&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5UjceuIZ2o&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGaE_PmzfVE
Apparently she has been using an IPad and listening to those songs and others using the search feauture.
It is not clear to me why Hindi films are poular (I like the songs, and sometimes songdance sequences,but usually do not watch the films). Brian Larkin has written about the popularity of hindi films outside India, particularly in Nigeria in various articles and his book 'Signal and Noise' mentioned before in
http://gaddeswarup.blogspot.com/2008/12/popularity-of-bolloywood-outside-india.html
http://gaddeswarup.blogspot.com/2008/11/interesting-book.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBkAAcXW54s&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=funBs-fw9GE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AE0ViVMEJMg&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTVoQRm4kR8&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFqGQ54WT9Y&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ja3XCe4e2gc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sPcTvZx6cc&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IJshvH4VJg&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_BmHDD8rSM&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8R2yZ6y3hh4&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XJx7gBLAJE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oFt8O1rrs4&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2CJZiP4_Sc&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQZaG5SZRYk&feature=relmfu
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyrIA2EPHzk&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgwfvDh7cPc&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A35PbjcKoBA&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5UjceuIZ2o&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGaE_PmzfVE
Apparently she has been using an IPad and listening to those songs and others using the search feauture.
It is not clear to me why Hindi films are poular (I like the songs, and sometimes songdance sequences,but usually do not watch the films). Brian Larkin has written about the popularity of hindi films outside India, particularly in Nigeria in various articles and his book 'Signal and Noise' mentioned before in
http://gaddeswarup.blogspot.com/2008/12/popularity-of-bolloywood-outside-india.html
http://gaddeswarup.blogspot.com/2008/11/interesting-book.html
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Don Ariely at FiveBooks
FiveBooks Interview Dan Ariely on Behavioural Economics
P.S. Related
Conditions for Intutive Expertise by Daniel Kahneman and Gary Klein, linked in
The Great Divide between Academics and Practitioners by Ashwin Parameswaran (via Rajeev Ramachandran's google reader)
P.S. Related
Conditions for Intutive Expertise by Daniel Kahneman and Gary Klein, linked in
The Great Divide between Academics and Practitioners by Ashwin Parameswaran (via Rajeev Ramachandran's google reader)
There is no love in most Indian marriages
since they are mostly arranged says a nephew who was born in USA. It is not clear to me what love is and what are the signs with which it can verified though it is proclaimed in the so called 'love marriages'. I assume that may be there is a skip in the hear beat or some sort of thrill when one sees the other whcih is a bit hard to verify after one is married, since one sees the other so often and in expected places. I wonder whether one can test by what happens when one sees each other unexpecedly. That happenned to me today.
D.Balasubramanian reminds us
of the benefits of yoghurt and buttermilk in Curd, buttermilk and the Nobel Prize of 1908
The wikipedia article Yoghurt describes the work of Ilya Ilyich Mechnikov in popularizing yoghurt.
The wikipedia article Yoghurt describes the work of Ilya Ilyich Mechnikov in popularizing yoghurt.
Monday, July 25, 2011
Links July 25, 2011
The big-spending blues by Timothy Garton Ash :
"CALL me Oswald Spengler if you must, but it's hard to avoid the conclusion that United States and the European Union are engaged in competitive decadence. The West's two leading polities seem incapable of tackling the debt and deficit burdens which their versions of liberal democratic capitalism have built up. Their politicians dance like drunkards along the cliff's edge of default."
From SCIENTIFIC american interview with Ducan Watts, the author of Everything is Obvious: Once you Know the Answer The Anti-Predictor: A Chat with Mathematical Sociologist Duncan Watts:
"I started out life in physics and then mathematics, and at some point I switched over to become a sociologist—and in the process of transitioning, I noticed this interesting phenomenon: When people perceived me as a mathematician, and I would describe my research, they would say, "Wow, that's really fascinating. How do you figure these things out? It's complicated and difficult." But when a few years later I was describing the same work in terms of social phenomena and the behavior of people, fads and historical events, success and failure, and so on, people would say, "That sounds kind of obvious. Don't we all know that?""
Andrew Gelman's review of the book here:
Reinvent the toilet challenge from Gates foundation.
"CALL me Oswald Spengler if you must, but it's hard to avoid the conclusion that United States and the European Union are engaged in competitive decadence. The West's two leading polities seem incapable of tackling the debt and deficit burdens which their versions of liberal democratic capitalism have built up. Their politicians dance like drunkards along the cliff's edge of default."
From SCIENTIFIC american interview with Ducan Watts, the author of Everything is Obvious: Once you Know the Answer The Anti-Predictor: A Chat with Mathematical Sociologist Duncan Watts:
"I started out life in physics and then mathematics, and at some point I switched over to become a sociologist—and in the process of transitioning, I noticed this interesting phenomenon: When people perceived me as a mathematician, and I would describe my research, they would say, "Wow, that's really fascinating. How do you figure these things out? It's complicated and difficult." But when a few years later I was describing the same work in terms of social phenomena and the behavior of people, fads and historical events, success and failure, and so on, people would say, "That sounds kind of obvious. Don't we all know that?""
Andrew Gelman's review of the book here:
Reinvent the toilet challenge from Gates foundation.
Sunday, July 24, 2011
M.N. Roy is now a private club
From M.N.Roy:
"M.N.ROY club in Mexico City
Chic By Accident from the Franco Mexican architect Emmanuel Picault together with the French architect Ludwig Godefroy just completed a private club in Mexico City, called M.N.ROY.
.......
We kept the house as a testimony of what it was, the house where Manabendra Nath Roy founded the first clandestine Mexican communist party."
via
M.N. Roy on The "Historical Role of Islam" in 3quarksdaily where Robin Verghese points to a readable article by M.N. Roy :
Historical Role of Islam:An Essay on Islamic Culture
P.S. M.N. Roy was also one of the founders of the Communist Party of India
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_Party_of_India
"M.N.ROY club in Mexico City
Chic By Accident from the Franco Mexican architect Emmanuel Picault together with the French architect Ludwig Godefroy just completed a private club in Mexico City, called M.N.ROY.
.......
We kept the house as a testimony of what it was, the house where Manabendra Nath Roy founded the first clandestine Mexican communist party."
via
M.N. Roy on The "Historical Role of Islam" in 3quarksdaily where Robin Verghese points to a readable article by M.N. Roy :
Historical Role of Islam:An Essay on Islamic Culture
P.S. M.N. Roy was also one of the founders of the Communist Party of India
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_Party_of_India
Thursday, July 21, 2011
Cultural habits
I am seventy now of which I have spent first forty years in India and the last twenty three in Australia. Of the countries where I lived I find Australia the most livable (there was and still is a bit of racism but it is no worse than caste stuff in India). I retired five years ago and when I applied for a health card, I found that I can actually get some money from the government since my income was low. There were other benefits as well. I found that for taking care of grand children, one could get some money from the government. Eventhough we have been doing it for the past five years to two to three days a week, I could never bring myself to do that. Looking after grandchildren has been a pleasure and it is something that one does automatically in India. Perhaps the money might have helped for some of the charities that I have been contributing to. But since the governement has been so good with medicare and other benefits (Some extras for the retired), there does nor seem to be any harm in letting the government to keep some of that money.
Monday, July 18, 2011
Telugu On-line Dictionaries Project
I am enclosing part of message from Sri Jampala Chowdary in 'racchabanda' Telugu On-line Dictionaries Project (I have been interested in this sort of projects for a while and an old friend Sri P.P.C.Joshi has kindly allowed one of the dictioaries that he published to be put online and I am planning to contribute to this project too):
"you are probably aware of the efforts of Sri
Vadapalli Seshatalpa Sai and Sri Kalepu Nagabhushanarao in making available
searchable on-line Telugu dictionaries at www.andhrabharati.com. Already the
following eight dictionaries have been brought on line: #Sabdaratnaakaramu
(bahujanapalli); brauNya te-iM (2nd Ed.); braun^ iM-te; aadhunika
vyavahaarakOSaM; urdoo-telugu; SaMkaranaaraayaNa te-iM; SaMkaranaaraayaNa
iM-te; Sreehari nighaMTuvu # [శబ్దరత్నాకరము
(బహుజనపల్లి); బ్రౌణ్య తె-ఇం
(2nd Ed.); బ్రౌన్ ఇం-తె; ఆధునిక
వ్యవహారకోశం; ఉర్దూ-తెలుగు;
శంకరనారాయణ తె-ఇం;
శంకరనారాయణ ఇం-తె; శ్రీహరి
నిఘంటువు].
Efforts are underway to bring more dictionaries on-line in a searchable
format. These include: #telugu paryaayapada nighaMTuvu;
SabdaarthachaMdrika: saMgeetaSabdaarthachaMdrika; puraaNanaamachaMdrika;
telugu nighaMTuvu - vidyaarthulaku (saa.a.); saMskRta-telugu (vaaviLla);
sooryaraayaaMdhra nighaMTuvu (6 volumes); aaMdhravaachaspatyamu;
aaMdhraSabdaratnaakaramu (3 volumes); telugu vyutpatti kOSaM (8 volumes);
vaaviLla nighaMTuvu (4 volumes); Sabdaartha deepika; maaMDalika
vRttipadakOSamulu (9 volumes); brauNya te-iM (1st Ed.); padabaMdha
paarijaatamu (2 volumes); kriyaasvaroopa maNideepika; maaMDalika padakOSamu
(saa.a); maaMDalika padakOSamu (te.a.) # [తెలుగు
పర్యాయపద నిఘంటువు;
శబ్దార్థచంద్రిక:
సంగీతశబ్దార్థచంద్రిక;
పురాణనామచంద్రిక; తెలుగు
నిఘంటువు -
విద్యార్థులకు (సా.అ.);
సంస్కృత-తెలుగు (వావిళ్ల);
సూర్యరాయాంధ్ర నిఘంటువు
(6 volumes); ఆంధ్రవాచస్పత్యము;
ఆంధ్రశబ్దరత్నాకరము (3 volumes);
తెలుగు
వ్యుత్పత్తి కోశం (8 volumes);
వావిళ్ల నిఘంటువు (4 volumes);
శబ్దార్థ దీపిక;
మాండలిక వృత్తిపదకోశములు (9 volumes);
బ్రౌణ్య తె-ఇం (1st Ed.); పదబంధ
పారిజాతము (2 volumes); క్రియాస్వరూప
మణిదీపిక; మాండలిక పదకోశము
(సా.అ);
మాండలిక పదకోశము (తె.అ.)]
Work has already begun on these volumes after obtaining necessary
authorizations and permissions from copyright holders, with more than 15,000
pages already typed and being proof-read; work is continuing on another
25,000 pages of material.
This is a monumental effort requiring a lot of resources. We estimate that
this project may cost more than $20,000 before it is completed.
Telugu Association of North America is pleased to support this very
important Telugu language project. You can support this project by
contributing to TANA Telugu On-line Dictionaries Project.
Please Donate Today. Checks can be written in the name of TANA and mailed to
V. Chowdary Jampala, Chairperson, TANA Publications Committee, 20374
Buckthorn Ct, Mundelein, IL 60060. You can also donate with a credit card
at https://www.tana.org/donate/ (please mention the Dictionary Project in
the comments section). Please contact cjampala@... if you need more
information.
Donations to TANA are tax-deductible in US.
Regards -- V Chowdary Jampala, Chair, TANA Publications Committee
PS: This project is both important and resource incentive. I am hoping that
you can make a generous donation to this worthy cause."
"you are probably aware of the efforts of Sri
Vadapalli Seshatalpa Sai and Sri Kalepu Nagabhushanarao in making available
searchable on-line Telugu dictionaries at www.andhrabharati.com. Already the
following eight dictionaries have been brought on line: #Sabdaratnaakaramu
(bahujanapalli); brauNya te-iM (2nd Ed.); braun^ iM-te; aadhunika
vyavahaarakOSaM; urdoo-telugu; SaMkaranaaraayaNa te-iM; SaMkaranaaraayaNa
iM-te; Sreehari nighaMTuvu # [శబ్దరత్నాకరము
(బహుజనపల్లి); బ్రౌణ్య తె-ఇం
(2nd Ed.); బ్రౌన్ ఇం-తె; ఆధునిక
వ్యవహారకోశం; ఉర్దూ-తెలుగు;
శంకరనారాయణ తె-ఇం;
శంకరనారాయణ ఇం-తె; శ్రీహరి
నిఘంటువు].
Efforts are underway to bring more dictionaries on-line in a searchable
format. These include: #telugu paryaayapada nighaMTuvu;
SabdaarthachaMdrika: saMgeetaSabdaarthachaMdrika; puraaNanaamachaMdrika;
telugu nighaMTuvu - vidyaarthulaku (saa.a.); saMskRta-telugu (vaaviLla);
sooryaraayaaMdhra nighaMTuvu (6 volumes); aaMdhravaachaspatyamu;
aaMdhraSabdaratnaakaramu (3 volumes); telugu vyutpatti kOSaM (8 volumes);
vaaviLla nighaMTuvu (4 volumes); Sabdaartha deepika; maaMDalika
vRttipadakOSamulu (9 volumes); brauNya te-iM (1st Ed.); padabaMdha
paarijaatamu (2 volumes); kriyaasvaroopa maNideepika; maaMDalika padakOSamu
(saa.a); maaMDalika padakOSamu (te.a.) # [తెలుగు
పర్యాయపద నిఘంటువు;
శబ్దార్థచంద్రిక:
సంగీతశబ్దార్థచంద్రిక;
పురాణనామచంద్రిక; తెలుగు
నిఘంటువు -
విద్యార్థులకు (సా.అ.);
సంస్కృత-తెలుగు (వావిళ్ల);
సూర్యరాయాంధ్ర నిఘంటువు
(6 volumes); ఆంధ్రవాచస్పత్యము;
ఆంధ్రశబ్దరత్నాకరము (3 volumes);
తెలుగు
వ్యుత్పత్తి కోశం (8 volumes);
వావిళ్ల నిఘంటువు (4 volumes);
శబ్దార్థ దీపిక;
మాండలిక వృత్తిపదకోశములు (9 volumes);
బ్రౌణ్య తె-ఇం (1st Ed.); పదబంధ
పారిజాతము (2 volumes); క్రియాస్వరూప
మణిదీపిక; మాండలిక పదకోశము
(సా.అ);
మాండలిక పదకోశము (తె.అ.)]
Work has already begun on these volumes after obtaining necessary
authorizations and permissions from copyright holders, with more than 15,000
pages already typed and being proof-read; work is continuing on another
25,000 pages of material.
This is a monumental effort requiring a lot of resources. We estimate that
this project may cost more than $20,000 before it is completed.
Telugu Association of North America is pleased to support this very
important Telugu language project. You can support this project by
contributing to TANA Telugu On-line Dictionaries Project.
Please Donate Today. Checks can be written in the name of TANA and mailed to
V. Chowdary Jampala, Chairperson, TANA Publications Committee, 20374
Buckthorn Ct, Mundelein, IL 60060. You can also donate with a credit card
at https://www.tana.org/donate/ (please mention the Dictionary Project in
the comments section). Please contact cjampala@... if you need more
information.
Donations to TANA are tax-deductible in US.
Regards -- V Chowdary Jampala, Chair, TANA Publications Committee
PS: This project is both important and resource incentive. I am hoping that
you can make a generous donation to this worthy cause."
Sunday, July 17, 2011
ninu chuudaka neanundaleanu lyrics
Interesting version of 'Aye Na Balam '
by Lucknow qawwals- Azimullah and Nusrat.
The famous original version Ka Karoon Sajni Aye Na Baalam - Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan but does not seem as good as the one I heard in a concert of Bade Ghulam Ali Khan in the 60's.
The famous original version Ka Karoon Sajni Aye Na Baalam - Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan but does not seem as good as the one I heard in a concert of Bade Ghulam Ali Khan in the 60's.
Fascinating book :"Crazy Like Us"
Crazy Like Us by Ethan Watters has been drawing good reviews for over an year. Here are two reviews in Neuroscptic
and in MindHacks .
An article by Ethan Watters outlining some of the ideas:
The Americanization of Mental Illness
One of the points of the book seems that some sort of centralization of the diagnosis and treatment of mental illnesses is taking place through DSM of American Psychiatric Association.
A summary in four parts with the first part here Crazy Like Us, Part 1: Anorexia in Hong Kong
I am reminded of a study of the Economics profession by Marion Foucarde:
The Construction of a global profession; The Transnationalization of Economics
and in MindHacks .
An article by Ethan Watters outlining some of the ideas:
The Americanization of Mental Illness
One of the points of the book seems that some sort of centralization of the diagnosis and treatment of mental illnesses is taking place through DSM of American Psychiatric Association.
A summary in four parts with the first part here Crazy Like Us, Part 1: Anorexia in Hong Kong
I am reminded of a study of the Economics profession by Marion Foucarde:
The Construction of a global profession; The Transnationalization of Economics
Saturday, July 16, 2011
Tim Lambert asks
"How are scientists supposed to discover whether it is safe to eat if you destroy experiments that would address that question?"
Greenpeace destroy genetically modified wheat experiment
Greenpeace destroy genetically modified wheat experiment
Friday, July 15, 2011
Sakharov's biography
The World of Andrei Sakharov: A Russian Physicist's Path to Freedom by Gennady Gorelik
Boris L. Altshuler report on Sakharov from a recent conference:
Andrei Sakharov as a physicist in all facets of his life
Boris L. Altshuler report on Sakharov from a recent conference:
Andrei Sakharov as a physicist in all facets of his life
Diagnosis?
Depression: From Treatment to Diagnosis?:
"A diagnosis is meant to be an objective statement about the nature of your illness; treatments (if any) come afterwards. It would be odd if the treatments on offer influenced what diagnosis you got.
An interesting paper just out suggests that exactly this kind of reverse influence has happened. The authors looked at what happened in the USA in 2003 when antidepressants were slapped with a "black box" warning, cautioning against their use in children and adolescents, due to concerns over suicide in young people."
TheLastPsychiatrist responds " The symptoms were first, and then a cognitive heuristic as to what to call it and what to give:
1998: irritability = depression
2008: irritability = bipolar"
P.S. It is not clear to me whether symptoms to diagnosis is clear cut in many cases. depending on the case relief and 'or stabilization may be important before disgnosis in many cases. the diagnoses and treatments seem vary with time and what were condidered breakthroughs at some stage may become only a part of the treatments later on. This sort of examples abound in Siddhartha Mukherjee's book "The emperor of all Maladies". As TLP says in another place The Decline Effect Is Stupid:
"Medicine is not a science, and despite the white coats and antisocial demeanor doctors are not scientists. Docs and patients both need to get that into their heads and plan accordingly. That why we say doctors 'practice' medicine."
"A diagnosis is meant to be an objective statement about the nature of your illness; treatments (if any) come afterwards. It would be odd if the treatments on offer influenced what diagnosis you got.
An interesting paper just out suggests that exactly this kind of reverse influence has happened. The authors looked at what happened in the USA in 2003 when antidepressants were slapped with a "black box" warning, cautioning against their use in children and adolescents, due to concerns over suicide in young people."
TheLastPsychiatrist responds " The symptoms were first, and then a cognitive heuristic as to what to call it and what to give:
1998: irritability = depression
2008: irritability = bipolar"
P.S. It is not clear to me whether symptoms to diagnosis is clear cut in many cases. depending on the case relief and 'or stabilization may be important before disgnosis in many cases. the diagnoses and treatments seem vary with time and what were condidered breakthroughs at some stage may become only a part of the treatments later on. This sort of examples abound in Siddhartha Mukherjee's book "The emperor of all Maladies". As TLP says in another place The Decline Effect Is Stupid:
"Medicine is not a science, and despite the white coats and antisocial demeanor doctors are not scientists. Docs and patients both need to get that into their heads and plan accordingly. That why we say doctors 'practice' medicine."
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Monday, July 11, 2011
Two views of why two sexes
Carl Zimmer describes an experiment supporting the traditional view of the evolution of sex. The theory Why is there sex? To fight the parasite army:
"In the 1970s, several researchers built mathematical models of how parasites influenced the evolution of their hosts and vice versa. Their research suggested that both partners go through cycles of boom and bust. Natural selection favors parasites that can infect the most common strain of host. But as they kill off those hosts, another host strain rises to dominate the population. Then a new parasite strain better adapted to the new host strain begins to thrive, leaving the old parasite strain in the dust.
This model of host-parasite coevolution came to be known as the Red Queen hypothesis, after the Red Queen in Lewis Carroll’s book Through the Looking Glass, who takes Alice on a run that never seems to go anywhere. “Now here, you see, it takes all the running you can do to keep in the same place,” the Red Queen explains.
The Red Queen conundrum, some researchers have argued, may give an evolutionary edge to sex. Asexual strains can never beat out sexual strains, because whenever they get too successful, parasites build up and devastate the strain. Sexual organisms, meanwhile, can avoid these dramatic booms and busts because they can shuffle their genes into new combinations that are harder for parasites to adapt to."
Recent paper supporting the view Running with the Red Queen: Host-Parasite Coevolution Selects for Biparental Sex
The contray view reported here Sex Is Not About Promoting Genetic Variation, Researchers Argue:
"Although many scientists have offered answers to this question, most have focused on the benefit of mixing or purifying genes. But by taking the genome theory into account, Heng's findings may have dethroned the queen of problems in evolutionary biology.
According to Heng, the hidden advantage sex has over asexual reproduction is that it constrains macroevolution -- evolution at the genome level -- to allow a species' identity to survive. In other words, it prevents "Species A" from morphing into "Species B." Meanwhile, it also allows for microevolution -- evolution at the gene level -- to allow members of the species to adapt to the environment.
Considering their observations and those of paleontologists, population geneticists and ecologists cited in the article, Heng and Gorelick argue that new research should focus on the genome, not just the individual genes, because the genome serves as both the genetic information unit and selection package for evolution."
The article available here:
Sex Reduces Genetic Variation: A Multidisciplinary Review by Root Gorelick, Henry H. Q. Heng
"In the 1970s, several researchers built mathematical models of how parasites influenced the evolution of their hosts and vice versa. Their research suggested that both partners go through cycles of boom and bust. Natural selection favors parasites that can infect the most common strain of host. But as they kill off those hosts, another host strain rises to dominate the population. Then a new parasite strain better adapted to the new host strain begins to thrive, leaving the old parasite strain in the dust.
This model of host-parasite coevolution came to be known as the Red Queen hypothesis, after the Red Queen in Lewis Carroll’s book Through the Looking Glass, who takes Alice on a run that never seems to go anywhere. “Now here, you see, it takes all the running you can do to keep in the same place,” the Red Queen explains.
The Red Queen conundrum, some researchers have argued, may give an evolutionary edge to sex. Asexual strains can never beat out sexual strains, because whenever they get too successful, parasites build up and devastate the strain. Sexual organisms, meanwhile, can avoid these dramatic booms and busts because they can shuffle their genes into new combinations that are harder for parasites to adapt to."
Recent paper supporting the view Running with the Red Queen: Host-Parasite Coevolution Selects for Biparental Sex
The contray view reported here Sex Is Not About Promoting Genetic Variation, Researchers Argue:
"Although many scientists have offered answers to this question, most have focused on the benefit of mixing or purifying genes. But by taking the genome theory into account, Heng's findings may have dethroned the queen of problems in evolutionary biology.
According to Heng, the hidden advantage sex has over asexual reproduction is that it constrains macroevolution -- evolution at the genome level -- to allow a species' identity to survive. In other words, it prevents "Species A" from morphing into "Species B." Meanwhile, it also allows for microevolution -- evolution at the gene level -- to allow members of the species to adapt to the environment.
Considering their observations and those of paleontologists, population geneticists and ecologists cited in the article, Heng and Gorelick argue that new research should focus on the genome, not just the individual genes, because the genome serves as both the genetic information unit and selection package for evolution."
The article available here:
Sex Reduces Genetic Variation: A Multidisciplinary Review by Root Gorelick, Henry H. Q. Heng
Thursday, July 07, 2011
Some links, July 7th
Farm Size and Productivity: Understanding the Strengths of Smallholder and Improving Their Livelihoods by Ramesh Chand , P A Lakshmi Prasanna and Aruna Singh
Abstract:"During the 1960s and 1970s there was an intense debate on the observed inverse relationship between farm size and per hectare agricultural productivity in India. It was subsequently argued that the higher productivity of smallholdings would disappear with the adoption of superior technology, modernisation and growth in general. However, close to half a century later, National Sample Survey data from the initial years of the 21st century show that smallholdings in Indian agriculture still exhibit a higher productivity than large holdings. These smallholdings however show lower per capita productivity and the incidence of poverty is widespread. Strategies for Indian agriculture and smallholding households should include reducing the inequality in land distribution and promoting off-farm work in the rural areas itself. The strategy of improving the crop land-man ratio by facilitating migration from rural India has not worked and will not work. The lives of smallholding families can be improved only by building on their higher per acre agricultural productivity and by promoting off-farm rural employment."
Last year: Arsenic life. This year: Chlorine life? by Carl Zimmer. More at A First Step Toward A New Form of Life
Sangakkara's challenge to cricket by Peter Roebuck. The transcript of the speech The Spirit of Sri Lanka's Cricket - A celebration of our uniqueness
In Eyes, a Clock Calibrated by Wavelengths of Light From NY Times "What do these findings mean to everyday life? Some experts believe that any kind of light too late into the evening could have broad health effects, independent of any effect on sleep. For example, a report published last year in the journal PNAS found that mice exposed to light at night gained more weight than those housed in normal light, even though both groups consumed the same number of calories.
Light at night has been examined as a contributor to breast cancer for two decades. While there is still no consensus, enough laboratory and epidemiological studies have supported the idea that in 2007, the World Health Organization declared shift work a probable carcinogen. Body clock disruptions “can alter sleep-activity patterns, suppress melatonin production and disregulate genes involved in tumor development,” the agency concluded."
Aging: To Treat, or Not to Treat? (via 3quarksdaily)
Nutrition advice: The vitamin D-lemma (via 3quarksdaily): "He(Dr. Clifford Rosen) suspects that unbiased, systematic reviews such as this one will increasingly come under fire when they lead to hard recommendations. "This is the beginning of a whole new phase," he says. "In the old days of medicine we believed experts, and now we say, show us the data.""
Monday, July 04, 2011
Mark Ames on V.S. Naipaul
Discussion in Naked Capitalism Mark Ames: Why the American Right Never Liked V.S. Naipaul:
"I’ve often wondered why the American Right has been so quiet about V.S. Naipaul. He’s easily the most talented reactionary writer in the English language–maybe the only living talent left in the right-wing zombiesphere.....
Now that Naipaul could compare the two Eldridge Cleavers–the Black Panther vs. the Republican lackey–the message was clear. If Naipaul wanted to pick up that check from the American Right-Wing, it wasn’t enough to have fought on the front-lines of the ideological battle of the 1970′s against the literary Marxists. He’d have to become a lobotomized, conquered version of himself, an Eldridge Cleaver. He’d have to give up everything interesting about himself.
Instead, Naipaul essentially banished himself to the whispered margins of the American Right by doing what he was always best at: Describing exactly what he saw at the 1984 Convention, without artifice, without pandering."
As thet say, read the whole thing. In the comments section Yves Smith has some comments on Australia "I’ve lived in Australian and done business in Canada. They are so far from libertarian it isn’t funny.
Both are WAY to the left of the US. They have universal health care, much more progressive taxation (and far more cumbersome tax reporting in Oz than here), much higher minimum wages, have laws more favorable to unions, far more aggressive regulation (Australia’s version of the FDA makes the FDA look like pussies; they shut down a major drug maker while I was there and have much tougher policies on food than we do. Similarly Canada, New Zealand, and Australia have more extensive and intrusive bank regulation by a country mile).
Voting is MANDATORY in Australia, for Chrissakes. Paid political advertising on TV is forbidden. People there do not believe CEO of companies they did not build deserve to be paid a lot. Hedge fund manager John Hempton has said flat out no CEO is worth more than $2 million a year, and I’m sure if I asked him he would not object to confiscatory taxation to support that. And he has plenty of company in the top tier in Oz (I know because I met about half the people at that level in Sydney, they are very accessible if you make the effort).
And Australia is also rated as having one of the most intrusive surveillance states in the world, in the same category as the US, the UK, and China. So how libertarian is that?"
"I’ve often wondered why the American Right has been so quiet about V.S. Naipaul. He’s easily the most talented reactionary writer in the English language–maybe the only living talent left in the right-wing zombiesphere.....
Now that Naipaul could compare the two Eldridge Cleavers–the Black Panther vs. the Republican lackey–the message was clear. If Naipaul wanted to pick up that check from the American Right-Wing, it wasn’t enough to have fought on the front-lines of the ideological battle of the 1970′s against the literary Marxists. He’d have to become a lobotomized, conquered version of himself, an Eldridge Cleaver. He’d have to give up everything interesting about himself.
Instead, Naipaul essentially banished himself to the whispered margins of the American Right by doing what he was always best at: Describing exactly what he saw at the 1984 Convention, without artifice, without pandering."
As thet say, read the whole thing. In the comments section Yves Smith has some comments on Australia "I’ve lived in Australian and done business in Canada. They are so far from libertarian it isn’t funny.
Both are WAY to the left of the US. They have universal health care, much more progressive taxation (and far more cumbersome tax reporting in Oz than here), much higher minimum wages, have laws more favorable to unions, far more aggressive regulation (Australia’s version of the FDA makes the FDA look like pussies; they shut down a major drug maker while I was there and have much tougher policies on food than we do. Similarly Canada, New Zealand, and Australia have more extensive and intrusive bank regulation by a country mile).
Voting is MANDATORY in Australia, for Chrissakes. Paid political advertising on TV is forbidden. People there do not believe CEO of companies they did not build deserve to be paid a lot. Hedge fund manager John Hempton has said flat out no CEO is worth more than $2 million a year, and I’m sure if I asked him he would not object to confiscatory taxation to support that. And he has plenty of company in the top tier in Oz (I know because I met about half the people at that level in Sydney, they are very accessible if you make the effort).
And Australia is also rated as having one of the most intrusive surveillance states in the world, in the same category as the US, the UK, and China. So how libertarian is that?"
Rohiniprasad on Bhairavi
భావతరంగాల సింధువు: భైరవి with lonks to lots of songs( many in Hindi).
P.S. See also the articles by విష్ణుభొట్ల లక్ష్మన్న
P.S. See also the articles by విష్ణుభొట్ల లక్ష్మన్న
Sunday, July 03, 2011
A.K.Ramanujan's famous essay
Is there an Indian Way of Thinking? An Informal Essay online.
Some commentaries:
Attipat Krishnaswami Ramanujan by Candy Wagoner ""Is There an Indian Way of Thinking?" is a cultural essay that appears in social anthropologist, McKim Marriot's India Through Hindu Categories (1990). Ramanujan's ultimate answer to the title question is yes; it is what he calls "context-sensitive" as opposed to "context-free." These terms, he takes from linguistics, in which they refer to different kinds of grammatical rules. In applying them to cultures or ways of thinking, Ramanujan relies primarily on a text-based analysis. He cautions that they are "overall tendencies." "Actual behavior may be more complex, though the rules they think with are a crucial factor guiding the behavior" (47). Context-sensitive is, he suggests, the more appropriate term for what others have taken for an Indian tendency toward inconsistency and hypocrisy, as well as, perhaps tolerance and mimicry. Ramanujan cites Said's Orientalism here, suggesting a European source for these stereotypes created out of a necessity to essentialize and exoticize the Eastern world.
Context-free thinking, which he attributes to Euro-American culture, gives rise to universal testaments of law, such as in the Judeo-Christian tradition and in the European philosophical tradition, e.g. Hegel. Context-sensitive thinking, on the other hand, gives rise to more complicated sets of standards such as the Laws of Manu, by which appropriateness depends on various factors, especially factors of identity and personhood, such as birth, occupation, life stage, karma, dharma, etc. Ramanujan stresses that this difference in philosophical outcome is not a symptom of irrationality, but a different kind of rationale."
In People Of The Grammar, Anil Menon quotes from the article "...And grammar is the central model of thinking in many Hindu texts. As Frits Staal has said, what Euclid is to the European thought, the grammarian Panini is to the Indian. Even the Kama Sutra is literally a grammar of love — which declines and conjugates men and women as one would nouns and verbs in different genders, voices, moods and aspects."
Respective influences of Euclid and Panini have also been discussed by Swiss Samskrit scholar Johannes Bronkhorst in "Panini and Euclid:Reflections on Indian Geometry", which appeared in Journal of Indian Philosophy, 29, pp 43-80. In a discussion forum Aravindhan remarks:
"I think he identifies an important problem, and does it well, but misidentifies its cause. He seems to suggest that the problem could have been that science was influenced by grammatical methodology (though there is no clear evidence for this). In my opinion, it was much deeper than that.
Panini's grammar, from a methodological perspective, embodies two trends. The first is the trend towards the primacy of exegesis in scholarly discourse. For some reason, texts by renowned scholars came to have a very special status, eventually becoming a source of knowledge equal to or superior than observation. The second trend is the increasing importance of inductive reasoning, where you used specific examples to derive generalised rules. Taken together, these are capable of producing devastating errors.
But Panini's grammar did not create these trends, nor were they confined to grammatics. You find them equally in philosophical works of the period which - unlike earlier texts - only try to interpret, expound on and clarify the meanings of existing texts; and even the original work that is done still seeks support in interpretation of existing texts.
We see exactly the same disease in the mathematics of the period. Bhaskara tries to argue mathematics using rules of mimamsa. Mimamsa, for heaven's sake! And proofs - where they are provided - tend to be anecdotal, rather than deductive. Bronkhorst argues that philosophy in that period understood the concept of proof. He's right, technically speaking, but the form of proofs they used lacked rigour and routinely accepted exegetic and anectdotal evidence as "proof". Just as the mathematicians did.
So I don't think Bronkhorst adequately looks at what was happening in other disciplines. I think there is a readily available explanation for why the problems he identifies happened in Ancient India, as I've tried to outline above.
There is also a clear parallel with certain modern trends (not just confined to India), where ancient knowledge is being venerated without much independent inquiry. I would like to quote one passage from Bronkhorst's paper:
"Aryabhatta is wrong where he gives the volume of a pyramid as: "Half the product of the height and the [surface of the triangular base] is the volume called 'pyramid'." The correct volume of a pyramid is a third, not half, of the product here specified... The same is true of Aryabhatta's incorrect rule for the volume of a sphere."
These errors are discussed in greater detail in a 1985 paper published in a French journal. It tends to flabbergast people because the idea that Sanskrit texts might actually be wrong is not something people think about (which is absurd - no human science can ever be wholly right about everything at any point of time).
And that, I think, is the biggest danger in the current trend of constantly exalting ancient works. Science (and any other field of inquiry) progresses best when it is most open and least dogmatic. Which is why (in my opinion) Indian science didn't progress beyond a point - and why even mathematicians as obviously gifted as Aryabhatta and Bhaskara made such glaring errors."
And finally Amit Chaudhuri reviewing a book of poems by A.K. ramanujan in The twin-lobed brahmin quotes extensively from the famous article and says "I quote this passage at length not only because of its intrinsic readability, but also because of the way it embodies some of the most characteristic features of Ramanujan's poetry. First, there is the exploration of an idea, not through metaphor or analogy, but through an "image" of a member of Ramanujan's family, in this case his father."
Some commentaries:
Attipat Krishnaswami Ramanujan by Candy Wagoner ""Is There an Indian Way of Thinking?" is a cultural essay that appears in social anthropologist, McKim Marriot's India Through Hindu Categories (1990). Ramanujan's ultimate answer to the title question is yes; it is what he calls "context-sensitive" as opposed to "context-free." These terms, he takes from linguistics, in which they refer to different kinds of grammatical rules. In applying them to cultures or ways of thinking, Ramanujan relies primarily on a text-based analysis. He cautions that they are "overall tendencies." "Actual behavior may be more complex, though the rules they think with are a crucial factor guiding the behavior" (47). Context-sensitive is, he suggests, the more appropriate term for what others have taken for an Indian tendency toward inconsistency and hypocrisy, as well as, perhaps tolerance and mimicry. Ramanujan cites Said's Orientalism here, suggesting a European source for these stereotypes created out of a necessity to essentialize and exoticize the Eastern world.
Context-free thinking, which he attributes to Euro-American culture, gives rise to universal testaments of law, such as in the Judeo-Christian tradition and in the European philosophical tradition, e.g. Hegel. Context-sensitive thinking, on the other hand, gives rise to more complicated sets of standards such as the Laws of Manu, by which appropriateness depends on various factors, especially factors of identity and personhood, such as birth, occupation, life stage, karma, dharma, etc. Ramanujan stresses that this difference in philosophical outcome is not a symptom of irrationality, but a different kind of rationale."
In People Of The Grammar, Anil Menon quotes from the article "...And grammar is the central model of thinking in many Hindu texts. As Frits Staal has said, what Euclid is to the European thought, the grammarian Panini is to the Indian. Even the Kama Sutra is literally a grammar of love — which declines and conjugates men and women as one would nouns and verbs in different genders, voices, moods and aspects."
Respective influences of Euclid and Panini have also been discussed by Swiss Samskrit scholar Johannes Bronkhorst in "Panini and Euclid:Reflections on Indian Geometry", which appeared in Journal of Indian Philosophy, 29, pp 43-80. In a discussion forum Aravindhan remarks:
"I think he identifies an important problem, and does it well, but misidentifies its cause. He seems to suggest that the problem could have been that science was influenced by grammatical methodology (though there is no clear evidence for this). In my opinion, it was much deeper than that.
Panini's grammar, from a methodological perspective, embodies two trends. The first is the trend towards the primacy of exegesis in scholarly discourse. For some reason, texts by renowned scholars came to have a very special status, eventually becoming a source of knowledge equal to or superior than observation. The second trend is the increasing importance of inductive reasoning, where you used specific examples to derive generalised rules. Taken together, these are capable of producing devastating errors.
But Panini's grammar did not create these trends, nor were they confined to grammatics. You find them equally in philosophical works of the period which - unlike earlier texts - only try to interpret, expound on and clarify the meanings of existing texts; and even the original work that is done still seeks support in interpretation of existing texts.
We see exactly the same disease in the mathematics of the period. Bhaskara tries to argue mathematics using rules of mimamsa. Mimamsa, for heaven's sake! And proofs - where they are provided - tend to be anecdotal, rather than deductive. Bronkhorst argues that philosophy in that period understood the concept of proof. He's right, technically speaking, but the form of proofs they used lacked rigour and routinely accepted exegetic and anectdotal evidence as "proof". Just as the mathematicians did.
So I don't think Bronkhorst adequately looks at what was happening in other disciplines. I think there is a readily available explanation for why the problems he identifies happened in Ancient India, as I've tried to outline above.
There is also a clear parallel with certain modern trends (not just confined to India), where ancient knowledge is being venerated without much independent inquiry. I would like to quote one passage from Bronkhorst's paper:
"Aryabhatta is wrong where he gives the volume of a pyramid as: "Half the product of the height and the [surface of the triangular base] is the volume called 'pyramid'." The correct volume of a pyramid is a third, not half, of the product here specified... The same is true of Aryabhatta's incorrect rule for the volume of a sphere."
These errors are discussed in greater detail in a 1985 paper published in a French journal. It tends to flabbergast people because the idea that Sanskrit texts might actually be wrong is not something people think about (which is absurd - no human science can ever be wholly right about everything at any point of time).
And that, I think, is the biggest danger in the current trend of constantly exalting ancient works. Science (and any other field of inquiry) progresses best when it is most open and least dogmatic. Which is why (in my opinion) Indian science didn't progress beyond a point - and why even mathematicians as obviously gifted as Aryabhatta and Bhaskara made such glaring errors."
And finally Amit Chaudhuri reviewing a book of poems by A.K. ramanujan in The twin-lobed brahmin quotes extensively from the famous article and says "I quote this passage at length not only because of its intrinsic readability, but also because of the way it embodies some of the most characteristic features of Ramanujan's poetry. First, there is the exploration of an idea, not through metaphor or analogy, but through an "image" of a member of Ramanujan's family, in this case his father."
On China Pakistan Alliance
Amit Menghani
FISA leader Amit Menghani is ‘Young Victorian of the Year 2011′
An earlier opinion piece by him: AMIT MENGHANI: Discrimination and Victoria
An earlier opinion piece by him: AMIT MENGHANI: Discrimination and Victoria
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