The Most Misunderstood Man in America: Joseph Stiglitz predicted the global financial meltdown. So why can't he get any respect here at home?from Newsweek.
P.S. Discussion in Economist's View. See in particular Bruce Wilder's comments.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Friday, July 17, 2009
Book recommendation from Fatima Bhutto
from an interesting interview In My Place: An interview with Fatima Bhutto via 3quarksdaily :
Empires of the Indus: From Tibet to Pakistan - The Story of a River by Alice Albinia.
Extract from the book here and The Guardian review
A river trickles through it .
P.S. Alice Albinia's home page here .
Empires of the Indus: From Tibet to Pakistan - The Story of a River by Alice Albinia.
Extract from the book here and The Guardian review
A river trickles through it .
P.S. Alice Albinia's home page here .
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
From science blogs
From Mind Hacks For whom the ball tolls :
"I was just re-reading the excellent Prospect magazine article on psychotherapy and cricket when I was struck by a bit about the high rate of suicides in professional cricket players that I'd not noticed before."
And links to several interesting articles 2009-07-10 Spike activity
Ed Young discusses some recent studies of Joshua Greene and Joseph Paxton Will vs. Grace - are people honest because they resist temptation or because they don't feel it? via Gene Expression :
"Obviously, the study has its limitations. Greene and Paxton couldn't work out how many of their dishonest volunteers were aware of their deceit, whether the honest lot wilfully pushed aside temptation well before the brain-scanning commenced, what the motivations of either group were, or whether their degree of honesty in the experiment carries over into their normal lives. Nonetheless, it's an intriguing start, and as the duo concludes: "The present findings do suggest, however, that some individuals can, at least temporarily, achieve a state of moral grace.""
Jonah Lehrer on Schizophrenia and Smoking :
"Nicotine, it turns out, can significantly reduce the sensory symptoms associated with the mental illness."
"I was just re-reading the excellent Prospect magazine article on psychotherapy and cricket when I was struck by a bit about the high rate of suicides in professional cricket players that I'd not noticed before."
And links to several interesting articles 2009-07-10 Spike activity
Ed Young discusses some recent studies of Joshua Greene and Joseph Paxton Will vs. Grace - are people honest because they resist temptation or because they don't feel it? via Gene Expression :
"Obviously, the study has its limitations. Greene and Paxton couldn't work out how many of their dishonest volunteers were aware of their deceit, whether the honest lot wilfully pushed aside temptation well before the brain-scanning commenced, what the motivations of either group were, or whether their degree of honesty in the experiment carries over into their normal lives. Nonetheless, it's an intriguing start, and as the duo concludes: "The present findings do suggest, however, that some individuals can, at least temporarily, achieve a state of moral grace.""
Jonah Lehrer on Schizophrenia and Smoking :
"Nicotine, it turns out, can significantly reduce the sensory symptoms associated with the mental illness."
From Telugu sites
Kanneganti Ramarao in TANA 09 -- A trip report:
"Here are the general problems about these talks. Why is that
when we talk about some ancient poet, we are forced to admire
them uncritically? I don't know about you, but if somebody likes
everything that I say, I will immediately look for a bridge that
they are trying sell me.
Simpler explanation is this: We are not trained to separate the
wheat from chaff. When Nannaya writes "meeTina viccu
gubbala" we do not see if it is appropriate, even discounting for
the modern tastes. It is as though each of them got a champion
filly and they are trying to sell to the audience like a infomercial
sales person."
Katti Mahesh Kumar maintains a very hectic pace in పర్ణశాల . The language is a bit too bookish for me. Usually I have to run to Brown's Telugu_English Dictionary only to find that some of the words have evolved and mean different things now. It is a pity that there is no dictionary of modern Telugu usage available online except the small "Adhunika Vyavahars Kosam" from Prachee Publications, Who have also published Rahul Banerjee's "Recovering the Lost Tongue: The Saga of Environmental Struggles in Central India".
Coming back to Katti Mahesh Kumar, I find the posts stimulating and I wonder how he manages to post interesting thoughts each day. Possibly, he is a brilliant chap who read and thought a lot earlier. It turns out that he is a Dalit and seems to be receiving a lot of flak and returning it. Kuffir says that caste does'nt need the village .
"Here are the general problems about these talks. Why is that
when we talk about some ancient poet, we are forced to admire
them uncritically? I don't know about you, but if somebody likes
everything that I say, I will immediately look for a bridge that
they are trying sell me.
Simpler explanation is this: We are not trained to separate the
wheat from chaff. When Nannaya writes "meeTina viccu
gubbala" we do not see if it is appropriate, even discounting for
the modern tastes. It is as though each of them got a champion
filly and they are trying to sell to the audience like a infomercial
sales person."
Katti Mahesh Kumar maintains a very hectic pace in పర్ణశాల . The language is a bit too bookish for me. Usually I have to run to Brown's Telugu_English Dictionary only to find that some of the words have evolved and mean different things now. It is a pity that there is no dictionary of modern Telugu usage available online except the small "Adhunika Vyavahars Kosam" from Prachee Publications, Who have also published Rahul Banerjee's "Recovering the Lost Tongue: The Saga of Environmental Struggles in Central India".
Coming back to Katti Mahesh Kumar, I find the posts stimulating and I wonder how he manages to post interesting thoughts each day. Possibly, he is a brilliant chap who read and thought a lot earlier. It turns out that he is a Dalit and seems to be receiving a lot of flak and returning it. Kuffir says that caste does'nt need the village .
Two reports on overseas students in Australia
From Australia's overseas education 'a scam':
"Thousands of Indians are being enrolled in "dodgy" courses in Australia, while others are paying up to $20,000 for a good result in the International English Language Test System exam, an investigation into the overseas student industry has found.
Following a recent spate of attacks on Indian students in Australia, The Australian reports the nation's $14-billion international education sector has turned into a recognised immigration racket."
From Foreign students 'slave trade':
"THOUSANDS of overseas students are being made to work for nothing — or even pay to work — by businesses exploiting loopholes in immigration and education laws in what experts describe as a system of economic slavery.
The vast pool of unpaid labour was created in 2005 when vocational students were required to do 900 hours work experience. There was no requirement that they be paid.
Overseas students remained bound to the system as completion of such courses became a near-guaranteed pathway to permanent residency in Australia."
P.S. (July, 23) Another horror story
P.P.S.(July, 27) Reports keep coming: Lifting the lid on Australia's 'visa factories':
"Reports had been circulating for the best part of a year about dodgy private colleges and the visa factories of Sydney and Melbourne.
In one year alone the vocational education sector had grown by over 50 per cent, fuelled by over 70,000 Indian students coming to buy an education.
Egged on by immigration and education agents, many were told that if they enrolled in cooking and hairdressing they could not only get a diploma but they could qualify for permanent residency in Australia.
And indeed they could.
The Government had instituted a deliberate immigration pathway through education, but the trouble was many of the training schools were supplying qualifications that were worthless, and the policing of standards in the colleges was woefully inept.
Four Corners discovered that not only were many of the courses bogus, but other illegal scams were keeping the system afloat.
If a student wants to apply for permanent residency they must pass an English language test. Four Corners has clear evidence that unscrupulous education agents are offering the tests for thousands of dollars.
Similarly with the work experience certificates that students need to acquire as part of their training. These too can be procured through networks of corrupt businesspeople for thousands of dollars.
The question is - how is this being allowed to happen? "
Well, one of the answers may be economy. House prices seem to be an important part of the economy. Demand from students, and easing residence restrictions for foreigners to own houses in Australia have maintained the house prices. With just a few cities in the country, this type of manipulation seems easy. Moreover student pay full fares, more than fair prices for housing, provide cheap labour.
"Thousands of Indians are being enrolled in "dodgy" courses in Australia, while others are paying up to $20,000 for a good result in the International English Language Test System exam, an investigation into the overseas student industry has found.
Following a recent spate of attacks on Indian students in Australia, The Australian reports the nation's $14-billion international education sector has turned into a recognised immigration racket."
From Foreign students 'slave trade':
"THOUSANDS of overseas students are being made to work for nothing — or even pay to work — by businesses exploiting loopholes in immigration and education laws in what experts describe as a system of economic slavery.
The vast pool of unpaid labour was created in 2005 when vocational students were required to do 900 hours work experience. There was no requirement that they be paid.
Overseas students remained bound to the system as completion of such courses became a near-guaranteed pathway to permanent residency in Australia."
P.S. (July, 23) Another horror story
P.P.S.(July, 27) Reports keep coming: Lifting the lid on Australia's 'visa factories':
"Reports had been circulating for the best part of a year about dodgy private colleges and the visa factories of Sydney and Melbourne.
In one year alone the vocational education sector had grown by over 50 per cent, fuelled by over 70,000 Indian students coming to buy an education.
Egged on by immigration and education agents, many were told that if they enrolled in cooking and hairdressing they could not only get a diploma but they could qualify for permanent residency in Australia.
And indeed they could.
The Government had instituted a deliberate immigration pathway through education, but the trouble was many of the training schools were supplying qualifications that were worthless, and the policing of standards in the colleges was woefully inept.
Four Corners discovered that not only were many of the courses bogus, but other illegal scams were keeping the system afloat.
If a student wants to apply for permanent residency they must pass an English language test. Four Corners has clear evidence that unscrupulous education agents are offering the tests for thousands of dollars.
Similarly with the work experience certificates that students need to acquire as part of their training. These too can be procured through networks of corrupt businesspeople for thousands of dollars.
The question is - how is this being allowed to happen? "
Well, one of the answers may be economy. House prices seem to be an important part of the economy. Demand from students, and easing residence restrictions for foreigners to own houses in Australia have maintained the house prices. With just a few cities in the country, this type of manipulation seems easy. Moreover student pay full fares, more than fair prices for housing, provide cheap labour.
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Some links
Old Cambridge Days by Leonard Roth, via a comment in The Wranglers.
Miracles from medical research Lessons from an Unexpected Life:A doctor, a patient, and a formerly fatal disease by David G. Nathan via 3quarksdaily
Puddle-Muddle of multilinguals: Amitava Kumar reviews Amit Chaudhuri's "The Immortals"; link in The Artist As Part-Genius Part-Householder. This leads to other articles:Amit Chaudhri's review of A.K. Ramanujam's Poems The twin-lobed brahmin with this comment:
"...the creative life of the modern Indian English poet or writer arises from his or her multilingual consciousness, and depends upon traffic, or commerce, between the official and the vernacular tongues."
and to a previous post Puddle-Muddle of Amitava Kumar, commenting on Mukul Kesavan's article Do anglophones paddle in the shadows?.
It may be interesting to recall Vikram Chandra's comment in the famous article The Cult of Authenticity:
"I will not presume to claim Maharashtra or even the entire city of Bombay as my region. I will only claim part of the western suburbs, let us say north from the highway junction at Mahim causeway, roughly an area containing Dharavi, Bandra West, Khar, Santa Cruz, Juhu, Andheri West, and Goregaon West. This is my region. I live in it, in the locality of Andheri, in the colony called Lokhandwalla.
My region is a hugely cosmopolitan place. Every single person who lives in my region is a cosmopolitan. I am of course a cosmopolitan; I travel away from my region every few months to make a living. My neighbors do also. There are the Gujarati diamond merchants who spend three weeks out of every four travelling from Africa to Belgium to Holland; flight attendants who fly to Beijing; businessmen who sell textiles in Australia; mechanics and welders and engineers who keep Saudi Arabia running; merchant navy sailors who carry cargo to Brazil; nurses who give care and nurture in Sharjah; and gangsters who shuttle between Bombay and Indonesia and Dubai as part of their everyday trade. But there are many other cosmopolitans in my regions. I mean the men who have left their homes in Muzzafarnagar and Patna to drive cabs in Bombay; the chauffeurs who send money home to Trivandrum; the road-laborers from Madhya Pradesh; the maids from the Konkan coast; the cooks from Sylhet in Bangladesh; the Tamil bakers; the struggling actresses from Ludhiana; the security guards from Bihar; the painters from Nashik who stand on roped lengths of bamboo three hundred feet in the air to color Bombay’s lofty skylines. They are all cosmopolitan. A woman born and bred in Dharavi, in the heart of the city, is a cosmopolitan because she lives and works in this city of many nationalities and languages, this city that has become a vatan or homeland for people who have travelled very far from their vatans.
Now, in this, my region, it is very very common for a person to speak one language at home, use another on the street, do business in a third, and make love in a fourth."
Miracles from medical research Lessons from an Unexpected Life:A doctor, a patient, and a formerly fatal disease by David G. Nathan via 3quarksdaily
Puddle-Muddle of multilinguals: Amitava Kumar reviews Amit Chaudhuri's "The Immortals"; link in The Artist As Part-Genius Part-Householder. This leads to other articles:Amit Chaudhri's review of A.K. Ramanujam's Poems The twin-lobed brahmin with this comment:
"...the creative life of the modern Indian English poet or writer arises from his or her multilingual consciousness, and depends upon traffic, or commerce, between the official and the vernacular tongues."
and to a previous post Puddle-Muddle of Amitava Kumar, commenting on Mukul Kesavan's article Do anglophones paddle in the shadows?.
It may be interesting to recall Vikram Chandra's comment in the famous article The Cult of Authenticity:
"I will not presume to claim Maharashtra or even the entire city of Bombay as my region. I will only claim part of the western suburbs, let us say north from the highway junction at Mahim causeway, roughly an area containing Dharavi, Bandra West, Khar, Santa Cruz, Juhu, Andheri West, and Goregaon West. This is my region. I live in it, in the locality of Andheri, in the colony called Lokhandwalla.
My region is a hugely cosmopolitan place. Every single person who lives in my region is a cosmopolitan. I am of course a cosmopolitan; I travel away from my region every few months to make a living. My neighbors do also. There are the Gujarati diamond merchants who spend three weeks out of every four travelling from Africa to Belgium to Holland; flight attendants who fly to Beijing; businessmen who sell textiles in Australia; mechanics and welders and engineers who keep Saudi Arabia running; merchant navy sailors who carry cargo to Brazil; nurses who give care and nurture in Sharjah; and gangsters who shuttle between Bombay and Indonesia and Dubai as part of their everyday trade. But there are many other cosmopolitans in my regions. I mean the men who have left their homes in Muzzafarnagar and Patna to drive cabs in Bombay; the chauffeurs who send money home to Trivandrum; the road-laborers from Madhya Pradesh; the maids from the Konkan coast; the cooks from Sylhet in Bangladesh; the Tamil bakers; the struggling actresses from Ludhiana; the security guards from Bihar; the painters from Nashik who stand on roped lengths of bamboo three hundred feet in the air to color Bombay’s lofty skylines. They are all cosmopolitan. A woman born and bred in Dharavi, in the heart of the city, is a cosmopolitan because she lives and works in this city of many nationalities and languages, this city that has become a vatan or homeland for people who have travelled very far from their vatans.
Now, in this, my region, it is very very common for a person to speak one language at home, use another on the street, do business in a third, and make love in a fourth."
Thursday, July 09, 2009
Change in Kashmir?
From Hindu temple, Muslim priests:
“We have guarded this place for the Hindus. It is their “amanat”. But now the situation has improved. We want that a Hindu priest should take over this holy place. Being Muslims, we tried to do whatever best we could to keep the temple functional, but it should ideally be run by a Hindu priest”.
“We have guarded this place for the Hindus. It is their “amanat”. But now the situation has improved. We want that a Hindu priest should take over this holy place. Being Muslims, we tried to do whatever best we could to keep the temple functional, but it should ideally be run by a Hindu priest”.
Monday, July 06, 2009
David Warsh on Mark Thoma
From The Perpendicular:
"Traditional journalists sometimes assert that blogs are about opinion and interpretation rather than fact and reporting, when the truth is that a great deal of new and ultimately reliable material first appears on blogs.
Therein lies the significance of Thoma’s blog – and other sites like it, including those of Romenesko and David Johnson, the man behind the Russia List. The proprietors of each are essentially editors. They hue as best they understand it to the perpendicular. They seek to see whole the debate they cover, to present its raw files fairly to readers, to occupy the center ground and treat all comers fairly. They function more like referees on a stylized battlefield than (as Robert Wright distinguishes among bloggers) disc jockeys or musicians. It is no accident that in each of these cases the blogger’s ego is almost totally subordinated to the task, that the proprietors work long hours for little or nothing.
......
But demand for unifying narrative remains strong, at every level, including the version that newspapers traditionally have supplied. This itch for reading on the same page must begin to be satisfied, inevitably, with just the sort of daily record that Thoma and others of his ilk compile from all that fevered discourse in the public square."
"Traditional journalists sometimes assert that blogs are about opinion and interpretation rather than fact and reporting, when the truth is that a great deal of new and ultimately reliable material first appears on blogs.
Therein lies the significance of Thoma’s blog – and other sites like it, including those of Romenesko and David Johnson, the man behind the Russia List. The proprietors of each are essentially editors. They hue as best they understand it to the perpendicular. They seek to see whole the debate they cover, to present its raw files fairly to readers, to occupy the center ground and treat all comers fairly. They function more like referees on a stylized battlefield than (as Robert Wright distinguishes among bloggers) disc jockeys or musicians. It is no accident that in each of these cases the blogger’s ego is almost totally subordinated to the task, that the proprietors work long hours for little or nothing.
......
But demand for unifying narrative remains strong, at every level, including the version that newspapers traditionally have supplied. This itch for reading on the same page must begin to be satisfied, inevitably, with just the sort of daily record that Thoma and others of his ilk compile from all that fevered discourse in the public square."
Saturday, July 04, 2009
Interesting site
I enjoy music but my knowledge of music is confined to a few film songs (mostly Telugu, Hindi) and what I pick up from YouTube. One of my favourites is Lapak Japhak from Boot Polish. I was amazed to find this discussion inspired by that song The 'semblance' of râga, rasa, and hâsya (links to the song and many more links).
Friday, July 03, 2009
Writing a book!
For a long time, I wanted to write a book for beginners on Algebraic Topology, which was my first love in things academic. Now that I have retired for a few years, it seems to be good time to recall the elementary and nice topics which I still remember and indicate the flavour of the topics that fascinated me. It is coming back and apart from visualization of things in the small, what I still like is the power of general nonsense (my term for abstract thinking). But writing is a pain, too much latex symbols, diagrams going back and forth, changing the earlier chapters when progressing with the later chapters. It seems that it be a quite a mess. Once completed, it will be available online to see whether it will be useful to some. My experience with Rahul Banerjee's "Recovering the Lost Tongue: The Saga of Environmental Struggles in Central India" was that it was easier to read the published book than the online material. May be, it will be different with mathematics.
Thursday, July 02, 2009
Quote of the day
From Marry for What? Caste and Mate Selection in Modern India by Abhjit Banerjee, Esther Duflo, Maitreesh Ghatak, Jean Lafortune:
"So the institution that the economic forces are not able to destroy may be endangered by love"
"So the institution that the economic forces are not able to destroy may be endangered by love"
Wednesday, July 01, 2009
Mindhacks recommends
a few science articles from Newsweek in A neurobiology of the disordered mind: . The articles Beyond the Book of Life on epigenetics and A Biology of Mind by Eric Kandel are very readable as well as the Mindhacks article itself with links to some of the concepts used.
The Age investigations on foreign students in Australia
From Foreign student death details suppressed:
"DETAILS of the deaths of more than 50 overseas students have been suppressed by Australian coroners amid evidence the death toll is higher than the Federal Government has admitted.
State and territory coroners, under the National Coroners Information System, have refused an application by The Age for data on the deaths of overseas students in the year to November 2008.
.....
A leading expert on international education, Monash University business professor Chris Nyland, said he was concerned that a drive to protect Australia's lucrative $15.5 billion higher education export market was masking the suffering of foreign students.
"All countries that compete for the education market should be reporting that information," he said. "And … it would be wonderful if we had good data saying that it was not the case they are harmed at any greater rate than domestic students."
Professor Nyland said there was a need for a federal advisory body on student safety, made up of independent members free from "vested interests in seeing this thing dampened down and going away quietly". He called for mandatory statistical reporting of international student deaths.
National Union of Students president David Barrow said the Government faced losing billions in revenue if it failed to protect overseas students. "The time has come for a full-scale inquiry," he said. "Australian society and government needs to see all the facts."
Currently, if an overseas student dies here, the education provider is not required to give a cause of death when it reports the matter to the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations. Under the law, a college needs to report a death within a fortnight of early "termination" of studies. But it is left up to the college how thoroughly it reacts.
A spokeswoman for Education Minister Julia Gillard said the law would be reviewed this year and next.
Opposition Immigration spokeswoman Sharman Stone said she sought the data in February because foreign-student organisations suspected under-reporting of deaths. "To have 34 cited as unknown is an extraordinary statistic," she said.
"It will no doubt be raising further anxiety and alarm, particularly in the Indian student community and their parents and relatives and friends."
At least three overseas students died in the 12-month period after violent attacks, including an 18-year-old Chinese woman who was allegedly sexual assaulted by a knife-wielding assailant before she and her boyfriend fell from a balcony at Waterloo in Sydney.
Although the number of these deaths was well below homicide rates for the Australian population, it raises questions about reporting procedures from the booming private education providers."
The age also queries 'How did he die?' asks Indian family.
In the early 90's 'The Age' ran a sustained campaign against racism in Austrian Rules Football both among spectators and players. There seems to be a general improvement since then.
"DETAILS of the deaths of more than 50 overseas students have been suppressed by Australian coroners amid evidence the death toll is higher than the Federal Government has admitted.
State and territory coroners, under the National Coroners Information System, have refused an application by The Age for data on the deaths of overseas students in the year to November 2008.
.....
A leading expert on international education, Monash University business professor Chris Nyland, said he was concerned that a drive to protect Australia's lucrative $15.5 billion higher education export market was masking the suffering of foreign students.
"All countries that compete for the education market should be reporting that information," he said. "And … it would be wonderful if we had good data saying that it was not the case they are harmed at any greater rate than domestic students."
Professor Nyland said there was a need for a federal advisory body on student safety, made up of independent members free from "vested interests in seeing this thing dampened down and going away quietly". He called for mandatory statistical reporting of international student deaths.
National Union of Students president David Barrow said the Government faced losing billions in revenue if it failed to protect overseas students. "The time has come for a full-scale inquiry," he said. "Australian society and government needs to see all the facts."
Currently, if an overseas student dies here, the education provider is not required to give a cause of death when it reports the matter to the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations. Under the law, a college needs to report a death within a fortnight of early "termination" of studies. But it is left up to the college how thoroughly it reacts.
A spokeswoman for Education Minister Julia Gillard said the law would be reviewed this year and next.
Opposition Immigration spokeswoman Sharman Stone said she sought the data in February because foreign-student organisations suspected under-reporting of deaths. "To have 34 cited as unknown is an extraordinary statistic," she said.
"It will no doubt be raising further anxiety and alarm, particularly in the Indian student community and their parents and relatives and friends."
At least three overseas students died in the 12-month period after violent attacks, including an 18-year-old Chinese woman who was allegedly sexual assaulted by a knife-wielding assailant before she and her boyfriend fell from a balcony at Waterloo in Sydney.
Although the number of these deaths was well below homicide rates for the Australian population, it raises questions about reporting procedures from the booming private education providers."
The age also queries 'How did he die?' asks Indian family.
In the early 90's 'The Age' ran a sustained campaign against racism in Austrian Rules Football both among spectators and players. There seems to be a general improvement since then.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Popularity and reliability of research
Abstract of Large-Scale Assessment of the Effect of Popularity on the Reliability of Research:
"Based on theoretical reasoning it has been suggested that the reliability of findings published in the scientific literature decreases with the popularity of a research field. Here we provide empirical support for this prediction. We evaluate published statements on protein interactions with data from high-throughput experiments. We find evidence for two distinctive effects. First, with increasing popularity of the interaction partners, individual statements in the literature become more erroneous. Second, the overall evidence on an interaction becomes increasingly distorted by multiple independent testing. We therefore argue that for increasing the reliability of research it is essential to assess the negative effects of popularity and develop approaches to diminish these effects."
I came across this from the comments in Are we playing it too safe in cancer research? (Oops, Orac missed one).
"Based on theoretical reasoning it has been suggested that the reliability of findings published in the scientific literature decreases with the popularity of a research field. Here we provide empirical support for this prediction. We evaluate published statements on protein interactions with data from high-throughput experiments. We find evidence for two distinctive effects. First, with increasing popularity of the interaction partners, individual statements in the literature become more erroneous. Second, the overall evidence on an interaction becomes increasingly distorted by multiple independent testing. We therefore argue that for increasing the reliability of research it is essential to assess the negative effects of popularity and develop approaches to diminish these effects."
I came across this from the comments in Are we playing it too safe in cancer research? (Oops, Orac missed one).
Sleep and Learning
Jonah Lehrer in Naps, Learning and REM :
"Numerous studies have now demonstrated that REM sleep is an essential part of the learning process. Before you can know something, you have to dream about it."
That is why, there is not much point in doing one semester courses in one or two week crash courses. But, when one has plans of using them immediately, it works differently I think. Similarly, it is easier to learn new stuff when one is working on a problem and the stuff seems useful. I guess that one should not depend on any one simple prescription.
"Numerous studies have now demonstrated that REM sleep is an essential part of the learning process. Before you can know something, you have to dream about it."
That is why, there is not much point in doing one semester courses in one or two week crash courses. But, when one has plans of using them immediately, it works differently I think. Similarly, it is easier to learn new stuff when one is working on a problem and the stuff seems useful. I guess that one should not depend on any one simple prescription.
Sunday, June 28, 2009
A slip of the tongue?
From Yahoo News and also reported by several news agencies:
"The U.S. president said he did not take seriously Ahmadinejad's call for him to apologize for criticizing Tehran, "particularly given the fact that the United States has gone out of its way not to interfere with the election process in Iran.""
"The U.S. president said he did not take seriously Ahmadinejad's call for him to apologize for criticizing Tehran, "particularly given the fact that the United States has gone out of its way not to interfere with the election process in Iran.""
Saturday, June 27, 2009
A dream example for situationists
The blue and the green via 3quarksdaily . More links and explanations in the comments.
Interesting Telugu blogs-5
Religion, history etc. discussed in a series of conversations with humour:పెడ్రో చెప్పిన చరిత్ర కతలు - Greek Bards and Philosophers and
పెడ్రో చెప్పిన చరిత్ర కతలు - Jews, Roman Empire and Christians . Interesting sentences in passing with an element of truth:
"...They cease being just stories, but they become the experience of a collective psyche of the country."
Possibly not of the whole country but of some dominant groups, text communities and possibly changing from region to region and from period to period.
పెడ్రో చెప్పిన చరిత్ర కతలు - Jews, Roman Empire and Christians . Interesting sentences in passing with an element of truth:
"...They cease being just stories, but they become the experience of a collective psyche of the country."
Possibly not of the whole country but of some dominant groups, text communities and possibly changing from region to region and from period to period.
Links to some Telugu sites
I have been sent the following links in response to an old request about links for online material and developing online dictionaries.
1a
మీరు ఈ గుంపుని చూసారా : తెలుగుపదం
http://groups.google.com/group/telugupadam/?pli=1
1b
తెలుగు విక్షనరీ గూర్చి విన్నారా
http://te.wiktionary.org
_____________________________________
2a
ఈ సైటు గురించి విన్నారా : ఆర్కైవ్.ఓఆర్జి
http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=telugu
2b
ఇండియను డిజిటలు లైబ్రెరీలను చూసారా :
http://www.new.dli.ernet.in/
______________________________________
3
అలాగే కొన్ని సైటులలోనూ తెలుగు పుస్తకాలు చదువుకోదగిన రూపంలో
లభ్యం అవుతున్నాయి . తెలుగువన్ ని ప్రముఖంగా చెప్పుకోవాలి .
http://teluguone.com/kathaluNovels/
http://teluguone.com/vinodam/
______________________________________
4
వీలుంటే ఈ సైటునీ ఒకసారి చూడండి (పైరేటెడ్)
http://www.parimalam.com/Books-telugupustakalu.html
_______________________________________
5 చివరగా
http://www.telugubhavitha.org/
http://teluguthesis.com/
1a
మీరు ఈ గుంపుని చూసారా : తెలుగుపదం
http://groups.google.com/group/telugupadam/?pli=1
1b
తెలుగు విక్షనరీ గూర్చి విన్నారా
http://te.wiktionary.org
_____________________________________
2a
ఈ సైటు గురించి విన్నారా : ఆర్కైవ్.ఓఆర్జి
http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=telugu
2b
ఇండియను డిజిటలు లైబ్రెరీలను చూసారా :
http://www.new.dli.ernet.in/
______________________________________
3
అలాగే కొన్ని సైటులలోనూ తెలుగు పుస్తకాలు చదువుకోదగిన రూపంలో
లభ్యం అవుతున్నాయి . తెలుగువన్ ని ప్రముఖంగా చెప్పుకోవాలి .
http://teluguone.com/kathaluNovels/
http://teluguone.com/vinodam/
______________________________________
4
వీలుంటే ఈ సైటునీ ఒకసారి చూడండి (పైరేటెడ్)
http://www.parimalam.com/Books-telugupustakalu.html
_______________________________________
5 చివరగా
http://www.telugubhavitha.org/
http://teluguthesis.com/
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
David Mumford dontates Wolf Prize money
U.S. prof. gives Israeli prize money to Palestinian university (via Shivsankar):
"The American mathematician David Mumford, co-winner of the 2008 Wolf Foundation Prize in Mathematics, announced upon receiving the award yesterday that he will donate the money to Bir Zeit University, near Ramallah, and to Gisha, an Israeli organization that advocates for Palestinian freedom of movement.
"I decided to donate my share of the Wolf Prize to enable the academic community in occupied Palestine to survive and thrive," Mumford told Haaretz. "I am very grateful for the prize, but I believe that Palestinian students should have an opportunity to go elsewhere to acquire an education. Students in the West Bank and Gaza today do not have an opportunity to do that." "
More about Mumford here and here. He visited TIFR frequently and adopted an Indian child.
"The American mathematician David Mumford, co-winner of the 2008 Wolf Foundation Prize in Mathematics, announced upon receiving the award yesterday that he will donate the money to Bir Zeit University, near Ramallah, and to Gisha, an Israeli organization that advocates for Palestinian freedom of movement.
"I decided to donate my share of the Wolf Prize to enable the academic community in occupied Palestine to survive and thrive," Mumford told Haaretz. "I am very grateful for the prize, but I believe that Palestinian students should have an opportunity to go elsewhere to acquire an education. Students in the West Bank and Gaza today do not have an opportunity to do that." "
More about Mumford here and here. He visited TIFR frequently and adopted an Indian child.
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