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
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