Unbelievable! The nanosecond long motion of light thought a bottle is breathtaking!
http://web.media.mit.edu/~raskar/trillionfps/
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Friday, August 19, 2011
Thursday, August 18, 2011
Monday, May 9, 2011
Secrets to success
Richard St. John's 8 secrets of success @ TED
One of the secrets is to PERSIST through failures and CRAP - Criticism, Rejection, Assholes and Pressure - Funny!
One of the secrets is to PERSIST through failures and CRAP - Criticism, Rejection, Assholes and Pressure - Funny!
Sunday, May 8, 2011
The importance of being wrong!
Kathryn Schulz makes a compelling case for acknowledging our fallibility. She is also a very good speaker. Check her talk out on TED:
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Nature by Numbers
Amazing video starting with Fibonacci series and ending in Voronoi tessellation by Christobal Vila - a must watch!
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Non-linearity of problem solving
A funny graphic he presented is reproduced here.
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Sir Ken Robinson's TED talk on education
Most of us have heard this statement at one time or another "Study well now and you will be set for life". Ken Robinson argues that this is the linear model of fast food chains that has become popular in standardized education.
A quote about interviews for kindergarten admissions: "A three year old is not half a six year old!"
A quote about interviews for kindergarten admissions: "A three year old is not half a six year old!"
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Problem with if-then model
A very good talk about an ancient and powerful idea:
कर्मण्येवाधिकारस्ते मा फलेषु कदाचन
मा कर्मफलहेतुर्à¤ूर्मा ते संगोस्त्वकर्मणि
Translation from The Holy Geetha, Commentary by Swami Chinmayananda:
"Thy right is to work only, but never to its fruits; let not the fruit-of-action be thy motive, nor let thy attachment be to inaction."
कर्मण्येवाधिकारस्ते मा फलेषु कदाचन
मा कर्मफलहेतुर्à¤ूर्मा ते संगोस्त्वकर्मणि
Translation from The Holy Geetha, Commentary by Swami Chinmayananda:
"Thy right is to work only, but never to its fruits; let not the fruit-of-action be thy motive, nor let thy attachment be to inaction."
Friday, February 19, 2010
Friday, December 18, 2009
Anupam Mishra: The ancient ingenuity of water harvesting | Video on TED.com
Witty talk about wonderful engineering feats of ancient India.
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Monday, September 7, 2009
Personal Fudge Factor
The behavioral economist Dan Ariely from MIT gives an insightful and funny talk on morality.
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Third-World
Everyone who thinks the term "third-world" is appropriate should watch this analysis by Hans Rosling. I am particularly irritated whenever an academic refers to some countries like that. The irony of the term somehow escapes them. I am not sure if they are poorly informed or just plain stupid.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Think you make your decisions? Think again.
Watch the witty behavioral economist Dan Ariely convince people that they don't really make the decisions they think they make!
Saturday, January 17, 2009
LaTeX: Power of simplicity
This post was inspired by Cory Doctorow's post on Writing in the Age of Distraction. "Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication" said Leonardo da Vinci. It seems, most of the software tools available today were designed with an opposite philosophy. This is especially true for word processing tools.
The early writing tools like LaTeX were designed to enable the writer to write without the distractions of presentation. Somewhere down the line, the process of writing got muddled with presentation. Many articles and books have been written emphasizing the need to separate content from presentation. This post is my two cents in support of LaTeX.
Why choose LaTeX over any other writing tool?
I have thoroughly enjoyed learning LaTeX and continue to enjoy everytime I use LaTeX. Although there are many articles that explain the superiority of LaTeX as a typesetting tool, I feel it is my obligation to write yet another article to praise LaTeX just to repay the sheer fun I have using it. If this article arouses your curiosity to try out LaTeX I will deem myself successful.
The reasons off the top of my head for choosing LaTeX are the following:
* Simple & Intuitive.
* Produces GREAT professional output.
* Have to only worry about content while writing and almost never worry about formatting.
* Great to add and remove parts of the work (even if it is a 500 page book) and not worry about formatting.
* Perfect for math and other scientific writing.
* Helpful and knowledgeable user base.
* Its FREE!
If you have used any WYSIWYG word processor to create a document with more than 10 pages, then you will know the pain of re-formatting the entire document if you want to add or remove a paragraph. Well, here is the good news. If you use LaTeX, you DO NOT have to worry about the formatting (almost never), no matter how many paragraphs, images, tables you rearrange, insert or delete. For me, that was the selling point.
Cost
Of course there are a few things that you need to put up with (nothing comes free!) before you become proficient in LaTeX. There is a learning curve that you need to climb. It is nice to know that the learning curve is both compelling and fun. Once you are up the curve, its all rosy and easy.
LaTeX Resources
I don't want to lecture you about LaTeX. You can learn all about it on the CTAN website. I have just given a few things that attracted me to LaTeX as a beginner and fascinate me each time I use it. There is a comprehensive list in the ctan website extolling the virtues of LaTeX and why you should use it. I hope you do.
* The Comprehensive TeX Archive Network is the authoritative collection of materials related to the TeX typesetting system.
* You can install LaTeX on Unix/Linux, Windows and Mac systems.
o TeXNicCenter is a free IDE like environment for writing LaTeX documents in Windows. Combined with proTeXt, it is a complete system to process LaTeX Documents on windows.
o I have seen many Mac users use LyX.
o I don't think *nix users need to be told the many options they have. If you are a *nix user, I am sure you already have a favorite editor and TeX package. I like TexMaker combined with teTeX.
* Good starting reference for beginners: Not so short intro to Latex.
The early writing tools like LaTeX were designed to enable the writer to write without the distractions of presentation. Somewhere down the line, the process of writing got muddled with presentation. Many articles and books have been written emphasizing the need to separate content from presentation. This post is my two cents in support of LaTeX.
Why choose LaTeX over any other writing tool?
I have thoroughly enjoyed learning LaTeX and continue to enjoy everytime I use LaTeX. Although there are many articles that explain the superiority of LaTeX as a typesetting tool, I feel it is my obligation to write yet another article to praise LaTeX just to repay the sheer fun I have using it. If this article arouses your curiosity to try out LaTeX I will deem myself successful.
The reasons off the top of my head for choosing LaTeX are the following:
* Simple & Intuitive.
* Produces GREAT professional output.
* Have to only worry about content while writing and almost never worry about formatting.
* Great to add and remove parts of the work (even if it is a 500 page book) and not worry about formatting.
* Perfect for math and other scientific writing.
* Helpful and knowledgeable user base.
* Its FREE!
If you have used any WYSIWYG word processor to create a document with more than 10 pages, then you will know the pain of re-formatting the entire document if you want to add or remove a paragraph. Well, here is the good news. If you use LaTeX, you DO NOT have to worry about the formatting (almost never), no matter how many paragraphs, images, tables you rearrange, insert or delete. For me, that was the selling point.
Cost
Of course there are a few things that you need to put up with (nothing comes free!) before you become proficient in LaTeX. There is a learning curve that you need to climb. It is nice to know that the learning curve is both compelling and fun. Once you are up the curve, its all rosy and easy.
LaTeX Resources
I don't want to lecture you about LaTeX. You can learn all about it on the CTAN website. I have just given a few things that attracted me to LaTeX as a beginner and fascinate me each time I use it. There is a comprehensive list in the ctan website extolling the virtues of LaTeX and why you should use it. I hope you do.
* The Comprehensive TeX Archive Network is the authoritative collection of materials related to the TeX typesetting system.
* You can install LaTeX on Unix/Linux, Windows and Mac systems.
o TeXNicCenter is a free IDE like environment for writing LaTeX documents in Windows. Combined with proTeXt, it is a complete system to process LaTeX Documents on windows.
o I have seen many Mac users use LyX.
o I don't think *nix users need to be told the many options they have. If you are a *nix user, I am sure you already have a favorite editor and TeX package. I like TexMaker combined with teTeX.
* Good starting reference for beginners: Not so short intro to Latex.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Commencement Talk by J. K. Rowling at Harvard
A witty and inspiring talk. Take a look.
J.K. Rowling Speaks at Harvard Commencement from Harvard Magazine on Vimeo.
J.K. Rowling Speaks at Harvard Commencement from Harvard Magazine on Vimeo.
Monday, May 12, 2008
Rant ends and praise continues for open source software
Synovel Technologies have released a product called Spicebird which is exactly what I was looking for and ranting that it was not available as an open source alternative. I tried it out and think Spicebird has great potential. It of course needs some tweaking but is definitely a step in the right direction of integrating email and calendar services. It is built on Thunderbird and Lightning. Kudos to the developers at Synovel. I am also happy that this company is based in India. Please keep up your good work.
Go ahead, download it and have fun!
Go ahead, download it and have fun!
Sunday, April 13, 2008
A rare rant about open software
Let me make it clear in the beginning: "I am a big fan of open source software". Having said that here is my rant.
I have been looking into the open source options for a calendar and todo list management software. My requirements were:
I thought this is a minimal set of requirements that any decent calender software would satisfy. To my dismay, I couldn't find any software that could do it out of the box. A solution was to use a collection of multiple software. Unfortunately, nothing that I could find was even workable. One that came close was the following: Use a combination of Lightning, Google Calendar, Remember the Milk and Google provider. But this does not have bi-directional task management.
I am annoyed at Google for not having a ToDo list in their calendar. How difficult can it be to add this and why leave it out in the first place?
This is one of the rare cases where open source software is devoid of common sense. The open source community is capable of much more and we should not settle for so little!
Do you know of a better alternative? Please let me know if you do.
I have been looking into the open source options for a calendar and todo list management software. My requirements were:
- Integrated with a mail client
- Calendar and ToDo list
- Automatic syncing capability
- Ability to handle multiple calendars
I thought this is a minimal set of requirements that any decent calender software would satisfy. To my dismay, I couldn't find any software that could do it out of the box. A solution was to use a collection of multiple software. Unfortunately, nothing that I could find was even workable. One that came close was the following: Use a combination of Lightning, Google Calendar, Remember the Milk and Google provider. But this does not have bi-directional task management.
I am annoyed at Google for not having a ToDo list in their calendar. How difficult can it be to add this and why leave it out in the first place?
This is one of the rare cases where open source software is devoid of common sense. The open source community is capable of much more and we should not settle for so little!
Do you know of a better alternative? Please let me know if you do.
Sunday, April 6, 2008
A talk by Vilayanur Ramachandran
A "jaw dropping" talk by a great speaker. Dr. Ramachandran, a brain scientist talks about
the 3 pound mass that can contemplate the meaning of infinity and contemplate itself contemplating!Fascinating stuff.
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