Standing on the shores of space-time…
If you’ve seen the url properly you will see the words pradx.
This is not supposed to be some sort of an odd gen-x thing. I am using x as a variable as used in algebra and stuff in pure mathematics.
All my ids have only one constant thing – prad. The rest of the id changes. eg. it’s prad2609 on Yahoo!, it’s pradeepnair on YouTube…etc. etc.
Some of the premier Indian institutions are working together along with IGNOU (that’s Indira Gandhi National Open University) to make their books available for free online. It’s an ongoing process and so you might find new resources tomorrow that you did not find today.
The website is here.
Legendary warrior figure, sister of Aromal Chekayar, mother Aromalunny. The songs and chronicles to this day kept the legend alive. She was born in the Puthooram Veedu family. The famous warriors, Aromal Chevakar and Unnikannan were her brothers. Like her brothers, Unniyarcha was also trained in the arts of war. She is praised in Vadakanpattu. She is considered as a heroine and symbol of female ability.
[source]
I do not like to mix photos and text. Just one exception though. I might end up using more time studying and so I might just put up photos on my blog. Photos like the ones I put up yesterday. Hopefully I have some 150 MB of storage space. WordPress gives me 50 MB, Picasa gives me 100 MB, and some from Flickr. So, not a bad thing all in all.
Hope you like the photos. These are my picks. Also keep an eye on my link blog in the sidebar to see the stuff that I am reading on Google Reader. This change to photos is happening because I can’t afford to write for about a month now. I can upload photos even within an hour. Not so with photographs.
I have been trying to write a few things about my course work on this blog. But, it’s not really fair to write about something you don’t experience. And, what I experience in my course work is just the lethargy of doing applied mathematical problems that seems to apply differently in different cases.
You would understand how these mathematical concepts are applied, perhaps if you understand their limits and why they are applied.
When my tutor explained to me about how the gas turbine really works and why the terms in the formulae are used in the way they are, it made more sense and much more easier to apply. For example,problems deal with pressure ratios and other ratios, because you cannot really quantify some of the mechanical properties of the machines. Understanding that, made it easier to deal in ratios. Maybe, it removed some block in my mind or it made one less thing to think about.
So, no matter what course you do in mechanical engineering, be sure to take a look at its underlying form. It is very difficult to do that practically but there is no other way around it.
Spend today listening to lounge music.
I have to remind myself that a lot of maintainence work needs to be done in this weblog. I prefer the fuller version.
Talks of Web 3.0 abound. Guess we have to talk of many things in that language. The old description of “The beginning of a new era” was so much better. Atleast, people don’t say life 2.0. If they did, I don’t know which version number I would be.
I was wondering. Is the world really such a complex place? Or is it the Governments making it that way?
Some word on Enigma, because I’m listening to it now, from the CD literature:
Enigma is the brainchild of Michael Cretu, a Romania born electronics and studio wizard who blended various global sounds to catchy samples and incredible sound design. While Cretu composed and produced the music, his wife Sandra chipped in with haunting vocal passages. The music cuts across all barriers and appeals to all generations.
Learn more about Enigma from Wikipedia
I wonder what will happen to this weblog once they become passe or when..What happens to all these words logged in notebooks with several of the people’s thoughts have been typed in. And yet, there are many things that are not online. We will become mature about the Internet only when we set it’s limitations – in terms of time, affect on offline life etc.
Is the habit of children drawing on the walls the result of our ancestors drawing on their wall centuries ago?
Report after report talks about the SC order to stay reservations in this academic year. Oh, by the way the reservation is an increase of 27% to nearly 49%.
This report in the morning newspaper freaked me:
“It will come as a major relief to students of the backward and reserved categories, if Mumbai University’s plan to reduce the admission fees to the management and computer degree courses ranging between Rs. 50,000 and Rs. 1.5 lakhs to only Rs. 75 (Seventy five only, if you can’t believe it) is okayed. Once in place, it will allow ppor and backward class students to take admission in the best management institutes which have very high admission fees.”
Report from the Mumbai Mirror.
I’m all for educating the poor. But, what promise can you offer that these people will continue to work in this country once they’ve finished. Why does that matter? Well, it is the Government’s (which it gets through people paying taxes) money that will have to fill in the rest. Shouldn’t they be bound since they’re getting a benefit from us to stay in India for a period of 5 years? That’s the least you can do to ensure that student’s whose education the Government pays for pays back some money to the Government in taxes? Or, you can also offer students special funding as loans which they can repay later on. That makes sense.
But investing in something with the hope that the students will stay on and work in India is like a VC’s job that the Government is doing.
Hell, what would the Government do, if the richer people pay their way through to becoming OBCs and get their education done in Rs. 75? And what about ordinary people’s kids who won’t get a chance to enter these institutions?
Also, do you think students will value their education if they don’t have to work hard for getting that degree. And with standards of education allegedly falling, what will they gain?
Another interesting point is about how the opinion of the people and the politicians on the ground vary so much.
If you do not teach these communities to be self-reliant and be independent what you will face in the future is just unimaginable. That is the reason for my not backing these or any reservations. However, I don’t really mind, because after working for five or six years to ensure that I give back to India the debt that I owe her, I plan to leave this country. I will be greatful for being born in such a diverse land whose diversity was its strength in the past but just might become its weakness in the future.
One thing I noticed about writing this notebook is that I never find errors only when I type it in. But, I never change it then because this writing is a spontaneous outpouring of ideas (I mean thoughts).
So, I keep that as close to me as possible.
Spent today morning to collect my prize. It was 2 CDs given to me by someone with a wonderful simle. The 2 CDs – one Norah Jones’ latest album ‘Not too Late’ and another a collection of lounge songs inspired by India.
I then went on down to the State Central Library (earlier called the Asiatic Library).
Spent the afternoon and evening by myself. I am now putting everything in order. This is something I like to do sometimes. Some cleaning up.
Listening to the CDs on the discman.
I want to write something, I do not know what to write. I want to do something, but I do not know what to do.
Some clarifications can be read by reading Doc Searls’ weblog on the Kathy Siera event. Just hope that there’s someone like this anywhere where such a mess happens.
Sigh!
Parallel Spirals 