This is obviously a test.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Monday, March 31, 2008
Amazing comment by a reader on Shashi Tharoor's cloumn in Times of India
Read the column at http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/S_Tharoor_Engineers_and_terrorism/
articleshow/2910478.cms
Amazing comment by a reader on Shashi Tharoor's cloumn in Times of India.
name,location,says:as an engineer, let me say, this is utter non sense. lets face it, the best of the best go for engineering. so they are more likely to succeed in anything they decide to do. even in core arts related inter-collegiate competitions like music or drama, engineering colleges outperform others. similarly, probably there are numerous terrorists who have studied humanities. but they would be inferior terrorists. you can have the same inference if you do a study of anything in india. the % of IIM grads who have engineering as basic degree is also very high. so you could say engineers make better managers! actually they are managers because of MBA. but they are better because they are engineers. Likewise, people become terrorists because of radical islam brain washing, but of teh lot, the better ones are engineers. the solution is not to teach humanities to engineers to avoid them becoming terrorists. but the solution would be to make them mediocre engineers so that they do not succeed in engineering major plots. but then you don't know which engineers would turn out to be terrorists, so you would have to make all engineers below par. and then you would have bad buildings, bad satelites etc. i bet the people who did this study are not engineers, otherwise they would have made better inferences.
articleshow/2910478.cms
Amazing comment by a reader on Shashi Tharoor's cloumn in Times of India.
name,location,says:as an engineer, let me say, this is utter non sense. lets face it, the best of the best go for engineering. so they are more likely to succeed in anything they decide to do. even in core arts related inter-collegiate competitions like music or drama, engineering colleges outperform others. similarly, probably there are numerous terrorists who have studied humanities. but they would be inferior terrorists. you can have the same inference if you do a study of anything in india. the % of IIM grads who have engineering as basic degree is also very high. so you could say engineers make better managers! actually they are managers because of MBA. but they are better because they are engineers. Likewise, people become terrorists because of radical islam brain washing, but of teh lot, the better ones are engineers. the solution is not to teach humanities to engineers to avoid them becoming terrorists. but the solution would be to make them mediocre engineers so that they do not succeed in engineering major plots. but then you don't know which engineers would turn out to be terrorists, so you would have to make all engineers below par. and then you would have bad buildings, bad satelites etc. i bet the people who did this study are not engineers, otherwise they would have made better inferences.
Tuesday, July 3, 2007
On July 3, a typical workday
I sent out 57 emails between (10:00 am - 1:00 am)
I received 86 emails between (5:00 am - 5:00 am)
On an average, I sent out 4 emails per hour, or one every 15 minutes for continous 15 hours. I received 3.5 emails per hour, or one every 17 minutes for continous 24 hours.
For the 15 hour period, in which I both sent and received emails, I exchanged emails at the rate of 7.3 per hour or 1 email exchanged every 8 minutes.
Interesting AND scary!! when do I actually get to work :-p
I sent out 57 emails between (10:00 am - 1:00 am)
I received 86 emails between (5:00 am - 5:00 am)
On an average, I sent out 4 emails per hour, or one every 15 minutes for continous 15 hours. I received 3.5 emails per hour, or one every 17 minutes for continous 24 hours.
For the 15 hour period, in which I both sent and received emails, I exchanged emails at the rate of 7.3 per hour or 1 email exchanged every 8 minutes.
Interesting AND scary!! when do I actually get to work :-p
Sunday, March 4, 2007
H A P P Y H O L I !
Happy Holi to everyone. As always, it sucks in the United States but all you in India, enjoy!
Sunday, January 14, 2007
Volunteering for India
I had been toying with the idea of volunteering for long. I already have some experience behind me in creating my high school alumni network through nazarethalumni.org which has 394 members last I took count. Technically, that project gave me a very good understanding of the tools available to create a network and an exposure of the problems usually associated with volunteering.
The biggest problem is finding the right team of equally or more motivated people who are willing to work for a cause. However, here, now I am thinking about a work more wide in its scope as well as a very sharp in its focus on NRIs.
NRI are a huge pool of recources available..not only financially but knowledge and experience. How well is this resource being tapped for volunteerin in India? Based on my interactions of young Indians in the USA, I am reasonably assured a number of them are interested in volunteering in India.
I would love to hear people's thoughts on this. I am ruminating through some ideas and would love to know what other people think the opportunities are out there for this kind of an activity.
The biggest problem is finding the right team of equally or more motivated people who are willing to work for a cause. However, here, now I am thinking about a work more wide in its scope as well as a very sharp in its focus on NRIs.
NRI are a huge pool of recources available..not only financially but knowledge and experience. How well is this resource being tapped for volunteerin in India? Based on my interactions of young Indians in the USA, I am reasonably assured a number of them are interested in volunteering in India.
I would love to hear people's thoughts on this. I am ruminating through some ideas and would love to know what other people think the opportunities are out there for this kind of an activity.
Tuesday, January 2, 2007
Science vs. Religion
Science does not tell us about the cause of any event in the universe- it merely gives knowledge about the how the chain of events occur one after the other. It recognizes patterns (and calls them laws). It explains the 'hows', but does it explain the 'whys'? People seem to think that it does.
For example, if you ask someone why does the earth rotate around the sun, they would quickly mention that scientists have found that the earth rotates around the sun following the law of gravity. OK, but that is a 'how' - we know how the earth rotates around the sun - it does so following laws of gravity - but again, why does earth rotate around the sun? Gravity is not the cause; it is the mechanism by which this event occurs. For example, if I tip a spoon off a table, why does it fall?!! You would not answer because of law of gravity- that's the principle by which it falls with acceleration 'g'. But why did it fall? BeCAUSE, I tipped it off. The actual cause was my will - to tip it off. We often mistake the 'how' for the 'why' in the realm of science. When we explain the big bang theory, we get excited thinking that knowing the steps or the chain of events (which inevitably follow some laws or patterns) is like knowing the cause of big bang - no it isn't. We just know how it occurred - but why did the big bang occur - what caused it- who's will was it that tipped that big lump of matter into the fall of explosive energy.?
Another interesting example that I love to quote to skeptics is this: Newton once invited a skeptic to his lab and showed him a replica of the solar system. The skeptic was amazed at the beauty and the craftsmanship. He asked who created this. Newton replied saying nobody. The skeptic laughed saying how did the replica appear if no body created it. To this Newton replied saying, if you can't imagine a replica of the solar system to have been created on its own, how do you so easily believe that no body created the actual solar system? Now the observer who observed the craftsman make the replica may tell you about how it was created - how he designed the whole system to run on electricity and that there are x number of motors each running under a pattern to enable the planets to rotate under the sun at different rates. However, what that observer may not tell you is that somebody thought of making a replica and then created it. The scientist is like the observer who is figuring out how the replica was created: the magnitude of power in the motors, the orbits etc. but science stops short of identifying the creator or the cause of creation. In that way, religion complements science by speaking about the cause of creation - God's will.
For example, if you ask someone why does the earth rotate around the sun, they would quickly mention that scientists have found that the earth rotates around the sun following the law of gravity. OK, but that is a 'how' - we know how the earth rotates around the sun - it does so following laws of gravity - but again, why does earth rotate around the sun? Gravity is not the cause; it is the mechanism by which this event occurs. For example, if I tip a spoon off a table, why does it fall?!! You would not answer because of law of gravity- that's the principle by which it falls with acceleration 'g'. But why did it fall? BeCAUSE, I tipped it off. The actual cause was my will - to tip it off. We often mistake the 'how' for the 'why' in the realm of science. When we explain the big bang theory, we get excited thinking that knowing the steps or the chain of events (which inevitably follow some laws or patterns) is like knowing the cause of big bang - no it isn't. We just know how it occurred - but why did the big bang occur - what caused it- who's will was it that tipped that big lump of matter into the fall of explosive energy.?
Another interesting example that I love to quote to skeptics is this: Newton once invited a skeptic to his lab and showed him a replica of the solar system. The skeptic was amazed at the beauty and the craftsmanship. He asked who created this. Newton replied saying nobody. The skeptic laughed saying how did the replica appear if no body created it. To this Newton replied saying, if you can't imagine a replica of the solar system to have been created on its own, how do you so easily believe that no body created the actual solar system? Now the observer who observed the craftsman make the replica may tell you about how it was created - how he designed the whole system to run on electricity and that there are x number of motors each running under a pattern to enable the planets to rotate under the sun at different rates. However, what that observer may not tell you is that somebody thought of making a replica and then created it. The scientist is like the observer who is figuring out how the replica was created: the magnitude of power in the motors, the orbits etc. but science stops short of identifying the creator or the cause of creation. In that way, religion complements science by speaking about the cause of creation - God's will.
Monday, January 1, 2007
Indian arranged marriages and genes
The debate was triggered when, talking about genes, Ankit mentioned that people with same surnames (implying same lineage) do not usually get married in arranged Indian marriages. He explained the advantages of this practice as the benefits of greater genetic differences between the bride and the groom.
The disadvantage of marrying someone with similar gene pool was explained to me like this: Say you are of gene pool AB, your spouse is also of gene pool AB. Now your child would carry some genes from both parents and discard some. In this case, however, his gene set could be AA, AB, or BB. Compare this with a couple who have AB and CD gene sets. Then their child may have AB, AC, BC, BD, or AD - a larger range of gene pool ensuring the progeny has chances of a diverse set of genes to choose from in the long run. In evolution, this capability would ensure that nature selects the genes that would ensure adaptation to changing environment. In case of the earlier case, where both the parents had AB genes, say the progeny got AA. Then if he marries someone who is also AA, their progeny would miss out on the B set of genes altogether, thereby making them less competitive in the evolution process - weaker candidates in the survival of the fittest.
The above may be very simplistic and even incorrect understanding. However, my concern is about the truth of this hypothesis - Indian arranged marriages allow for better gene diversity and thus greater evolutionary adaptive ability. If you test it by taking two samples, one belonging from India where this tradition of arranging marriages to an individual of different surname is followed to another sample from any other part of the world, is there (or can there) any perceptible difference in the adaptation of human beings to a changed environment? Can we say people in India are better disposed to evolutionary changes than people where marriages are not arranged on the basis of lineage?
A parallel discussion that also went forth was the benefit of marrying between different gene pools is chances of riddance from existing defects (genetic diseases) in a gene pool. If a diabetic marries another diabetic, chances are their children would carry the diabetic genes. However, test this against the example above: In the gene pool AB, say B contributes to diabetes. Marry to another AB, and there is a two in three chance that the child may get a B diabetes carrying gene (AB and BB, the third possibility would be AA). Marrying in the same gene pool seems to have poorer chance of getting rid of the defective B genes (clearly, marrying AB with CD implies that the chances of carrying B genes are two in four assuming that the child picks up at least one gene from both the parents - AC AD BC BD).
(I know somebody even slightly literate in genetics may be laughing all the way over my simplistic understanding of this whole issue!)
However, I wonder if this hypothesis is really true. Surnames are based on a patriarchal system but clearly, genes are not. Genes are contributed from both the mother and the father. So, by arranging marriages based on patriarchal system, the genes from the mother’s side are a free interactor and may dilute the whole theory to a point of random redundancy.
The disadvantage of marrying someone with similar gene pool was explained to me like this: Say you are of gene pool AB, your spouse is also of gene pool AB. Now your child would carry some genes from both parents and discard some. In this case, however, his gene set could be AA, AB, or BB. Compare this with a couple who have AB and CD gene sets. Then their child may have AB, AC, BC, BD, or AD - a larger range of gene pool ensuring the progeny has chances of a diverse set of genes to choose from in the long run. In evolution, this capability would ensure that nature selects the genes that would ensure adaptation to changing environment. In case of the earlier case, where both the parents had AB genes, say the progeny got AA. Then if he marries someone who is also AA, their progeny would miss out on the B set of genes altogether, thereby making them less competitive in the evolution process - weaker candidates in the survival of the fittest.
The above may be very simplistic and even incorrect understanding. However, my concern is about the truth of this hypothesis - Indian arranged marriages allow for better gene diversity and thus greater evolutionary adaptive ability. If you test it by taking two samples, one belonging from India where this tradition of arranging marriages to an individual of different surname is followed to another sample from any other part of the world, is there (or can there) any perceptible difference in the adaptation of human beings to a changed environment? Can we say people in India are better disposed to evolutionary changes than people where marriages are not arranged on the basis of lineage?
A parallel discussion that also went forth was the benefit of marrying between different gene pools is chances of riddance from existing defects (genetic diseases) in a gene pool. If a diabetic marries another diabetic, chances are their children would carry the diabetic genes. However, test this against the example above: In the gene pool AB, say B contributes to diabetes. Marry to another AB, and there is a two in three chance that the child may get a B diabetes carrying gene (AB and BB, the third possibility would be AA). Marrying in the same gene pool seems to have poorer chance of getting rid of the defective B genes (clearly, marrying AB with CD implies that the chances of carrying B genes are two in four assuming that the child picks up at least one gene from both the parents - AC AD BC BD).
(I know somebody even slightly literate in genetics may be laughing all the way over my simplistic understanding of this whole issue!)
However, I wonder if this hypothesis is really true. Surnames are based on a patriarchal system but clearly, genes are not. Genes are contributed from both the mother and the father. So, by arranging marriages based on patriarchal system, the genes from the mother’s side are a free interactor and may dilute the whole theory to a point of random redundancy.
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