This article, as written by me, appeared in The Hindu on December 4, 2012.
--
The Aakash initiative of the Indian government is an attempt to bolster the academic experience of students in the country by equipping them with purpose-built tablets at subsidised rates.
The Aakash 2 tablet was unveiled on November 11, 2012. It is the third iteration of a product first unveiled in October, 2011, and is designed and licensed by a British-Canadian-Indian company named DataWind, headed by chief executive Suneet Singh Tuli.
On November 29, the tablet received an endorsement from the United Nations, where it was presented to Secretary-General Ban-ki Moon by India’s ambassador to the UN, Hardeep Singh Puri, and Tuli.
DataWind will sell Aakash 2 to the government at Rs. 2,263, which will then be subsidised to students at Rs. 1,130. However, the question is this: is it value for money even at this low price?
When it first entered the market, Aakash was censured for being underpowered, underperforming, and just generally cheap. Version one was a flop. The subsequently upgraded successor, released April, 2012, was released commercially before it was remodelled into the Aakash 2 to suit the government’s subsidised rate. As a result, some critical features were substituted with some others whose benefits are either redundant or unnecessary.
Aakash 2 is more durable and slimmer than Aakash, even though both weigh 350 grams. If Akash is going to act as a substitute for textbooks, that would be a load off children’s schoolbags.
But the Ministry of Human Resource Development is yet to reveal if digitised textbooks in local languages or any rich, interactive content have been developed to be served specifically through Aakash 2. The 2 GB of storage space, if not expanded to a possible 32 GB, is likely to restrict the quantity of content further, whereas the quality will be restrained by the low 512 MB of RAM.
The new look has been achieved by substituting two USB ports that the first Aakash had for one mini-USB port. This means no internet dongles.
That is a big drawback, considering Aakash 2 can access only Wi-Fi networks. It does support tethering capability that lets it act as a local Wi-Fi hotspot. But not being able to access cellular networks like 3G, such as in rural areas where mobile phone penetration is miles ahead of internet penetration, will place the onus on local governments to lay internet-cables, bring down broadband prices, etc.
If the device is being envisaged mainly as a device on which students may take notes, then Aakash 2 could pass muster. But even here, the mini-USB port rules out plugging in an external keyboard for ease of typing.
Next, Aakash 2’s battery life is a meagre 4 hours, which is well short of a full college day, and prevents serious student use. Video-conferencing, with a front-facing low-resolution camera, will only drain the battery faster. Compensatory ancillary infrastructure can only render the experience more cumbersome.
In terms of software, after the operating system was recently upgraded in Aakash 2, the device is almost twice as fast and multi-tasks without overheating. But DataWind has quoted “insufficient processing power” as the reason the tablet will not have access to Android’s digital marketplace. Perhaps in an attempt to not entirely short-change students, access to the much less prolific GetJar apps directory is being provided.
Effectively, with limited apps, no 3G, a weak battery and a mini-USB port, the success of the tablet and its contribution to Indian education seems to be hinged solely on its low price.
As always, a problem of scale could exacerbate Aakash 2’s deficiencies. Consider the South American initiative of the One Laptop Per Child program instituted in 2005. Peru, in particular, distributed 8.5 lakh laptops at a cost of US $225 million in order to enhance its dismal education system.
No appreciable gains in terms of test scores were recorded, however. Only 13 per cent of twelve-year olds were at the required level in mathematics and 30 per cent at the required reading level, the country’s education ministry reported in March 2012.
However, Uruguay, its smaller continent-mate, saw rapid transformations after it equipped every primary-school student in the country with a laptop.
The difference, as Sandro Marcone, a Peruvian ministry official, conceded, lay in Uruguayan students using laptops to access interactive content from the web to become faster learners than their teachers, and forming closely knit learning communities that then expanded.
Therefore, what India shouldn’t do is subsidise a tablet that could turn out to be a very costly notebook. Yes, the price is low, but given the goal of ultimately unifying 58.6 lakh students across 25,000 colleges and 400 universities, Aakash 2 could be revised to better leverage existing infrastructure instead of necessitating more.
Showing posts with label education. Show all posts
Showing posts with label education. Show all posts
Monday, 3 December 2012
Thursday, 12 July 2012
A dilemma of the auto-didact
If publishers could never imagine that there are people who could teach themselves particle physics, why conceive cheaper preliminary textbooks and ridiculously expensive advanced textbooks? Learning vector physics for classical mechanics costs Rs. 245 while progressing then to analytical mechanics involves an incurrence of Rs. 4,520. Does the cost barrier exist because the knowledge is more specialized? If this is the case, then such books should have become cheaper over time. They have not: Analytical Mechanics, which a good friend recommended, has stayed in the vicinity of $75 for the last three years (now, it's $78.67 for the original paperback and $43 for a used one). This is just a handy example. There are a host of textbooks that detail concepts in advanced physics and cost a fortune: all you have to do is look for those that contain "hadron", "accelerator", "QCD", etc., in their titles.
Getting to a place in time where a student is capable of understanding these subjects is cheap. In other words, the cost of aspirations is low while the price of execution is prohibitive.
Sure, alternatives exist, such as libraries and university archives. However, that misses the point: it seems the costs of the books are higher to prevent their ubiquitous consumption. No other reason seems evident, although I am loth to reach this conclusion. If you, the publisher, want me to read such books only in universities, then you are effectively requiring me to either abstain from reading these books irrespective of my interests if my professional interests reside elsewhere or depend on universities and university-publisher relationships for my progress in advanced physics, not myself. The resulting gap between the layman and the specialist eventually evades spanning, leading to ridiculous results such as not understanding the "God" in "God particle" to questioning the necessity of the LHC without quite understanding what it does and how that helps mankind.
Getting to a place in time where a student is capable of understanding these subjects is cheap. In other words, the cost of aspirations is low while the price of execution is prohibitive.
Sure, alternatives exist, such as libraries and university archives. However, that misses the point: it seems the costs of the books are higher to prevent their ubiquitous consumption. No other reason seems evident, although I am loth to reach this conclusion. If you, the publisher, want me to read such books only in universities, then you are effectively requiring me to either abstain from reading these books irrespective of my interests if my professional interests reside elsewhere or depend on universities and university-publisher relationships for my progress in advanced physics, not myself. The resulting gap between the layman and the specialist eventually evades spanning, leading to ridiculous results such as not understanding the "God" in "God particle" to questioning the necessity of the LHC without quite understanding what it does and how that helps mankind.
Sunday, 17 June 2012
Fizzed-out futures
Initiatives are arising to plug holes in the Indian education system, or so they claim. Many are ambitious, some even overreaching, but they also exist in the company of those that are honest. However, the cause for concern is that such projects are being viewed as extracurricular to the prevailing education system-even by those who have founded the initiatives. Thoughtful engagement is sought after, an awareness of the "outside world"–a summation of the realities extraneous to the student's chosen field–is deemed lacking and designated a goal.
Most such initiatives are by students, or recent graduates, and with them, they carry fresh memories of incomplete lessons and half-mentored theses. As their activities grow in scope–which they surely do–there is an attrition between a tendency to remain experimentalist and the certainty provided by going commercial through installing a secure source of support and a fundamental incentive. The last is necessary even though many students remain in denial of it: one man's idea cannot be shared with the same intensity throughout unless there is a need to depend on it. Money, many fail to realize, maintains currency, too.
The prevalent belief is that the Indian way of learning sidelines the humanities: if a job doesn't fetch a fat cheque, it concludes there is no point in studying for it. Unfortunately, however, such a view also degrades the pros of technical learning. Subsequently, the responses are disappointingly reactionary. If a student has found it difficult to inculcate a skill, he simply participates in the overarching institution of frustration and dissatisfaction, and assumes the problem is faced by everyone. That is never true, has never been. However, it finds enough purchase to surface as fixes.
In many parts of the country, young graduates and final-year students gather in small rooms on terraces and in garages. For the most part, they discuss the different activities they could perform to compensate for what they think they ought to have learned in the classroom but didn’t. They quickly conclude that original thought is missing-which is very true-and proceed to talk about what they’d need to inculcate it. These are, obviously, surface-level problems. As time passes, the incentive to meet each subsequent week and debate and act or whatever peters out. Essentially, such students’ and graduates’ concerns have been for the short-term.
The long-term concern, it seems, can be addressed more effectively at the individual level than at the systemic level. The institution can encourage extracurricular tasks, point at the dearth of invention and abundance of innovation, and build up an army of youngsters to fix the nation’s most pressing problems. However, the only solution that can pluck India out of this moshpit of unoriginality is to do what is required of all youngsters no matter where they are these days: ideate. Ideas, whether original or otherwise, are necessary; even better when they are distilled out from a knowledge pool that is vast.
Whatever the most dollar-guzzling problems are, the ones that are solved by continuous ideation are what will keep the machine from descending into a standstill. May the humanities be sidelined, may the rote-learner be celebrated, may technical learning signify the staple diet that deprives most Indian students’ of the indulgence of the arts-we are not in need of a paradigm shift to rectify matters. What we need most is to build ourselves to achieve even in the absence of expectations. What we need most is to transcend our cubicles and classrooms and disintegrate the institutionalized frustration. By not doing so, we are letting our communal objectives be defined by a chance mistake.
Most such initiatives are by students, or recent graduates, and with them, they carry fresh memories of incomplete lessons and half-mentored theses. As their activities grow in scope–which they surely do–there is an attrition between a tendency to remain experimentalist and the certainty provided by going commercial through installing a secure source of support and a fundamental incentive. The last is necessary even though many students remain in denial of it: one man's idea cannot be shared with the same intensity throughout unless there is a need to depend on it. Money, many fail to realize, maintains currency, too.
The prevalent belief is that the Indian way of learning sidelines the humanities: if a job doesn't fetch a fat cheque, it concludes there is no point in studying for it. Unfortunately, however, such a view also degrades the pros of technical learning. Subsequently, the responses are disappointingly reactionary. If a student has found it difficult to inculcate a skill, he simply participates in the overarching institution of frustration and dissatisfaction, and assumes the problem is faced by everyone. That is never true, has never been. However, it finds enough purchase to surface as fixes.
In many parts of the country, young graduates and final-year students gather in small rooms on terraces and in garages. For the most part, they discuss the different activities they could perform to compensate for what they think they ought to have learned in the classroom but didn’t. They quickly conclude that original thought is missing-which is very true-and proceed to talk about what they’d need to inculcate it. These are, obviously, surface-level problems. As time passes, the incentive to meet each subsequent week and debate and act or whatever peters out. Essentially, such students’ and graduates’ concerns have been for the short-term.
The long-term concern, it seems, can be addressed more effectively at the individual level than at the systemic level. The institution can encourage extracurricular tasks, point at the dearth of invention and abundance of innovation, and build up an army of youngsters to fix the nation’s most pressing problems. However, the only solution that can pluck India out of this moshpit of unoriginality is to do what is required of all youngsters no matter where they are these days: ideate. Ideas, whether original or otherwise, are necessary; even better when they are distilled out from a knowledge pool that is vast.
Whatever the most dollar-guzzling problems are, the ones that are solved by continuous ideation are what will keep the machine from descending into a standstill. May the humanities be sidelined, may the rote-learner be celebrated, may technical learning signify the staple diet that deprives most Indian students’ of the indulgence of the arts-we are not in need of a paradigm shift to rectify matters. What we need most is to build ourselves to achieve even in the absence of expectations. What we need most is to transcend our cubicles and classrooms and disintegrate the institutionalized frustration. By not doing so, we are letting our communal objectives be defined by a chance mistake.
Tuesday, 27 March 2012
The cause-effect paradigm
Some people find differential calculus very easy. Others find vector algebra very easy. However, given that our education system is firmly unidirectional for many justifiable reasons, the calculus-folk would have had to suffer vectors before they came across what they liked. This happens to most students. Unfortunately, the process is so rigorous that such students may be driven to lose focus or interest in the subject as a whole. There could be no other way to do it, but that doesn't mean there's no better way to teach such subjects inside classrooms.
From time to time, students and teachers alike need to be reminded that each topic in a subject is weak by itself, and only with the assistance of other topics is anything achieved. Instead of going from specifics to the larger picture, why not come from the larger picture to the specifics? After all, and this is just an (convenient) example, mathematics is a powerful but singular set of tools used to solve problems in the real world: every problem is application driven, including in string theory and loop quantum gravity, where, without the verification of their hypotheses by experiments, each remains just a strongly-defended opinion.
[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="510" caption="The tools of multilateral thinking can be used within classrooms as well to improve efficiency and productivity."]
[/caption]
I must concede that some problems are better solved using some tools than others, but keeping in mind why the problem is being solved like that is important. Even if calculus provides a circuitous route to a solution, what's wrong with its being adopted by the calculus-lovers to get there? When they get there, the relationship between the problem and the solution becomes clearer: there is a better cause-effect relationship established than when a student struggles through vectors and is exhausted by the end, reluctant to take it up again.
As far as laying the groundwork is concerned, teaching students everything is the way to go: at some point later, then, they will be better equipped to make a choice - between what they think they ought to stick with and what they think they can afford to avoid. However, in this order of things, the problems solved using tool-set A and tool-set B, even if in different terms, could be the same, or related in some way so that even what seems difficult could be better understood in terms of what seems easy.
These are only musings concerned with the different ways through which students can convert information into knowledge. The point is: as long as we're here to solve problems, let's have fun doing it.
From time to time, students and teachers alike need to be reminded that each topic in a subject is weak by itself, and only with the assistance of other topics is anything achieved. Instead of going from specifics to the larger picture, why not come from the larger picture to the specifics? After all, and this is just an (convenient) example, mathematics is a powerful but singular set of tools used to solve problems in the real world: every problem is application driven, including in string theory and loop quantum gravity, where, without the verification of their hypotheses by experiments, each remains just a strongly-defended opinion.
[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="510" caption="The tools of multilateral thinking can be used within classrooms as well to improve efficiency and productivity."]
[/caption]I must concede that some problems are better solved using some tools than others, but keeping in mind why the problem is being solved like that is important. Even if calculus provides a circuitous route to a solution, what's wrong with its being adopted by the calculus-lovers to get there? When they get there, the relationship between the problem and the solution becomes clearer: there is a better cause-effect relationship established than when a student struggles through vectors and is exhausted by the end, reluctant to take it up again.
As far as laying the groundwork is concerned, teaching students everything is the way to go: at some point later, then, they will be better equipped to make a choice - between what they think they ought to stick with and what they think they can afford to avoid. However, in this order of things, the problems solved using tool-set A and tool-set B, even if in different terms, could be the same, or related in some way so that even what seems difficult could be better understood in terms of what seems easy.
These are only musings concerned with the different ways through which students can convert information into knowledge. The point is: as long as we're here to solve problems, let's have fun doing it.
Wednesday, 29 February 2012
The time void
There is a problem. It's hidden beneath a layer of pride that, in my opinion, is misguided and instigative. Nonetheless, it persists and must be noted.
[caption id="attachment_22543" align="alignleft" width="352" caption="QXP 6's user interface"]
[/caption]
I rediscovered it when I was first introduced to QuarkXPress 6.0 around 6 months ago. The software is used to design newspaper pages and other printed entities where content positioning is of some importance, like business cards. Working with it is a cumbersome affair. For one, the interface is outdated and had to have been put together without any awareness of the GUI design philosophies that were around in the early 2000s. For another, there is no sense of structure: where different tools could have been grouped together under one tab for convenience, there are none. All its myriad capabilities are there simply because they can be there; there is no purpose - which lends itself to different users in different forms for different reasons.
All this is forgivable because they are visible problems, problems that we known are there but problems that don't exactly interfere with what the software seems useful for. The issue is that QXP - as it is taught in classrooms in journalism colleges (which is an assumption I freely make because ACJ, where I study, is one of the better places to study journalism in India, and ACJ uses QXP) - consumes valuable time that could have been spent learning either what succeeded it, such as Adobe InDesign, or learning entirely something else.
The reason I say this is because once I graduate and find myself employed (hopefully), QXP is only going to take me so far. After a point, once professional demands are stepped up - an inevitable scenario - I will have to abandon the knowledge I have and spend some more time learning may way around a successor technology.
This is a problem that my friend and I addressed in early 2008, albeit superficially, by understanding its repercussions in the context of a school-goer. The principle bone of contention is that there is a loss of time: where only X hours should be spent in learning how to tackle a problem, at least 2X hours are spent.
Before I proceed, let me introduce, with relevance to this discussion, three phases within which some technology will exist in its lifetime.
(The titles are self-explanatory.)
Suppose a typical industrialist in a developed nation has come up with a new idea which is yet to be implemented productively in the global scene. He will invest his money in hiring scientists, programmers, etc., and in research and development of the product. When he releases the product into the market, it will surface as an emerging technology. Subsequently, the cost of this technology will be very high. There will still be buyers because of the originality of the idea and changes this idea can bring in to their lives.
From the money earned through this venture (profits), the industrialist will begin another project, hiring the intellectual cream of the world and invest the rest (or part of it) in R&D. This cycle is almost perpetual and has many side-effects.
When an industrialist in a developing nation is in the same situation and wants to commence a new project, the path will take be markedly different. Even though he or she may have sufficient funds for the venture, the risks involved in undertaking such a task in a developing scenario are comparatively higher. Also, owing to the inefficient cash flow channels, the money involved in this task will have to be either consumed by the labor force alone, or R&D alone. In such a situation, the industrialist will go for an easier solution: purchasing the product directly from the industrialist in the developed nation.
Now, on acquiring a new piece technology, the user has to get acquainted with its pros and cons and must be able to manipulate it to yield productive results. This process can take quite some time. At the end of this learning session, the user is now able to stand on the concepts of this idea and think of newer ones that surpass the existing level (innovation). In the developing nation, by the time the user has acquired the skills of the product he or she has purchased, newer ideas would have cropped up. This pushes the skills of the user to the old phase. He now has to start all over again just to sustain himself.
[caption id="attachment_22542" align="aligncenter" width="533" caption="On the x-axis, time, and on the y, phases of technology from 'Outdated' at the bottom to 'Emerging' at the top. Moving forward in time, the lines indicate progress. In the section between 'New' and 'Emerging' technologies, the way students and professionals in developed countries function is represented. As for those from developing countries, the representation is between 'Old' and 'New' technologies. Now, the orange line indicates the way a developing country moves forward, the green line the way we ought to move, and the blue line the way developed countries move."]
[/caption]
In any country, the academic curriculum and everything that we perceive is relative to the state of the technology that is in use. Our syllabi at school are framed on the basis of what is known and may be useful for the student. On the completion of education, when the student is emerging as a professional in some field, he will be exposed to the contemporary and practical scenario.
In a developed nation, the vicious circle is firmly established and running. The technological output out of this circle will be in the emerging phase when the individual is studying and will have evolved into the present or new phase when the individual becomes a professional. At this stage, the knowledge of the person will accommodate the concepts held by the present ideas. This way, he can use the present product and utilize it to bring in improvisations, as well as create new ones.
In a developing nation, owing to the vicious circle and economic risks, the students are masked from the news that a new product or idea has emerged elsewhere by their curriculum and syllabus. This way, when they emerge as professionals in their field of choice, they face a dilemma: owing to the emergence of a newer product, the knowledge they now have is shifted back into the old phase. To correct this, they undergo training and workshops before they can work and think productively.
This is a hidden problem and must be corrected as soon as possible.
[caption id="attachment_22543" align="alignleft" width="352" caption="QXP 6's user interface"]
[/caption]I rediscovered it when I was first introduced to QuarkXPress 6.0 around 6 months ago. The software is used to design newspaper pages and other printed entities where content positioning is of some importance, like business cards. Working with it is a cumbersome affair. For one, the interface is outdated and had to have been put together without any awareness of the GUI design philosophies that were around in the early 2000s. For another, there is no sense of structure: where different tools could have been grouped together under one tab for convenience, there are none. All its myriad capabilities are there simply because they can be there; there is no purpose - which lends itself to different users in different forms for different reasons.
All this is forgivable because they are visible problems, problems that we known are there but problems that don't exactly interfere with what the software seems useful for. The issue is that QXP - as it is taught in classrooms in journalism colleges (which is an assumption I freely make because ACJ, where I study, is one of the better places to study journalism in India, and ACJ uses QXP) - consumes valuable time that could have been spent learning either what succeeded it, such as Adobe InDesign, or learning entirely something else.
The reason I say this is because once I graduate and find myself employed (hopefully), QXP is only going to take me so far. After a point, once professional demands are stepped up - an inevitable scenario - I will have to abandon the knowledge I have and spend some more time learning may way around a successor technology.
This is a problem that my friend and I addressed in early 2008, albeit superficially, by understanding its repercussions in the context of a school-goer. The principle bone of contention is that there is a loss of time: where only X hours should be spent in learning how to tackle a problem, at least 2X hours are spent.
Before I proceed, let me introduce, with relevance to this discussion, three phases within which some technology will exist in its lifetime.
- Old
- Present/new
- Emerging
(The titles are self-explanatory.)
Suppose a typical industrialist in a developed nation has come up with a new idea which is yet to be implemented productively in the global scene. He will invest his money in hiring scientists, programmers, etc., and in research and development of the product. When he releases the product into the market, it will surface as an emerging technology. Subsequently, the cost of this technology will be very high. There will still be buyers because of the originality of the idea and changes this idea can bring in to their lives.
From the money earned through this venture (profits), the industrialist will begin another project, hiring the intellectual cream of the world and invest the rest (or part of it) in R&D. This cycle is almost perpetual and has many side-effects.
When an industrialist in a developing nation is in the same situation and wants to commence a new project, the path will take be markedly different. Even though he or she may have sufficient funds for the venture, the risks involved in undertaking such a task in a developing scenario are comparatively higher. Also, owing to the inefficient cash flow channels, the money involved in this task will have to be either consumed by the labor force alone, or R&D alone. In such a situation, the industrialist will go for an easier solution: purchasing the product directly from the industrialist in the developed nation.
Now, on acquiring a new piece technology, the user has to get acquainted with its pros and cons and must be able to manipulate it to yield productive results. This process can take quite some time. At the end of this learning session, the user is now able to stand on the concepts of this idea and think of newer ones that surpass the existing level (innovation). In the developing nation, by the time the user has acquired the skills of the product he or she has purchased, newer ideas would have cropped up. This pushes the skills of the user to the old phase. He now has to start all over again just to sustain himself.
[caption id="attachment_22542" align="aligncenter" width="533" caption="On the x-axis, time, and on the y, phases of technology from 'Outdated' at the bottom to 'Emerging' at the top. Moving forward in time, the lines indicate progress. In the section between 'New' and 'Emerging' technologies, the way students and professionals in developed countries function is represented. As for those from developing countries, the representation is between 'Old' and 'New' technologies. Now, the orange line indicates the way a developing country moves forward, the green line the way we ought to move, and the blue line the way developed countries move."]
[/caption]In any country, the academic curriculum and everything that we perceive is relative to the state of the technology that is in use. Our syllabi at school are framed on the basis of what is known and may be useful for the student. On the completion of education, when the student is emerging as a professional in some field, he will be exposed to the contemporary and practical scenario.
In a developed nation, the vicious circle is firmly established and running. The technological output out of this circle will be in the emerging phase when the individual is studying and will have evolved into the present or new phase when the individual becomes a professional. At this stage, the knowledge of the person will accommodate the concepts held by the present ideas. This way, he can use the present product and utilize it to bring in improvisations, as well as create new ones.
In a developing nation, owing to the vicious circle and economic risks, the students are masked from the news that a new product or idea has emerged elsewhere by their curriculum and syllabus. This way, when they emerge as professionals in their field of choice, they face a dilemma: owing to the emergence of a newer product, the knowledge they now have is shifted back into the old phase. To correct this, they undergo training and workshops before they can work and think productively.
This is a hidden problem and must be corrected as soon as possible.
Monday, 30 January 2012
Science education and statistical issues
This image below speaks volumes.
[caption id="attachment_21435" align="aligncenter" width="529" caption="From a report titled 'ASPIRES: Science and career aspirations (age 10-14)' compiled by the ASPIRES Project, London, 2012."]
[/caption]
What's keeping away the kids? More specifically, why is there an observable offset of interest from aspiration for children in the age group, as the report claims, 10-14? Here are some snippets from an otherwise incredibly boring report.
To this, the report suggests as a solution a broadening of scope in classrooms, to make science a "conceivable career" for students. But that seems to be trivializing the problem, which I think won't get sorted until classrooms are targeted individually. The problems of race and social class (or of caste and poverty in India) cannot be generalized impact-wise in any sense.
In India, in 1966, the Kothari Commission Report was submitted by Dr. D. S. Kothari to the Prime Minister. The report recommended that the government had to focus on a carefully chosen set of subjects in order to bolster its economy to meet certain important targets in the engineering sector.
Unfortunately, the curriculum that was created those five decades ago spurred a surplus of science and engineering graduates as well as colleges and institutions, conceiving a fixation that these and related courses translated to job security. Even though the situation may seem to be different today, a close examination will reveal that any Indian family is half-composed of engineers and management graduates.
My point is that participation rates - which could be purely because parents insist that their children study this or that and nothing else - don't necessarily translate into liking for the subjects. And when participation rates in schools are used by committees and organizations to predict what the future composition of graduates will be, their reports are likely to discourage further action in the sector.
The next point I strongly agree with, in both global and Indian contexts.
The 'science pipeline' model also goes on to create a certain profile of the larger science population (such as the image of a geek), to which certain minority groups may not be able to relate. That leads to discouragement and a closeting of aspirations.
The solution? I don't know. Maybe awareness? I'm skeptical.
[caption id="attachment_21435" align="aligncenter" width="529" caption="From a report titled 'ASPIRES: Science and career aspirations (age 10-14)' compiled by the ASPIRES Project, London, 2012."]
[/caption]What's keeping away the kids? More specifically, why is there an observable offset of interest from aspiration for children in the age group, as the report claims, 10-14? Here are some snippets from an otherwise incredibly boring report.
Research shows that young people’s aspirations are strongly influenced by their social backgrounds (e.g. by ‘race’/ethnicity, social class and gender) and family contexts where identity and cultural factors play an important role in shaping the perception of science as ‘not for me’.
To this, the report suggests as a solution a broadening of scope in classrooms, to make science a "conceivable career" for students. But that seems to be trivializing the problem, which I think won't get sorted until classrooms are targeted individually. The problems of race and social class (or of caste and poverty in India) cannot be generalized impact-wise in any sense.
... countries with high attainment and participation rates in mathematics (such as Japan) also record amongst the lowest levels of student liking for the subject.
In India, in 1966, the Kothari Commission Report was submitted by Dr. D. S. Kothari to the Prime Minister. The report recommended that the government had to focus on a carefully chosen set of subjects in order to bolster its economy to meet certain important targets in the engineering sector.
Unfortunately, the curriculum that was created those five decades ago spurred a surplus of science and engineering graduates as well as colleges and institutions, conceiving a fixation that these and related courses translated to job security. Even though the situation may seem to be different today, a close examination will reveal that any Indian family is half-composed of engineers and management graduates.
My point is that participation rates - which could be purely because parents insist that their children study this or that and nothing else - don't necessarily translate into liking for the subjects. And when participation rates in schools are used by committees and organizations to predict what the future composition of graduates will be, their reports are likely to discourage further action in the sector.
The next point I strongly agree with, in both global and Indian contexts.
Science education policy has been strongly criticised for assuming that its primary importance is to prepare the next generation of the nation’s professional scientists (the ‘science pipeline’ model).
The 'science pipeline' model also goes on to create a certain profile of the larger science population (such as the image of a geek), to which certain minority groups may not be able to relate. That leads to discouragement and a closeting of aspirations.
The solution? I don't know. Maybe awareness? I'm skeptical.
Sunday, 1 January 2012
Science, too, evolved.
From an article on LiveScience today:
The bills, introduced by Jerry Bergevin, a Republican member of the New Hampshire House of Representatives, require evolution to be taught as a philosophy in schools and teachers to pay some attention to the "fact" that science often contradicts itself as a result of new evidence being found everyday. Perhaps someone should inform Mr. Bergevin that science has never contradicted itself except in the case of explicitly stated paradoxes. In every other case, if two paradigms seem to contradict each other, the one less compatible with the more carefully-made observations is discarded and is no longer considered a part of science. And if he thinks that's the reason science cannot be trusted, I'm very scared to consider Mr. Bergevin's opinion of a democracy.
And what's with Republicans and Darwinian theories, anyway?
New Hampshire House Bill 1148 would "require evolution to be taught in the public schools of this state as a theory, including the theorists' political and ideological viewpoints and their position on the concept of atheism." The second proposal in the New Hampshire House, HB 1457, does not mention evolution specifically but would "require science teachers to instruct pupils that proper scientific inquire [sic] results from not committing to any one theory or hypothesis, no matter how firmly it appears to be established, and that scientific and technological innovations based on new evidence can challenge accepted scientific theories or modes."
The bills, introduced by Jerry Bergevin, a Republican member of the New Hampshire House of Representatives, require evolution to be taught as a philosophy in schools and teachers to pay some attention to the "fact" that science often contradicts itself as a result of new evidence being found everyday. Perhaps someone should inform Mr. Bergevin that science has never contradicted itself except in the case of explicitly stated paradoxes. In every other case, if two paradigms seem to contradict each other, the one less compatible with the more carefully-made observations is discarded and is no longer considered a part of science. And if he thinks that's the reason science cannot be trusted, I'm very scared to consider Mr. Bergevin's opinion of a democracy.
And what's with Republicans and Darwinian theories, anyway?
Thursday, 17 November 2011
More empty classrooms
[caption id="attachment_20671" align="aligncenter" width="474" caption="Source: Annual Report, University Grants Commission, 2009-2010"]
[/caption]
Two facts are evident from the chart shown above. The first is that while the increase in the number of colleges has been significant between the years 2004 and 2009, a similar growth is not reflected in the number of teachers: 53.7 per cent more colleges versus 28.7 more teachers (both in 2009). This means that while public and private institutes of higher education are established, there is not enough being done to staff them adequately.
The second observation follows from the first: in order to perfectly gauge the adequacy of teachers, it is seen that the percentage increase in the number of colleges is not reflected in the increase in the number of students: 36.7 per cent. Therefore, there are more colleges, more students per teacher, and more vacant seats today than ever before. According to a survey conducted by the Manpower Group in early 2011, 67 per cent of Indian employers experience difficulties in finding the right person for a job - and this statistic stood at just 16 per cent last year. Thus, the problem is both quantitative and, considering an increasing shortage of talent, qualitative.
[/caption]Two facts are evident from the chart shown above. The first is that while the increase in the number of colleges has been significant between the years 2004 and 2009, a similar growth is not reflected in the number of teachers: 53.7 per cent more colleges versus 28.7 more teachers (both in 2009). This means that while public and private institutes of higher education are established, there is not enough being done to staff them adequately.
The second observation follows from the first: in order to perfectly gauge the adequacy of teachers, it is seen that the percentage increase in the number of colleges is not reflected in the increase in the number of students: 36.7 per cent. Therefore, there are more colleges, more students per teacher, and more vacant seats today than ever before. According to a survey conducted by the Manpower Group in early 2011, 67 per cent of Indian employers experience difficulties in finding the right person for a job - and this statistic stood at just 16 per cent last year. Thus, the problem is both quantitative and, considering an increasing shortage of talent, qualitative.
Sunday, 2 October 2011
Fallen heroes or risen demons?
The article the contents of which are being argued over can be found here.
BQ: I don't accept what's being said
Dude, it’s like witch-hunting people who supported the Nazis!
See people believed the Nazis because they created lots of employment
And Germany developed while the world was still in a depression
Me: These are people with established links to the Nazis.
BQ: Not many realized the atrocities until after the war!
With respect to that industrialist: OK, I understand.
Me: So why weren't the names changed?
BQ: Dude, come on. Take that general's example.
Scorched earth is like a very ancient war philosophy.
He was ordered to do it.
People believed that the Communists would bring down the Germans.
Me: Why weren't the names changed is my question? Ample time has been available for these authorities to reconsider how they are tainting the name of their establishments and they still haven't changed it.
BQ: What I'm saying is why would they want to change it?
According to them, that general worked for the republic.
Very efficiently!
Me: Now they know the truth!
BQ: And he did his job, which was to fight.
What is the truth?
That he used the scorched earth policy in Russia?
Me: The truth of the cost at which the republic the general was trying to create was purchased.
Whether or not he was following orders is a matter for the courts, but these people have gone down in history as murderers and people with humanely unacceptable tendencies and beliefs.
BQ: History is always doctored by the victors.
Me: Don't give me that nonsense.
BQ: I'm not saying the Nazis are a bunch of angels.
But you still can't blame an officer for doing his duty!
If that is the case, there would’ve been no military officer who would have done humanly acceptable things.
War is bitter.
If you go by that logic: has Russia bothered to change the names of institutes which bear the name of Lenin or Stalin?
Those two fellows were equally monstrous!
Or did the British punish people like Curzon or General Dyer?
Why should the Germans humiliate their heroes?
Me: Alright, then tell me what message are you conveying to a child who studies in a school that marks testimony to the actions of the soldiers and the generals it is named after? Forgive them in your minds, but keep away from naming schools and colleges after them for the sole reason that you allow their names, and therefore their actions, to live on.
I'm only using an example of the Germans.
BQ: Well, that's a good point.
But still, no point in hiding or erasing history. Those people should be praised for their virtues and criticised for their ill deeds.
Sounds difficult, no?
But do you think there will ever be a perfect human being who will have done nothing wrong?
Me: Of course not.
We just have to do everything with two things in mind: short-term goals and long-term goals.
In the short-term, glorify your heroes for their good deeds. In the long-term, criticize them for the ills they committed.
BQ: True.
People have to understand their ancestors for both their good deeds and short comings and learn from that.
BQ: I don't accept what's being said
Dude, it’s like witch-hunting people who supported the Nazis!
See people believed the Nazis because they created lots of employment
And Germany developed while the world was still in a depression
Me: These are people with established links to the Nazis.
BQ: Not many realized the atrocities until after the war!
With respect to that industrialist: OK, I understand.
Me: So why weren't the names changed?
BQ: Dude, come on. Take that general's example.
Scorched earth is like a very ancient war philosophy.
He was ordered to do it.
People believed that the Communists would bring down the Germans.
Me: Why weren't the names changed is my question? Ample time has been available for these authorities to reconsider how they are tainting the name of their establishments and they still haven't changed it.
BQ: What I'm saying is why would they want to change it?
According to them, that general worked for the republic.
Very efficiently!
Me: Now they know the truth!
BQ: And he did his job, which was to fight.
What is the truth?
That he used the scorched earth policy in Russia?
Me: The truth of the cost at which the republic the general was trying to create was purchased.
Whether or not he was following orders is a matter for the courts, but these people have gone down in history as murderers and people with humanely unacceptable tendencies and beliefs.
BQ: History is always doctored by the victors.
Me: Don't give me that nonsense.
BQ: I'm not saying the Nazis are a bunch of angels.
But you still can't blame an officer for doing his duty!
If that is the case, there would’ve been no military officer who would have done humanly acceptable things.
War is bitter.
If you go by that logic: has Russia bothered to change the names of institutes which bear the name of Lenin or Stalin?
Those two fellows were equally monstrous!
Or did the British punish people like Curzon or General Dyer?
Why should the Germans humiliate their heroes?
Me: Alright, then tell me what message are you conveying to a child who studies in a school that marks testimony to the actions of the soldiers and the generals it is named after? Forgive them in your minds, but keep away from naming schools and colleges after them for the sole reason that you allow their names, and therefore their actions, to live on.
I'm only using an example of the Germans.
BQ: Well, that's a good point.
But still, no point in hiding or erasing history. Those people should be praised for their virtues and criticised for their ill deeds.
Sounds difficult, no?
But do you think there will ever be a perfect human being who will have done nothing wrong?
Me: Of course not.
We just have to do everything with two things in mind: short-term goals and long-term goals.
In the short-term, glorify your heroes for their good deeds. In the long-term, criticize them for the ills they committed.
BQ: True.
People have to understand their ancestors for both their good deeds and short comings and learn from that.
Saturday, 20 August 2011
A certain hypocrisy concerning the Communist wisdom
At ACJ, almost every 2 out of of 3 people are Communist of some sort, and the only thing about Communism I disagree with - perhaps the only thing I could disagree with - is the position concerning the distribution of wealth. I'll assume for the rest of this short discussion that all Communists are rooting for an equitable distribution of wealth.
Now, a Communist professor, with the interests of Communism at heart, must always ensure that wealth is distributed equitably. Assuming that he is in the print medium department at the college, and if a student of the broadcast medium were to impress upon him some promise of excellence as a writer, then shouldn't it be against the Communist philosophy to say that the student should've picked print journalism?
The achievement of an equitable distribution of wealth - or any other resource analogous to its capability - would mandate that the student not be asked to enroll with the print medium department. If he or she did switch departments, wouldn't the rich get richer and the poor get poorer?
Now, a Communist professor, with the interests of Communism at heart, must always ensure that wealth is distributed equitably. Assuming that he is in the print medium department at the college, and if a student of the broadcast medium were to impress upon him some promise of excellence as a writer, then shouldn't it be against the Communist philosophy to say that the student should've picked print journalism?
The achievement of an equitable distribution of wealth - or any other resource analogous to its capability - would mandate that the student not be asked to enroll with the print medium department. If he or she did switch departments, wouldn't the rich get richer and the poor get poorer?
A certain hypocrisy concerning the Communist wisdom
At ACJ, almost every 2 out of of 3 people are Communist of some sort, and the only thing about Communism I disagree with - perhaps the only thing I could disagree with - is the position concerning the distribution of wealth. I'll assume for the rest of this short discussion that all Communists are rooting for an equitable distribution of wealth.
Now, a Communist professor, with the interests of Communism at heart, must always ensure that wealth is distributed equitably. Assuming that he is in the print medium department at the college, and if a student of the broadcast medium were to impress upon him some promise of excellence as a writer, then shouldn't it be against the Communist philosophy to say that the student should've picked print journalism?
The achievement of an equitable distribution of wealth - or any other resource analogous to its capability - would mandate that the student not be asked to enroll with the print medium department. If he or she did switch departments, wouldn't the rich get richer and the poor get poorer?
Now, a Communist professor, with the interests of Communism at heart, must always ensure that wealth is distributed equitably. Assuming that he is in the print medium department at the college, and if a student of the broadcast medium were to impress upon him some promise of excellence as a writer, then shouldn't it be against the Communist philosophy to say that the student should've picked print journalism?
The achievement of an equitable distribution of wealth - or any other resource analogous to its capability - would mandate that the student not be asked to enroll with the print medium department. If he or she did switch departments, wouldn't the rich get richer and the poor get poorer?
Thursday, 4 August 2011
An e-mail conversation between R Radhakrishnan and me
Mail from me
Dear sir,
I hope you're keeping well. I was fortunate enough to attend your lecture 'Tracking the simulacrum' at ACJ on the first day of August, 2011. Fantastic lecture, I haven't been intellectually stimulated like this in a while. For that, thank you very much.
I have an engineering background and consequently tend to contextualize everything I learn as a process, and if resources avail, as systems. On that note, with reference to your ideas on self-reflexivity (and perhaps denaturalization), would it be fair to say that the notions can be analogized to the characters in Edwin Abbott's book 'Flatland' (1884)? That the nature of self-reflexivity can be explained by the inability of the two-dimensional objects to understand the real nature of the three-dimensional sphere? Going another way, can it also be analogized to the sphere's ability to view Flatland in its entirety while the lines and shapes can't?
Perhaps just as an afterthought: can self-reflexivity as a macropolitical tool be applied to the Victorian society and its collapse in the face of growing and expanding communication systems? I ask this only because Flatland itself was said to make references to the male and female lifestyles during the Victorian era.
That's about it. I wish I'd asked these questions in class but I just assimilated your points enough to get this far. Hope you have good evening, sir.
Regards,
Vasudevan Mukunth
Reply from Radha
Dear Vasu (If I may, and please call me Radha),
Greetings, and thank you so much for your immensely generous appreciation of my lecture. so glad it worked for you. i had a great time as well.
You bring up important questions. not having read flatland, i can't be too specific in my response. but i do get the drift of your general questions and i agree with you. i particularly appreciate your "engineers's" stress on systems and structures and their relationship to the lifeworld of which they are a part, but not a "natural" part. the question of nature and what it means or should mean, descriptively as well as normatively, i crucial. do read habermas, foucault, and judith butler. also important to see how structures and systems partake both of the macro and the micropolitical, i would like to hear you say more on what self reflexivity means to you. i am thinking of herbert simon and boubded rationality.
Do stay in touch and let us keep talking, cheers, anmd with all good wishes,
radha
Reply from me
Hey Radha! (Feels awkward - and yeah, Vasu's fine)
I hope you're keeping well. Thanks for the prompt response, it alleviated a lot of doubts about my questions being stupid. And I must apologise about the length of this mail.
First off, bounded rationality: this concept I came across in another form in computational linguistics. In the late 19th century, Benjamin Whorf and Edward Sapir put forth their eponymous hypothesis that "the difference in the significance of languages is the difference in the significance of the perceptions of its speakers." In '57, Chomsky came up with universal grammar: all languages are accompanied by psychological nativism and a poverty of the stimulus. These rules struck at the heart of the empiricist position of language acquisition. So, by being born with preset capabilities, are we also beset by preset deficiencies that limit the scope of our successes? Here, we come to bounded rationalism as an immediate consequence of the existence of a universal grammar - and perhaps also to Nietzsche's 'Amor fati'. But this is a purely psychosocial argument.
Secondly, structuralism and rationalist theory: here, mathematics avails a solution I've been fond of in the past. John Nash's game theory. Simon's three steps to arrive at a decision are identification of alternatives, consequences of alternatives, and evaluation of relevance of consequences. All three are modeled on the necessity of a stable system (as engineers study in thermodynamics!), the condition that finite variables exist, and the condition that only a finite number of consequences are possible (my interests in structuralism end here). In that case,
This, I think, leads to Carnap's question: can ontological questions have objective answers? Here, as an engineer, I'm reminded of metaphysical naturalism as well.
Finally, the question I find most pressing is whether or not it is necessary for us to adopt a framework - a structuralist tool - in the context of which we view this world. For example, consider the statement "The sun rises in the east after it has set in the west." This means that an eastern sunrise follows a western sunset, ergo there's east and west and there's a sun. All these answers are within the framework of the statement. However, a question like "Is there really a sun?" prompts us to question the validity of the framework itself, thereby asking us to step outside and evaluate it. Now, how do we evaluate it?
That's about it. Sorry again about the length of this mail. I know there's a good chance of me having come off as a bore.
And I've queued a whole bunch of articles by Habermas and Butler. Thanks for the tip!
Good night and regards,
Vasu
Retort from Radha
great issues to think about. i don'r get the amor fati connection which to me has to do with the eternal return. do read my history, the human, and the world between for more on temporality and historicity.
I think you can arrive at bounded rationality through various ways. computational linguistics is clearly one path. i am no big fan of chomsky. i am a fan of chomsky the activist, not the epistemologist. i am not sure of the connection you are making between universal grammar and b rationality.
Is microplitical to macropliotical simiar to what subjectivism is to objectivity is an interesting trajectory. Feminists, Foucaultians, and Marxists have much to contribute here.
BTW, i have a bunch opf published stuff in these and related areas, should you at any point read any of it, do feel free to comment, critique. cheers,
Radha
Dear sir,
I hope you're keeping well. I was fortunate enough to attend your lecture 'Tracking the simulacrum' at ACJ on the first day of August, 2011. Fantastic lecture, I haven't been intellectually stimulated like this in a while. For that, thank you very much.
I have an engineering background and consequently tend to contextualize everything I learn as a process, and if resources avail, as systems. On that note, with reference to your ideas on self-reflexivity (and perhaps denaturalization), would it be fair to say that the notions can be analogized to the characters in Edwin Abbott's book 'Flatland' (1884)? That the nature of self-reflexivity can be explained by the inability of the two-dimensional objects to understand the real nature of the three-dimensional sphere? Going another way, can it also be analogized to the sphere's ability to view Flatland in its entirety while the lines and shapes can't?
Perhaps just as an afterthought: can self-reflexivity as a macropolitical tool be applied to the Victorian society and its collapse in the face of growing and expanding communication systems? I ask this only because Flatland itself was said to make references to the male and female lifestyles during the Victorian era.
That's about it. I wish I'd asked these questions in class but I just assimilated your points enough to get this far. Hope you have good evening, sir.
Regards,
Vasudevan Mukunth
Reply from Radha
Dear Vasu (If I may, and please call me Radha),
Greetings, and thank you so much for your immensely generous appreciation of my lecture. so glad it worked for you. i had a great time as well.
You bring up important questions. not having read flatland, i can't be too specific in my response. but i do get the drift of your general questions and i agree with you. i particularly appreciate your "engineers's" stress on systems and structures and their relationship to the lifeworld of which they are a part, but not a "natural" part. the question of nature and what it means or should mean, descriptively as well as normatively, i crucial. do read habermas, foucault, and judith butler. also important to see how structures and systems partake both of the macro and the micropolitical, i would like to hear you say more on what self reflexivity means to you. i am thinking of herbert simon and boubded rationality.
Do stay in touch and let us keep talking, cheers, anmd with all good wishes,
radha
Reply from me
Hey Radha! (Feels awkward - and yeah, Vasu's fine)
I hope you're keeping well. Thanks for the prompt response, it alleviated a lot of doubts about my questions being stupid. And I must apologise about the length of this mail.
First off, bounded rationality: this concept I came across in another form in computational linguistics. In the late 19th century, Benjamin Whorf and Edward Sapir put forth their eponymous hypothesis that "the difference in the significance of languages is the difference in the significance of the perceptions of its speakers." In '57, Chomsky came up with universal grammar: all languages are accompanied by psychological nativism and a poverty of the stimulus. These rules struck at the heart of the empiricist position of language acquisition. So, by being born with preset capabilities, are we also beset by preset deficiencies that limit the scope of our successes? Here, we come to bounded rationalism as an immediate consequence of the existence of a universal grammar - and perhaps also to Nietzsche's 'Amor fati'. But this is a purely psychosocial argument.
Secondly, structuralism and rationalist theory: here, mathematics avails a solution I've been fond of in the past. John Nash's game theory. Simon's three steps to arrive at a decision are identification of alternatives, consequences of alternatives, and evaluation of relevance of consequences. All three are modeled on the necessity of a stable system (as engineers study in thermodynamics!), the condition that finite variables exist, and the condition that only a finite number of consequences are possible (my interests in structuralism end here). In that case,
- Does the macropolitical structure transform into a metastructure when it comes to assessing the symbolism of a micropolitical reality?
- What does that entail?
- If it doesn't, then is the new mediator subjectivism?
- In that case, is the purpose of subjectivist knowledge to reconcile the self-reflexive identity against the backdrop of a macropolitical entity?
- Or, is subjective knowledge purely a micropolitical issue?
This, I think, leads to Carnap's question: can ontological questions have objective answers? Here, as an engineer, I'm reminded of metaphysical naturalism as well.
Finally, the question I find most pressing is whether or not it is necessary for us to adopt a framework - a structuralist tool - in the context of which we view this world. For example, consider the statement "The sun rises in the east after it has set in the west." This means that an eastern sunrise follows a western sunset, ergo there's east and west and there's a sun. All these answers are within the framework of the statement. However, a question like "Is there really a sun?" prompts us to question the validity of the framework itself, thereby asking us to step outside and evaluate it. Now, how do we evaluate it?
That's about it. Sorry again about the length of this mail. I know there's a good chance of me having come off as a bore.
And I've queued a whole bunch of articles by Habermas and Butler. Thanks for the tip!
Good night and regards,
Vasu
Retort from Radha
great issues to think about. i don'r get the amor fati connection which to me has to do with the eternal return. do read my history, the human, and the world between for more on temporality and historicity.
I think you can arrive at bounded rationality through various ways. computational linguistics is clearly one path. i am no big fan of chomsky. i am a fan of chomsky the activist, not the epistemologist. i am not sure of the connection you are making between universal grammar and b rationality.
Is microplitical to macropliotical simiar to what subjectivism is to objectivity is an interesting trajectory. Feminists, Foucaultians, and Marxists have much to contribute here.
BTW, i have a bunch opf published stuff in these and related areas, should you at any point read any of it, do feel free to comment, critique. cheers,
Radha
An e-mail conversation between R Radhakrishnan and me
Mail from me
Dear sir,
I hope you're keeping well. I was fortunate enough to attend your lecture 'Tracking the simulacrum' at ACJ on the first day of August, 2011. Fantastic lecture, I haven't been intellectually stimulated like this in a while. For that, thank you very much.
I have an engineering background and consequently tend to contextualize everything I learn as a process, and if resources avail, as systems. On that note, with reference to your ideas on self-reflexivity (and perhaps denaturalization), would it be fair to say that the notions can be analogized to the characters in Edwin Abbott's book 'Flatland' (1884)? That the nature of self-reflexivity can be explained by the inability of the two-dimensional objects to understand the real nature of the three-dimensional sphere? Going another way, can it also be analogized to the sphere's ability to view Flatland in its entirety while the lines and shapes can't?
Perhaps just as an afterthought: can self-reflexivity as a macropolitical tool be applied to the Victorian society and its collapse in the face of growing and expanding communication systems? I ask this only because Flatland itself was said to make references to the male and female lifestyles during the Victorian era.
That's about it. I wish I'd asked these questions in class but I just assimilated your points enough to get this far. Hope you have good evening, sir.
Regards,
Vasudevan Mukunth
Reply from Radha
Dear Vasu (If I may, and please call me Radha),
Greetings, and thank you so much for your immensely generous appreciation of my lecture. so glad it worked for you. i had a great time as well.
You bring up important questions. not having read flatland, i can't be too specific in my response. but i do get the drift of your general questions and i agree with you. i particularly appreciate your "engineers's" stress on systems and structures and their relationship to the lifeworld of which they are a part, but not a "natural" part. the question of nature and what it means or should mean, descriptively as well as normatively, i crucial. do read habermas, foucault, and judith butler. also important to see how structures and systems partake both of the macro and the micropolitical, i would like to hear you say more on what self reflexivity means to you. i am thinking of herbert simon and boubded rationality.
Do stay in touch and let us keep talking, cheers, anmd with all good wishes,
radha
Reply from me
Hey Radha! (Feels awkward - and yeah, Vasu's fine)
I hope you're keeping well. Thanks for the prompt response, it alleviated a lot of doubts about my questions being stupid. And I must apologise about the length of this mail.
First off, bounded rationality: this concept I came across in another form in computational linguistics. In the late 19th century, Benjamin Whorf and Edward Sapir put forth their eponymous hypothesis that "the difference in the significance of languages is the difference in the significance of the perceptions of its speakers." In '57, Chomsky came up with universal grammar: all languages are accompanied by psychological nativism and a poverty of the stimulus. These rules struck at the heart of the empiricist position of language acquisition. So, by being born with preset capabilities, are we also beset by preset deficiencies that limit the scope of our successes? Here, we come to bounded rationalism as an immediate consequence of the existence of a universal grammar - and perhaps also to Nietzsche's 'Amor fati'. But this is a purely psychosocial argument.
Secondly, structuralism and rationalist theory: here, mathematics avails a solution I've been fond of in the past. John Nash's game theory. Simon's three steps to arrive at a decision are identification of alternatives, consequences of alternatives, and evaluation of relevance of consequences. All three are modeled on the necessity of a stable system (as engineers study in thermodynamics!), the condition that finite variables exist, and the condition that only a finite number of consequences are possible (my interests in structuralism end here). In that case,
This, I think, leads to Carnap's question: can ontological questions have objective answers? Here, as an engineer, I'm reminded of metaphysical naturalism as well.
Finally, the question I find most pressing is whether or not it is necessary for us to adopt a framework - a structuralist tool - in the context of which we view this world. For example, consider the statement "The sun rises in the east after it has set in the west." This means that an eastern sunrise follows a western sunset, ergo there's east and west and there's a sun. All these answers are within the framework of the statement. However, a question like "Is there really a sun?" prompts us to question the validity of the framework itself, thereby asking us to step outside and evaluate it. Now, how do we evaluate it?
That's about it. Sorry again about the length of this mail. I know there's a good chance of me having come off as a bore.
And I've queued a whole bunch of articles by Habermas and Butler. Thanks for the tip!
Good night and regards,
Vasu
Retort from Radha
great issues to think about. i don'r get the amor fati connection which to me has to do with the eternal return. do read my history, the human, and the world between for more on temporality and historicity.
I think you can arrive at bounded rationality through various ways. computational linguistics is clearly one path. i am no big fan of chomsky. i am a fan of chomsky the activist, not the epistemologist. i am not sure of the connection you are making between universal grammar and b rationality.
Is microplitical to macropliotical simiar to what subjectivism is to objectivity is an interesting trajectory. Feminists, Foucaultians, and Marxists have much to contribute here.
BTW, i have a bunch opf published stuff in these and related areas, should you at any point read any of it, do feel free to comment, critique. cheers,
Radha
Dear sir,
I hope you're keeping well. I was fortunate enough to attend your lecture 'Tracking the simulacrum' at ACJ on the first day of August, 2011. Fantastic lecture, I haven't been intellectually stimulated like this in a while. For that, thank you very much.
I have an engineering background and consequently tend to contextualize everything I learn as a process, and if resources avail, as systems. On that note, with reference to your ideas on self-reflexivity (and perhaps denaturalization), would it be fair to say that the notions can be analogized to the characters in Edwin Abbott's book 'Flatland' (1884)? That the nature of self-reflexivity can be explained by the inability of the two-dimensional objects to understand the real nature of the three-dimensional sphere? Going another way, can it also be analogized to the sphere's ability to view Flatland in its entirety while the lines and shapes can't?
Perhaps just as an afterthought: can self-reflexivity as a macropolitical tool be applied to the Victorian society and its collapse in the face of growing and expanding communication systems? I ask this only because Flatland itself was said to make references to the male and female lifestyles during the Victorian era.
That's about it. I wish I'd asked these questions in class but I just assimilated your points enough to get this far. Hope you have good evening, sir.
Regards,
Vasudevan Mukunth
Reply from Radha
Dear Vasu (If I may, and please call me Radha),
Greetings, and thank you so much for your immensely generous appreciation of my lecture. so glad it worked for you. i had a great time as well.
You bring up important questions. not having read flatland, i can't be too specific in my response. but i do get the drift of your general questions and i agree with you. i particularly appreciate your "engineers's" stress on systems and structures and their relationship to the lifeworld of which they are a part, but not a "natural" part. the question of nature and what it means or should mean, descriptively as well as normatively, i crucial. do read habermas, foucault, and judith butler. also important to see how structures and systems partake both of the macro and the micropolitical, i would like to hear you say more on what self reflexivity means to you. i am thinking of herbert simon and boubded rationality.
Do stay in touch and let us keep talking, cheers, anmd with all good wishes,
radha
Reply from me
Hey Radha! (Feels awkward - and yeah, Vasu's fine)
I hope you're keeping well. Thanks for the prompt response, it alleviated a lot of doubts about my questions being stupid. And I must apologise about the length of this mail.
First off, bounded rationality: this concept I came across in another form in computational linguistics. In the late 19th century, Benjamin Whorf and Edward Sapir put forth their eponymous hypothesis that "the difference in the significance of languages is the difference in the significance of the perceptions of its speakers." In '57, Chomsky came up with universal grammar: all languages are accompanied by psychological nativism and a poverty of the stimulus. These rules struck at the heart of the empiricist position of language acquisition. So, by being born with preset capabilities, are we also beset by preset deficiencies that limit the scope of our successes? Here, we come to bounded rationalism as an immediate consequence of the existence of a universal grammar - and perhaps also to Nietzsche's 'Amor fati'. But this is a purely psychosocial argument.
Secondly, structuralism and rationalist theory: here, mathematics avails a solution I've been fond of in the past. John Nash's game theory. Simon's three steps to arrive at a decision are identification of alternatives, consequences of alternatives, and evaluation of relevance of consequences. All three are modeled on the necessity of a stable system (as engineers study in thermodynamics!), the condition that finite variables exist, and the condition that only a finite number of consequences are possible (my interests in structuralism end here). In that case,
- Does the macropolitical structure transform into a metastructure when it comes to assessing the symbolism of a micropolitical reality?
- What does that entail?
- If it doesn't, then is the new mediator subjectivism?
- In that case, is the purpose of subjectivist knowledge to reconcile the self-reflexive identity against the backdrop of a macropolitical entity?
- Or, is subjective knowledge purely a micropolitical issue?
This, I think, leads to Carnap's question: can ontological questions have objective answers? Here, as an engineer, I'm reminded of metaphysical naturalism as well.
Finally, the question I find most pressing is whether or not it is necessary for us to adopt a framework - a structuralist tool - in the context of which we view this world. For example, consider the statement "The sun rises in the east after it has set in the west." This means that an eastern sunrise follows a western sunset, ergo there's east and west and there's a sun. All these answers are within the framework of the statement. However, a question like "Is there really a sun?" prompts us to question the validity of the framework itself, thereby asking us to step outside and evaluate it. Now, how do we evaluate it?
That's about it. Sorry again about the length of this mail. I know there's a good chance of me having come off as a bore.
And I've queued a whole bunch of articles by Habermas and Butler. Thanks for the tip!
Good night and regards,
Vasu
Retort from Radha
great issues to think about. i don'r get the amor fati connection which to me has to do with the eternal return. do read my history, the human, and the world between for more on temporality and historicity.
I think you can arrive at bounded rationality through various ways. computational linguistics is clearly one path. i am no big fan of chomsky. i am a fan of chomsky the activist, not the epistemologist. i am not sure of the connection you are making between universal grammar and b rationality.
Is microplitical to macropliotical simiar to what subjectivism is to objectivity is an interesting trajectory. Feminists, Foucaultians, and Marxists have much to contribute here.
BTW, i have a bunch opf published stuff in these and related areas, should you at any point read any of it, do feel free to comment, critique. cheers,
Radha
Wednesday, 20 July 2011
Why journalism?
At what point does being a good journalist include the act of being a good writer as well? Because that's all I have. Two weeks into journalism school and I've been intimidated on a daily basis by the sheer number of people who seem to be better informed and more outspoken than I am. Agreed, I'm not outspoken at all, but I'm always afraid that when I do say something, I'm going to come off stupid. Before I came here, I was of the assumption that I was one of the most erudite and smart people around - at least, my friends seem to suggest so. I thought that I'd be able to sail through these courses with only the regular addition of physical work to my already existing "intellectual capabilities". Now, all that I'm hoping for is to make it out of this place without feeling like a moron and letting the intellect marinate in its new-found stellar company.
For quite some time now, I've been really interested in letting my scientific and journalistic interests converge, and that would mean taking a few leaves out of the notebooks of Feynman and Sagan, perhaps even Dawkins - but I hate Dawkins. Four years' engineering education can leave even the most repressive engineering student with a scientific curiosity and an addiction to the scientific method. Before 2006, I didn't care for the future of semiconductor technology. Now, in 2011, it's the point from which I branch out to get my daily dose of tech. news. And when it comes to tech. news, there's two ways of looking at it.
The first would essentially be a study of where technology is "taking" us, a techno-social approach that focuses on technology's interaction with people and its ability to define our lifestyles. Such a focus would (or should?) also include a coverage of the policy perspectives that the government must assume in order to let tech. develop, in order for tech. to find its rightful place in the society, and in order for tech. to assist with governance.
The second way to look at tech. news would be to ensure that any developments find their way into all corners of the geeksphere, i.e., to cater solely to the community that works closely with technology on a daily basis. Ars Technica and Mashable are good examples of this sort of writing, where the focus is not on the people itself as it is on the products of technology that cater to the people.
I'm interested in a combination of the two, and that doesn't mean pursuing both simultaneously. In simple words, it's being a geek with a sense of social responsibility - rather, a deliberated sense of social responsibility (I'm not saying geeks aren't social responsible - I'm saying the moniker "geek" does not imply an obligation to be socially responsible). For example, consider the following few posts I read recently on AT.
The first one involves the misuse of tech. to antagonize public institutions. The second one is pure tech. but with a significant amount of social repercussions, albeit long-winded repercussions. The third article is all tech. with no pretensions of social responsibility. I'm not interested in the first one. I'm definitely not interested in the third one. The contents of the second article, I love! It's not because I consider ergonomics to be an awesome field of study - I do! - but because it's the closest any subject can come to to reflecting what I think technology's purpose is and what it's responsibilities are.
Yes, social media is a product of technology, too (wouldn't have happened without transistors and Moore's law), but even though it has acquired the ability to effect changes in the public sphere, it's capricious without the human user. High-energy physics, power plant design and cellular automatons, on the other hand, are purely technical assemblages that proffer advantages of their deployment that overwhelm the disadvantages irrespective of human intervention.
That's the idea I want to take up, handle, and be the force behind the dissemination of. That's the sort of science I want to keep clean and understandable. That's the sort of pursuit I want to encourage by highlighting as well as exposing. Yes, there's a long way to go, but I'll find one that fits my desires best. Yes, I could also do with some practical experience to acclimatize myself with the fundamental sensitivities of the subject, but such a consideration is purely logistical, perhaps even purely infrastructural. At the end of the day, I believe I should be able to deconstruct the news, access an audience, retain it, influence attitudes, and do it repeatedly, scalably. That's where I'm heading.
Why journalism? That's why.
For quite some time now, I've been really interested in letting my scientific and journalistic interests converge, and that would mean taking a few leaves out of the notebooks of Feynman and Sagan, perhaps even Dawkins - but I hate Dawkins. Four years' engineering education can leave even the most repressive engineering student with a scientific curiosity and an addiction to the scientific method. Before 2006, I didn't care for the future of semiconductor technology. Now, in 2011, it's the point from which I branch out to get my daily dose of tech. news. And when it comes to tech. news, there's two ways of looking at it.
The first would essentially be a study of where technology is "taking" us, a techno-social approach that focuses on technology's interaction with people and its ability to define our lifestyles. Such a focus would (or should?) also include a coverage of the policy perspectives that the government must assume in order to let tech. develop, in order for tech. to find its rightful place in the society, and in order for tech. to assist with governance.
The second way to look at tech. news would be to ensure that any developments find their way into all corners of the geeksphere, i.e., to cater solely to the community that works closely with technology on a daily basis. Ars Technica and Mashable are good examples of this sort of writing, where the focus is not on the people itself as it is on the products of technology that cater to the people.
I'm interested in a combination of the two, and that doesn't mean pursuing both simultaneously. In simple words, it's being a geek with a sense of social responsibility - rather, a deliberated sense of social responsibility (I'm not saying geeks aren't social responsible - I'm saying the moniker "geek" does not imply an obligation to be socially responsible). For example, consider the following few posts I read recently on AT.
- FBI arrests 16 linked with Anonymous' cyberattacks
- A new fuel that reversibly stores solar energy
- Developer gets Chrome OS running on Macbook Air
The first one involves the misuse of tech. to antagonize public institutions. The second one is pure tech. but with a significant amount of social repercussions, albeit long-winded repercussions. The third article is all tech. with no pretensions of social responsibility. I'm not interested in the first one. I'm definitely not interested in the third one. The contents of the second article, I love! It's not because I consider ergonomics to be an awesome field of study - I do! - but because it's the closest any subject can come to to reflecting what I think technology's purpose is and what it's responsibilities are.
Yes, social media is a product of technology, too (wouldn't have happened without transistors and Moore's law), but even though it has acquired the ability to effect changes in the public sphere, it's capricious without the human user. High-energy physics, power plant design and cellular automatons, on the other hand, are purely technical assemblages that proffer advantages of their deployment that overwhelm the disadvantages irrespective of human intervention.
That's the idea I want to take up, handle, and be the force behind the dissemination of. That's the sort of science I want to keep clean and understandable. That's the sort of pursuit I want to encourage by highlighting as well as exposing. Yes, there's a long way to go, but I'll find one that fits my desires best. Yes, I could also do with some practical experience to acclimatize myself with the fundamental sensitivities of the subject, but such a consideration is purely logistical, perhaps even purely infrastructural. At the end of the day, I believe I should be able to deconstruct the news, access an audience, retain it, influence attitudes, and do it repeatedly, scalably. That's where I'm heading.
Why journalism? That's why.
Why journalism?
At what point does being a good journalist include the act of being a good writer as well? Because that's all I have. Two weeks into journalism school and I've been intimidated on a daily basis by the sheer number of people who seem to be better informed and more outspoken than I am. Agreed, I'm not outspoken at all, but I'm always afraid that when I do say something, I'm going to come off stupid. Before I came here, I was of the assumption that I was one of the most erudite and smart people around - at least, my friends seem to suggest so. I thought that I'd be able to sail through these courses with only the regular addition of physical work to my already existing "intellectual capabilities". Now, all that I'm hoping for is to make it out of this place without feeling like a moron and letting the intellect marinate in its new-found stellar company.
For quite some time now, I've been really interested in letting my scientific and journalistic interests converge, and that would mean taking a few leaves out of the notebooks of Feynman and Sagan, perhaps even Dawkins - but I hate Dawkins. Four years' engineering education can leave even the most repressive engineering student with a scientific curiosity and an addiction to the scientific method. Before 2006, I didn't care for the future of semiconductor technology. Now, in 2011, it's the point from which I branch out to get my daily dose of tech. news. And when it comes to tech. news, there's two ways of looking at it.
The first would essentially be a study of where technology is "taking" us, a techno-social approach that focuses on technology's interaction with people and its ability to define our lifestyles. Such a focus would (or should?) also include a coverage of the policy perspectives that the government must assume in order to let tech. develop, in order for tech. to find its rightful place in the society, and in order for tech. to assist with governance.
The second way to look at tech. news would be to ensure that any developments find their way into all corners of the geeksphere, i.e., to cater solely to the community that works closely with technology on a daily basis. Ars Technica and Mashable are good examples of this sort of writing, where the focus is not on the people itself as it is on the products of technology that cater to the people.
I'm interested in a combination of the two, and that doesn't mean pursuing both simultaneously. In simple words, it's being a geek with a sense of social responsibility - rather, a deliberated sense of social responsibility (I'm not saying geeks aren't social responsible - I'm saying the moniker "geek" does not imply an obligation to be socially responsible). For example, consider the following few posts I read recently on AT.
The first one involves the misuse of tech. to antagonize public institutions. The second one is pure tech. but with a significant amount of social repercussions, albeit long-winded repercussions. The third article is all tech. with no pretensions of social responsibility. I'm not interested in the first one. I'm definitely not interested in the third one. The contents of the second article, I love! It's not because I consider ergonomics to be an awesome field of study - I do! - but because it's the closest any subject can come to to reflecting what I think technology's purpose is and what it's responsibilities are.
Yes, social media is a product of technology, too (wouldn't have happened without transistors and Moore's law), but even though it has acquired the ability to effect changes in the public sphere, it's capricious without the human user. High-energy physics, power plant design and cellular automatons, on the other hand, are purely technical assemblages that proffer advantages of their deployment that overwhelm the disadvantages irrespective of human intervention.
That's the idea I want to take up, handle, and be the force behind the dissemination of. That's the sort of science I want to keep clean and understandable. That's the sort of pursuit I want to encourage by highlighting as well as exposing. Yes, there's a long way to go, but I'll find one that fits my desires best. Yes, I could also do with some practical experience to acclimatize myself with the fundamental sensitivities of the subject, but such a consideration is purely logistical, perhaps even purely infrastructural. At the end of the day, I believe I should be able to deconstruct the news, access an audience, retain it, influence attitudes, and do it repeatedly, scalably. That's where I'm heading.
Why journalism? That's why.
For quite some time now, I've been really interested in letting my scientific and journalistic interests converge, and that would mean taking a few leaves out of the notebooks of Feynman and Sagan, perhaps even Dawkins - but I hate Dawkins. Four years' engineering education can leave even the most repressive engineering student with a scientific curiosity and an addiction to the scientific method. Before 2006, I didn't care for the future of semiconductor technology. Now, in 2011, it's the point from which I branch out to get my daily dose of tech. news. And when it comes to tech. news, there's two ways of looking at it.
The first would essentially be a study of where technology is "taking" us, a techno-social approach that focuses on technology's interaction with people and its ability to define our lifestyles. Such a focus would (or should?) also include a coverage of the policy perspectives that the government must assume in order to let tech. develop, in order for tech. to find its rightful place in the society, and in order for tech. to assist with governance.
The second way to look at tech. news would be to ensure that any developments find their way into all corners of the geeksphere, i.e., to cater solely to the community that works closely with technology on a daily basis. Ars Technica and Mashable are good examples of this sort of writing, where the focus is not on the people itself as it is on the products of technology that cater to the people.
I'm interested in a combination of the two, and that doesn't mean pursuing both simultaneously. In simple words, it's being a geek with a sense of social responsibility - rather, a deliberated sense of social responsibility (I'm not saying geeks aren't social responsible - I'm saying the moniker "geek" does not imply an obligation to be socially responsible). For example, consider the following few posts I read recently on AT.
- FBI arrests 16 linked with Anonymous' cyberattacks
- A new fuel that reversibly stores solar energy
- Developer gets Chrome OS running on Macbook Air
The first one involves the misuse of tech. to antagonize public institutions. The second one is pure tech. but with a significant amount of social repercussions, albeit long-winded repercussions. The third article is all tech. with no pretensions of social responsibility. I'm not interested in the first one. I'm definitely not interested in the third one. The contents of the second article, I love! It's not because I consider ergonomics to be an awesome field of study - I do! - but because it's the closest any subject can come to to reflecting what I think technology's purpose is and what it's responsibilities are.
Yes, social media is a product of technology, too (wouldn't have happened without transistors and Moore's law), but even though it has acquired the ability to effect changes in the public sphere, it's capricious without the human user. High-energy physics, power plant design and cellular automatons, on the other hand, are purely technical assemblages that proffer advantages of their deployment that overwhelm the disadvantages irrespective of human intervention.
That's the idea I want to take up, handle, and be the force behind the dissemination of. That's the sort of science I want to keep clean and understandable. That's the sort of pursuit I want to encourage by highlighting as well as exposing. Yes, there's a long way to go, but I'll find one that fits my desires best. Yes, I could also do with some practical experience to acclimatize myself with the fundamental sensitivities of the subject, but such a consideration is purely logistical, perhaps even purely infrastructural. At the end of the day, I believe I should be able to deconstruct the news, access an audience, retain it, influence attitudes, and do it repeatedly, scalably. That's where I'm heading.
Why journalism? That's why.
Sunday, 10 July 2011
I defaulted on my blog pact (with myself), got into a some trouble with a friend, singed a toe severely and pulled a muscle in the pelvic area, but the difference between doing what you have to do and doing what you like to do is the lack of any hesitation to do all of this every evening, wake up exhausted in the morning, and be excited about going to class.
I defaulted on my blog pact (with myself), got into a some trouble with a friend, singed a toe severely and pulled a muscle in the pelvic area, but the difference between doing what you have to do and doing what you like to do is the lack of any hesitation to do all of this every evening, wake up exhausted in the morning, and be excited about going to class.
Saturday, 4 June 2011
The victorious mistaking
Nobody will ever let you know when you ask the reasons why...
They just tell you that you're on your own till your head all full of lies!
- Sabbath Bloody Sabbath
Hindsight is a powerful tool when it comes to adjudicating one's personal worth. When I look back now, standing smack in the middle of 2011, I can finally see the last decade for what it's really been: living out each moment since 2001 has been a tiring task, speckled generously with situations that have driven me to want to kill myself. However, the vision from 2011 is breathtaking. I feel like a long river that has wound its course through a whole mountain range and now, taking a moment of pause, sees the Grand Canyon in its erosive wake.
My school years leading up to graduation from high school were all bland: the person they birthed at the end of 2006 was not even half-formed and had no ambitions that he was willing to really fight for (mistake #1). Then, the next few months in the same year crystallized that half-formed being into an adult who, without tools, was expected to fight. Looking back at that moment through these hindsight-lenses, I see a lot of things I now regret doing (or not doing).
Then came college. If you've read Viktor E. Frankl's 'Man's Search for Meaning', you'll known what I mean when I say college is where the indecisive soul's journey ends and a period of enjoyable decision-making begins, a period within which all the old socks are not discarded but simple washed, repainted and worn - like food porn (which is not what you think it is)! It's a life from which we emerge reoriented and nothing else.
During all those hours I spent in my various rooms (318-B, C-226 and B-530) writing and editing and proofreading and reading, I've received so much praise as well as criticism for different things. If I hadn't shown up in class, the first thing I was told was I spent too much time in my room doing counterproductive stuff. If I did show up in class (as analogous to scoring high in a test, etc.), I was told I was seeing the errors in my ways too late. I've since realized people say all kinds of things.
Sure, it sounds hollow to you, but you'll someday get to the point in life when you seem within reach of your dreams and, right then, you'll realize all that's mattered till then is the yardstick by which you measured yourself. It stands the test for all kinds of things. Don't tell me you're not laughing at your past-you who refused to carry an umbrella to school just because you thought it was a measure of your "coolness". Peer pressure is one thing, but like Eleanor Roosevelt says, "no one can make you feel inferior without your consent."
Life is a lesson...
You learn it when you're through.
- Take A Look Around
If you say so, but there's a supple silver lining to that saying. Not all of life's lessons are applicable all the time, so I divided my life into certain periods: learning, dreaming, preparing, living, and thinking. When I'm "dreaming", I find the lessons from the period of "learning" applicable; when I'm "preparing", I find the lessons form the period of "dreaming" applicable; so forth. Another thing is that I've been a considerably different person for the first three phases (I'd like to think I'm nearing the beginning of "living"). While any other person would find that unsettling, I don't.
What I choose to take from that observation is that, in each period, I've committed enough mistakes to change myself by that much. I don't mind mistakes - I like committing them; the hatred of them sinks in when I've been deliberate somewhere in the process. The thrill of the uphill charge after each mistake is unmistakable, and the rewarding victory is that and that alone. Even if I don't clear the interview I have on Monday to join a niche journalism institute in Madras, I'm going to move on so fast my parents are going to think my moral compass is broken.
Nothing is going to stop me from writing. Nothing is going to stop me from thinking. I'm still going to annoy my friends in argument, I'm still going to bring up numbers that conjure frowns on local MLAs, I'm still going to possess and preserve the ambition in me to, one day, be called one of the greatest writers of this century. The yardstick I measure myself with has been, is and will always be the man I was yesterday. That way, I know I'm only going up.
Thought is free.
- The Tempest; Act III, scene 2
The victorious mistaking
Nobody will ever let you know when you ask the reasons why...
They just tell you that you're on your own till your head all full of lies!
- Sabbath Bloody Sabbath
Hindsight is a powerful tool when it comes to adjudicating one's personal worth. When I look back now, standing smack in the middle of 2011, I can finally see the last decade for what it's really been: living out each moment since 2001 has been a tiring task, speckled generously with situations that have driven me to want to kill myself. However, the vision from 2011 is breathtaking. I feel like a long river that has wound its course through a whole mountain range and now, taking a moment of pause, sees the Grand Canyon in its erosive wake.
My school years leading up to graduation from high school were all bland: the person they birthed at the end of 2006 was not even half-formed and had no ambitions that he was willing to really fight for (mistake #1). Then, the next few months in the same year crystallized that half-formed being into an adult who, without tools, was expected to fight. Looking back at that moment through these hindsight-lenses, I see a lot of things I now regret doing (or not doing).
Then came college. If you've read Viktor E. Frankl's 'Man's Search for Meaning', you'll known what I mean when I say college is where the indecisive soul's journey ends and a period of enjoyable decision-making begins, a period within which all the old socks are not discarded but simple washed, repainted and worn - like food porn (which is not what you think it is)! It's a life from which we emerge reoriented and nothing else.
During all those hours I spent in my various rooms (318-B, C-226 and B-530) writing and editing and proofreading and reading, I've received so much praise as well as criticism for different things. If I hadn't shown up in class, the first thing I was told was I spent too much time in my room doing counterproductive stuff. If I did show up in class (as analogous to scoring high in a test, etc.), I was told I was seeing the errors in my ways too late. I've since realized people say all kinds of things.
Sure, it sounds hollow to you, but you'll someday get to the point in life when you seem within reach of your dreams and, right then, you'll realize all that's mattered till then is the yardstick by which you measured yourself. It stands the test for all kinds of things. Don't tell me you're not laughing at your past-you who refused to carry an umbrella to school just because you thought it was a measure of your "coolness". Peer pressure is one thing, but like Eleanor Roosevelt says, "no one can make you feel inferior without your consent."
Life is a lesson...
You learn it when you're through.
- Take A Look Around
If you say so, but there's a supple silver lining to that saying. Not all of life's lessons are applicable all the time, so I divided my life into certain periods: learning, dreaming, preparing, living, and thinking. When I'm "dreaming", I find the lessons from the period of "learning" applicable; when I'm "preparing", I find the lessons form the period of "dreaming" applicable; so forth. Another thing is that I've been a considerably different person for the first three phases (I'd like to think I'm nearing the beginning of "living"). While any other person would find that unsettling, I don't.
What I choose to take from that observation is that, in each period, I've committed enough mistakes to change myself by that much. I don't mind mistakes - I like committing them; the hatred of them sinks in when I've been deliberate somewhere in the process. The thrill of the uphill charge after each mistake is unmistakable, and the rewarding victory is that and that alone. Even if I don't clear the interview I have on Monday to join a niche journalism institute in Madras, I'm going to move on so fast my parents are going to think my moral compass is broken.
Nothing is going to stop me from writing. Nothing is going to stop me from thinking. I'm still going to annoy my friends in argument, I'm still going to bring up numbers that conjure frowns on local MLAs, I'm still going to possess and preserve the ambition in me to, one day, be called one of the greatest writers of this century. The yardstick I measure myself with has been, is and will always be the man I was yesterday. That way, I know I'm only going up.
Thought is free.
- The Tempest; Act III, scene 2
Tuesday, 17 May 2011
The handicap of the FI
Something is wrong with the fog index calculation formula.
FI = 0.4*((WPS) + 100*(NC/N))
(FI, fog index; WPS, words per sentence; NC, no. of complex words; N, total no. of words)
It denotes the number of years of formal English education (FEE) required to understand a particular text. Readers' Digest articles have an FI of 12 while texts that require near-universal understanding have an FI of 8 (to give you a picture).
How is it that a person with only 16 years of FEE as I can write with an FI reaching 60? In other words, how does 16 years of FEE for a writer seem sufficient to necessitate 60 years of FEE for a reader?
The conclusion seems easy if the parameter of "formal English education" is omitted from the consideration because, if excluded, the quality of an academic background could be held as a nullifier.
The formula seems to have only a strong empirical backing, but nothing in the way of dimensional analysis—in a metaphysical sense—seems to indicate that the proffered combination of variables is equitable to #FEE.
FI = 0.4*((WPS) + 100*(NC/N))
(FI, fog index; WPS, words per sentence; NC, no. of complex words; N, total no. of words)
It denotes the number of years of formal English education (FEE) required to understand a particular text. Readers' Digest articles have an FI of 12 while texts that require near-universal understanding have an FI of 8 (to give you a picture).
How is it that a person with only 16 years of FEE as I can write with an FI reaching 60? In other words, how does 16 years of FEE for a writer seem sufficient to necessitate 60 years of FEE for a reader?
The conclusion seems easy if the parameter of "formal English education" is omitted from the consideration because, if excluded, the quality of an academic background could be held as a nullifier.
The formula seems to have only a strong empirical backing, but nothing in the way of dimensional analysis—in a metaphysical sense—seems to indicate that the proffered combination of variables is equitable to #FEE.
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