RaviKalyani: 2008

Sunday, December 28, 2008

Pirates

A ship of India
Is hijacked by pirates
In the ocean of India

The pirates are
Highly qualified
And most eligible
Since they have lost
Vision in both eyes
And wear dark I caps
On both the eyes
But captan the ship
Of herd of sheep
With effortless ease

Pirates are well served
By the sailors and cabin crew
Armed with red rope
To tie & control sheep
And bundle the loot
Are meticulously screened
The Smartest of the lot
So they say
Well trained to prefix
'I' and suffix 'Yes'
To the commands
Of their masters
As in IAS, IPS & IRS

The Navy & Coast Gaurd
Failed to capture
The hijacked Leader
Ship since it sank
In the land of India

------------------

Ravi
8th Dec 2008

Similarity

Members of Blattidae family
Travel to offices
Like IHS, i2 and Maxim
Every morning
Sleepy and un-noticed
Return home every evening
Running around shouting
'Naanu Hechhu Howdu'
'Naanoo Saha'
'Ati Hechhu'
Scaring the brave
And the beauties
Those ugly creatures
Survive & thrive
In their dirty world
Called Banashankari bus.

-----------------------------

Ravi
25 Sept, 2008

Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Tirukana Kanasu

ತಿರುಕನೋರ್ವ ಊರಿನಲ್ಲಿ
ಮುರುಕು ಕಂಪ್ನಿ ಒಂದರಲ್ಲಿ
ಹೊತ್ತು ಕಳೆಯಲೆಂದು
ಬಹಳವರುಷ ಕೊಳೆಯುತಿದ್ದನು

ಹೇಳುವವರು ಯಾರೂ ಇಲ್ಲ
ಕೇಳುವವರು ಮೊದಲೆ ಇಲ್ಲ
ಚಿಲ್ರೆ ಕಾಸ ಮೇಲೆ ಆಸೆ
ಬೆಂಚ ಮೇಲೆ ಕುಳಿತು ಕುಣಿದು
ಹಾಗು ಹೀಗು ಕಾಲವನ್ನು
ತಳ್ಳುತಿದ್ದನು

ಸಾಹುಕಾರನೊಬ್ಬ ಬಂದ
ಮುರುಕು ಕಂಪ್ನಿ ತಾ ಎಂದ
ನಿನ್ನ ನುಂಗಿ ನೀರು ಕುಡಿದು
ದೊಡ್ಡದಾಗಿ ಬೆಳೆವೆ ಎಂದ

ತಿರುಕನಲ್ಲಿ ಆಸೆ ಹುಟ್ಟಿ
ಕಂತೆ ಕಂತೆ ನೋಟು ಎಣಿಪ
ಭಾಗ್ಯ ತನ್ನದಾಯಿತೆಂದು
ಹಿಗ್ಗಿ ಹೀರೆಕಾಯಿಯಾದ
ತನ್ನ ಕೆಲಸ ಹೋಗಲೆಂದು
ದೇವರಲ್ಲಿ, ದಿಂಡರಲ್ಲಿ
ಹೇಳಿಕೊಂಡನು

ಸಾಲ ಹುಟ್ಟಲಿಲ್ಲ ಎಂದು
ಸಾಹುಕಾರ ಕೈಯ ತೊಳೆದ
ನೋಟಗಂಟು ಕೈಗೆ ಸಿಗದೆ
ಅಡಗಿಕೊಳಲು ಕನ್ನಡಿ ಒಳಗೆ
ಸಿಟ್ಟಿನಿಂದ ಎದ್ದು ಒದ್ದ
ಎದುರು ಕುಂತ ಮಾನೀಟರನು
ಬೆಂಚ ಮೇಲೆ ಮಲಗಿ ಕನಸ
ಕಾಣುತಿದ್ದ ತಿರುಕನು

----------------------------
Ravi
8th Dec, 2008

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Spirit

Hey spirit-u-all knowing omnicient
Can you be known as is or can not be
Are you the Bramha or a Ghost
Are you the Boggart
Or the unknowable unknown

Perhaps you are imprisoned
In a bottle of glass
To liberate the consumers
Liberating you
Kicking them to a high
Onto another world where
There is no inhibition
The older you get, the more
Positively you are sought

Or, may be, you are
Waiting in a bottle
To serve the wounded
By dressing the wounds
And cleaning the tools
That cut, remove & join
But positively healing

Are you a product of
Hallucinating mind or
Human weakness ?
Are you the spirit
behind this work ?

Ravi
Aug 25, 2008

Monday, November 10, 2008

When Pain Remains

http://www.jeromegroopman.com/articles/when-pain-remains.html

On R.S.D. , neurology & pain.

I think that this is somewhat somewhat similar to 'The Itch'.

What's Normal?

http://www.jeromegroopman.com/articles/whats-normal.html

The difficulty of diagnosing bipolar disorder in children.

Jerome Groopman

Monday, September 22, 2008

THE FOURTH QUADRANT

THE FOURTH QUADRANT: A MAP OF THE LIMITS OF STATISTICS
By Nassim Nicholas Taleb

http://edge.org/3rd_culture/taleb08/taleb08_index.html

Statistical and applied probabilistic knowledge is the core of knowledge; statistics is what tells you if something is true, false, or merely anecdotal; it is the "logic of science"; it is the instrument of risk-taking; it is the applied tools of epistemology; you can't be a modern intellectual and not think probabilistically—but... let's not be suckers. The problem is much more complicated than it seems to the casual, mechanistic user who picked it up in graduate school. Statistics can fool you. In fact it is fooling your government right now. It can even bankrupt the system (let's face it: use of probabilistic methods for the estimation of risks did just blow up the banking system).

Thursday, August 21, 2008

Medical Dispatch

Superbugs
The new generation of resistant infections is almost impossible to treat.
by Jerome Groopman
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/08/11/080811fa_fact_groopman

Monday, August 4, 2008

The Itch

Is perception inference ?

Annals of Medicine
The Itch
Its mysterious power may be a clue to a new theory about brains and bodies.
by Atul Gawande
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/06/30/080630fa_fact_gawande?printable=true

On Back Pain

The Pain Perplex [Abstract]
Medical Dispatch
Atul Gawande
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/1998/09/21/1998_09_21_086_TNY_LIBRY_000016386

Annals of Medicine
A Knife in the Back
Is surgery the best approach to chronic back pain?
by Jerome Groopman
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2002/04/08/020408fa_FACT

Thursday, June 19, 2008

Human Spirituality

It is accessible to an average / ordinary person. It is not super-natural experience.
Here, no attempt is made to define Human Spirituality (HS) - but, only a sketch of certain characteristics / aspects of HS are noted. The following list is not exhaustive. Certain points may be overlapping.

Sense of wonder / astonishment / curiosity ... (say, when we take a look at the vast universe, multitude forms of life on this planet...)
Joy of discovery / invension / insight & understanding
Being imaginative / creative / striving for excellence.
Spirit of exploration / learning / adventure.
Artistic pleasures : music, painting, works of art, dance, drama etc.
Reading (elegant prose etc), writing (translation, letters etc); listening to a good talk / lecture.
Wit & humour.
Spirit of giving. Feeling that I am helpful for a few people.
Commitment to relationships.
Cooperative spirit : team work for a good cause. Solidarity with fellow human beings.
Sportive spirit . Spirit of tolerance; forgiving; admiring others' achievements.
Empathising with those suffering from infirmities.
Feelings of sorrow - for the loss of someone dear to us.
Romantic experience.
Conciousness of the past, present & future (we stand on the shoulders of past generations)
Spirit of humility.

The non-human spiritual things (downside) may have some uses... Probably, survival value, self defense etc.

The brain processes underlying these emotions / feelings / thoughts / ideas / experiences may not, by themselves, distinguish the spiritual from non-spiritual. The above categories of spiritual & non-spiritual may be personal, social constructs & are arbitrary.

Those listed above as spiritual enhance / extend our sense of selfhoood.

There is no doubt that features of human spirituality are also present in the lives of believers (i.e., those who draw their sustenance / inspiration from faith in god or some other supernatural source). However, only contemplation / meditation on god or experience of god (in some form) is accepted as 'spiritual' by them; That is their understanding of spirituality. For believers, the rest of self enhancing experiences / activities are merely 'mundane' or non-spiritual.

Human spiritual experience / ideals are attainable / accessible to ordinary mortals (like me).

Source / Credit : Dr. Gurudutt.

17th May, 2008.

Thursday, June 12, 2008

Annals of Medicine

The Checklist
If something so simple can transform intensive care, what else can it do?
by Atul Gawande
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/12/10/071210fa_fact_gawande

Annals of Medicine
The Score
How childbirth went industrial.
by Atul Gawande
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/10/09/061009fa_fact

Annals of Medicine
The Bell Curve
What happens when patients find out how good their doctors really are?
by Atul Gawande
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2004/12/06/041206fa_fact

Crimson Tide
ANNALS OF MEDICINE about blushing
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2001/02/12/2001_02_12_050_TNY_LIBRY_000022696

Transcripts

Transcript of interviews with computer scientists. Interviewer is MSM, a historian of science & tech at Princeton.

http://www.princeton.edu/~hos/mike/transcripts/
http://www.princeton.edu/~hos/mike/transcripts/mcilroy.htm
http://www.princeton.edu/~hos/mike/transcripts/aho.htm
http://www.princeton.edu/~hos/mike/transcripts/kernighan.htm
http://www.princeton.edu/~hos/mike/transcripts/ritchie.htm
http://www.princeton.edu/~hos/mike/transcripts/thompson.htm

Thursday, June 5, 2008

A violinist's moving thank you

Remarkable...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7385174.stm

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

What is it like to be ...

What is it like to be a bat ?

A famous, influencial, landmark paper written by Thomas Nagel & published in The philosophical review (Oct 1974).

http://members.aol.com/NeoNoetics/Nagel_Bat.html

or

http://web2.comlab.ox.ac.uk/oucl/research/areas/ieg/e-library/sources/nagel_bat.pdf

This paper is NOT about bats. It is about the problem of mind/conciousness & its physical reduction. The problem is examined with foucs on subjective experience.

This paper interests me not because of the problem it is about - conciousness & physical reduction - but, its use of subjective experience in analysing the problem.

After reading the paper, it should be apparant how difficult it is to really understand others' experiences.

The moral instinct

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/13/magazine/13Psychology-t.html?pagewanted=all

Monday, April 21, 2008

Executive

Excerpt from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personality_disorder :

In 2005, psychologists Belinda Board and Katarina Fritzon at the University of Surrey, UK, interviewed and gave personality tests to high-level British executives and compared their profiles with those of criminal psychiatric patients at Broadmoor Hospital in the UK. They found that three out of eleven personality disorders were actually more common in managers than in the disturbed criminals:
histrionic personality disorder: including superficial charm, insincerity, egocentricity and manipulation
narcissistic personality disorder: including grandiosity, self-focused, lack of empathy for others, exploitativeness and independence.
obsessive-compulsive personality disorder: including perfectionism, excessive devotion to work, rigidity, stubbornness and dictatorial tendencies.

They described the business people as successful psychopaths and the criminals as unsuccessful psychopaths. [4]

According to leading leadership academic Manfred F.R. Kets de Vries, it seems almost inevitable these days that there will be some personality disorders in a senior management team.^[14]

Reference :
4. ^ Board, B.J. & Fritzon, Katarina, F. (2005). Disordered personalities at work. Psychology, Crime and Law, 11, 17-32

14. ^ Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries The Dark Side of Leadership - Business Strategy Review 14(3), Autumn Page 26 (2003).

Sunday, April 20, 2008

Science artices from New Yorker

Annals of Science
Numbers Guy
Are our brains wired for math?
by Jim Holt
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/03/03/080303fa_fact_holt

Annals of Science
Crash Course
Can a seventeen-mile-long collider unlock the universe?
by Elizabeth Kolbert
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/05/14/070514fa_fact_kolbert

Annals of Science
Darwin’s Surprise
Why are evolutionary biologists bringing back extinct deadly viruses?
by Michael Specter
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/12/03/071203fa_fact_specter

Thursday, April 17, 2008

From A Neurologist's Notebook

Perelman / Manifold Destiny

Annals of Mathematics
Manifold Destiny
A legendary problem and the battle over who solved it.
by Sylvia Nasar and David Gruber

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/08/28/060828fa_fact2

On wikipedia :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grigori_Perelman

Some excertps :

... Perelman has said that "I can’t say I’m outraged. Other people do worse. Of course, there are many mathematicians who are more or less honest. But almost all of them are conformists. They are more or less honest, but they tolerate those who are not honest."[3] He has also said that "It is not people who break ethical standards who are regarded as aliens. It is people like me who are isolated."[3]...

...He has said that "As long as I was not conspicuous, I had a choice. Either to make some ugly thing" (a fuss about the mathematics community's lack of integrity) "or, if I didn’t do this kind of thing, to be treated as a pet. Now, when I become a very conspicuous person, I cannot stay a pet and say nothing. That is why I had to quit.”...

On December 22, 2006, the journal Science recognized Perelman's proof of the Poincaré Conjecture as the scientific "Breakthrough of the Year," the first such recognition in the area of mathematics

Some good writings in new yorker

The Way We Age Now
Annals of Medicine
Medicine has increased the ranks of the elderly. Can it make old age any easier?
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/04/30/070430fa_fact_gawande

The Deepest Cut
Annals of Medicine
How can someone live with only half a brain?
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/07/03/060703fa_fact

Two Heads
On 2 philosophers of mind - husband and wife.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/02/12/070212fa_fact_macfarquhar

Mind Games
Annals of Economics
What neuroeconomics tells us about money and the brain
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/09/18/060918fa_fact

The Interpreter
Has a remote Amazonian tribe upended our understanding of language?
On linguistics. A counter example to the universal theory of Chomsky.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/04/16/070416fa_fact_colapinto

Enemy of the State
Letter from Beijing
The complicated life of an idealist.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/04/23/070423fa_fact_zha

Kremlin, Inc
Letter From Moscow
Why are Vladimir Putin's opponents dying?
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/01/29/070129fa_fact_specter

RaviKalyani