Science and society

Dr.Humphrey's quote in class today: 


In most countries' legal systems (actually he said US, but I think its safe to extrapolate to others too), you are innocent unless proven guilty.


In science however, you are guilty unless you can prove your innocence. 


What this means is, when you are discovering something unseen by others, inventing something not done before, there are so many unknown errors/deviations that can creep in, that unless you acknowledge their presence through quantification or take care of them in your design, you are doing bad science.


As an afterthought I wonder if there can really be anything called bad science. It can be science or it can be trash.  If its bad science, it wont be long before its proven its trash or its swept happily away under carpet and forgotten forever.

Morning Saaga!

Its one thing to be woken up by mechanical alarm clock sounds in the morning, and another to be woken up by your wife's apa-shruthi singing of the sa-ri-ga-mas at the top of her voice accompanied by constant 10 second even higher pitched corrections from the computer (thanks to skype and internet, her guru lives in the far away land of carnatic music :) )! 

With the time difference of 10 and half hours between India and our little apartment, the only feasible class timings so far have been worked out to be the golden time of 5:30 to 6:30 AM !! 

The thing is, when you wake up listening to a tune, you end  up humming it the entire day.... I wouldnt mind humming a good geetham... but sa-sa ri-ri ga-ga ma-ma pa-pa??!! 

And how come only sa-ri-ga-mas? Well she has some 'Janta'-attachment with the Janta-varasas... every time she comes to this lesson, something happens and the guru changes! i can only hope and pray she quickly gets past this stage and get into atleast good singing of geethas soon.

Any carnatic music teachers out there, please respond :)

Nenu "Adiga"na?!!

Aravind Adiga is a deranged man. He needs serious psychiatric help. Read... (actually dont read) his books to see what I mean. The fellow portrays people in such shades of black and white, with frothing evil... actually on an after thought... there are no characters with any shades of white.. the good people are losers... the murderers and perverts are characters shaped by circumstances... and these are the "hereos" from him??!

He portrays the country with such seething black.. he shows a virtual breakdown of a system and the timelines in the stories are as recent as the early 2000s... i really dont think its that bad... in fact, it cannot be that bad in the third worldest of the third world countries.... leave alone india... he brings in this typical attitude that in India anything... ANYTHING can be done with some money arranged... and that we are a nation teeming with abject poverty..... I agree we are a poor nation.. i even agree that corruption exists.... but come on.... theres more to the country than just that... in his wiki entry, theres a statement that says:

"...it is important that writers like me try to highlight the brutal injustices of society (Indian). That's what I'm trying to do -- it is not an attack on the country, it's about the greater process of self-examination."

to borrow a line from his own novel.... "WHAT A FUCKING JOKE"... first i think hes a very ameatur writer... there are factual fallacies... black bags become brown by the end of the chapters...

this guy is a joke... and giving him a booker prize for the white tiger is a even greater joke...his second book is aptly name between the assasins... assasination of any quality reading I am sure...

so disappointing to have read his book in the kindle (courtesy TAMU "educational" media services :))

Somethings wrong somewhere

Theres a lot of wrong going on around.... and theres a lot of good too.... and thats what makes it a world.... it takes all kinds alright....but these are some of things that I am coming across more frequently off late... and something about them is not right...

1) Attitudes of teachers of high school in Andhra Pradesh

My brother is now going through what I had been through a decade ago.... only the magnitude of the pressure has since increased by the multitude...the uncertainty of what the future holds, the fear of the failure at the most critical juncture of life, the pressures of a nerve wrecking 3 hours that changes our lives forever...oh the kids of 11th/12th have already enough to worry about... and obviously the higher the stakes, the higher the parents would be ready to invest in.... naturally turning the whole thing into a humongous economic potential.. and even more naturally tapped into by the managements of "semi" residential schools, tutorial colleges, tutoring/coaching centers, and the more "rank" fetching junior colleges....

firstly, its wrong to make a business out of education... i very strongly believe certain institutions of the society are more than a business... they are more a social responsibility than an industry...and thats why the governments should intervene and regulate.... healthcare and education should and will always top that list....

Knowing our politicians who bring in socialism only when it directly can help them raise their own personal fortunes... and knowing even too well, the most "retired" politicians run the education business, it only makes sense to see that the junior college and the professional colleges have been left unregulated for too long.....

while the kind of money charged is one thing, what is even more saddening to see is that during the most impressionable years, these teens are day in and out told that wouldnt succeed at that entrance exams for the professional courses at the first shot!!! why??? just so they can come back to the college for a "long" term "tutoring" that would then "equip" them to crack the entrance the second time..... CRAZY!.... first they cram very very high concepts of biology and calculus into two years of the 11 and the 12th.... thanks to our vedic genes, most of us do manage to get it in time and be ready for it atleast 4 months ahead of the exams..... the following months is just pure revision and tremendous practise with mock tests that train us into handling almost any kind of questions....after all this, tell me how can anyone go back to the learning the same thing all over for another year? of what good is that teaching? and of what good are these teachers who instead of instilling courage and confidence to face these exams, tell us that we are bound to fail and we should already consider joining them again for a long term training?

pathetic.... i only hope this is the nadir and the next generation quickly starts climbing up the quality curve...

2) Desis and quickstar, amway.....

Ever since I have been in the US, I come across these people at a regular frequency... only the language and tone is different based on what year I have been in the US... first year (and mostly unfunded year) "I have a project I could use some help on"... second/third and subsequent years.... "what do you do on the weekends? how about some little fun work that would get you some extra buck?"...

theres nothing wrong in amassing personal wealth... each one to his own..... but seriously dude.... why are you frigging using the pretext of friendship??!! why are guys bringing this to a point that no one can ever get friendly to new people without them getting alarmed about another quickstar crack?? its now come to this....a compliment from a random desi at the mall? back off... quickstar guy.... random scraps on orkut introducing as some mutual friend's friend? BACK OFF!!!! AMWAY TO NOWAY!!! it just drives you nuts.... why cant these quick star people understand they LOSE MORE FRIENDS THAN THEY EVER MAKE? (do they ever make any friends?)... why cant these crazy nuts understand that MOST people wouldnt want their frigging amway soaps.... we have our walmart where we can choose what we want!!!! its like they are out on a hunt and unassuming desis like us are their prey??!!! somethings wrong somewhere....