Obama's Nobel Prize

I think it makes a mockery of the work that some others who got it have done... But at least they had the sense not to give it to Mr. Bush!

The Syrian Christian Controversy...

When one is a Syrian Christian, one grows up believing in all the things that are usually advocated by the community. So I believe too that St. Thomas baptised our ancestors, that we have been here for thousands of years, we were originally brahmins.. Until recently, I read something that said brahmins did not come into Kerala until much later than 52 AD. And St. Thomas converted people in Kerala in 52 A.D...

So one of the claims must be wrong, right?

I am sort of inclined to believe that St. Thomas did come to Kerala. I read through a wikipedia "talks" page in which someone put forth the hypothesis that all syrian christians must have originated  from Portuguese people. There is far too much difference between our culture and theirs, and far too many links between us and the Syrians/Jews that I am inclined to believe that there were ties between the Jews and the Keralites.

However, I do not find much credibility in the claim that we are all brahmin descendents... I am sort of inclined to think that some "caste chrisitans" propogated the myth to establish their cultural superiority with respect to the newly converted "latin / portugese" christians. After all, it is fairly clear that the christians in Kerala are about as obsessed with caste as their Hindu couterparts.

On the relation between thought and words.

Sapir - Whorf hypothesis says that your ability think a thought depends on knowing the words that are capable of expressing the thought.
If you dont know the words, you cant express the thought and you might not be even able to formulate it.

- From Code Complete.

Thoughts on the hypothesis : The last part of this cannot be true, since words originate from people being able to express ideas that do not yet have words associated with it.

Cell Phone Usage.

Here is a link to an article I found from a Columbia university CS professor about the usage of cell phones.

The article details how dangerous the radiation from prolonged cell phone usage is to the cells in the brain and why one must limit its use.

I have a feeling the same applies to laptops, because prolonged use of one is causing me significant discomfort in the joints of my wrists and hands. I also feel numb sometimes at the tip of my finger, after having used the mousepad on the laptop for a long while. I switched to using a mouse, and the finger tips are now faring better.

I also happened to read an article today about the problems associated with the usage of plastics for storing food. Apparently transparent and firm plastic containers have some chemical in them that seeps into the food it holds, particularly if the food has water content or is heated. The article recommends the use of glass for all storage purposes.

I have been wondering why so many of the innovations that we have come up with in the last century has such a detrimental effect on us and the planet. Like the article cited above suggests, it could be because we introduce innovations into the market without proper research on what the side effects are.

My father always restricted the use of processed foods at home, and his logic was: even if they havent found anything wrong with it now, they might find out later, so in the meanwhile, lets just avoid it! I now realise that the same logic applies not just to food, but to other gadgets as well.

On Reading

Books are not scrolls.
Scrolls must be read like the Torah from one end to the other.
Books are random access -- a great innovation over scrolls.
Make use of this innovation! Do NOT feel obliged to read a book from beginning to end.
Permit yourself to open a book and start reading from anywhere.
In the case of mathematics or physics or anything especially hard, try to find something anything that you can understand.
Read what you can.
Write in the margins. (You know how useful that can be.)
Next time you come back to that book, you'll be able to read more.
You can gradually learn extraordinarily hard things this way.

Consider writing what you read as you read it.
This is especially true if you're intent on reading something hard.

-Manuel Blum

On Writing.

You are all computer scientists.
You know what FINITE AUTOMATA can do.
You know what TURING MACHINES can do.
For example, Finite Automata can add but not multiply.
Turing Machines can compute any computable function.
Turing machines are incredibly more powerful than Finite Automata.
Yet the only difference between a FA and a TM is that
the TM, unlike the FA, has paper and pencil.
Think about it.
It tells you something about the power of writing.
Without writing, you are reduced to a finite automaton.
With writing you have the extraordinary power of a Turing machine.

- Manuel Blum