Danielle Cummins' basic violin lessons

The basics... watch and learn online lessons
http://daniellecumminsviolinist.com/online-violin-lessons-violin-basics/

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via Danielle Cummins, violinist, hindolam/malkauns

concert
Reply-To:

http://daniellecumminsviolinist.com/2013/12/03/raga-malkaunshindolam-by-sangam-indian-classical-music/

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The two cultures of computing...

Read:
http://pgbovine.net/two-cultures-of-computing.htm

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tips: Windows network troubleshooting (RV fwd)

TCP/IP stack repair options for use with Windows XP with SP2:
http://www.ebay.com/sch/Consumer-Electronics-/293/i.html?_nkw=windows+xp

Run this in a DOS shell (DOS box)
(note: Start -> Run -> CMD to open a DOS shell)

To reset TCP/IP stack to installation defaults:
netsh int ip reset reset.log

To Reset WINSOCK entries to installation defaults:
netsh winsock reset catalog

Reboot the machine.

http://www.techsupportforum.com/forums/f137/solved-media-disconnected-message-in-ipconfig-220641.html

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Doug Engelbart interview from 1999

This is somewhat long... watch if you have time
(or just the initial part)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1oNBImSX0M

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Macbook webcams, RAT... black tape fixes...and this Doug Engelbart obit

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/12/18/research-shows-how-macbook-webcams-can-spy-on-their-users-without-warning/


If you use the mouse, you must know about Doug Engelbart.
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/12/16/an-homage-to-douglas-engelbart-and-a-critique-of-the-state-of-tech/

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Delfly -- flying 28grams heavy flapping wing micro 'vehicle'

Watch the video !
http://robohub.org/fully-autonomous-flapping-wing-micro-air-vehicle-weighs-about-as-much-as-4-sheets-of-a4-paper/

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How does Bitcoin work ?

Watch the video from http://www.tumati.com/227/
How Bitcoin works under the hood
Or http://youtu.be/Lx9zgZCMqXE

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Anti-bacterials safe ?

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/12/16/fda-antibacterial-soap/4038907/

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Official Apache Open Office Templates....and Extensions

* Follow the latest news on templates for OpenOffice/LibreOffice etc
https://twitter.com/aootemplates

* Browse templates...pick what you need:
http://templates.openoffice.org/

* To make OO more powerful .... use these "Extensions for Open Office"
Want to import PDF into OpenOffice ?
Need clipart ? Diagramming aids ?
==> http://extensions.openoffice.org/

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*important* software for users...for Art, Music, others..etc

MUSIC
=====

* Nootka: Music notation, play, analyze... (Linux,Windows,Mac)
http://nootka.sourceforge.net/index.php

* Aria Mestosa -- MIDI editor / sequencer
http://ariamaestosa.sourceforge.net/

* Create ... Create, play and print beautiful sheet music
http://musescore.org/

* If you have a midi piano keyboard... Boost your piano playing skills
http://pianobooster.sourceforge.net/


WRITE
=====

* TeXstudio - https://sourceforge.net/projects/texstudio/


S/W COLLECTIONS
===============
* Winpenpack: collection of truly portable (e.g on USB drive) programs
for windows http://www.winpenpack.com/

ART, Multimedia
===============

* http://ffdiaporama.tuxfamily.org/
App for creating movies from titles, images, music, video clips...

* http://www.photofilmstrip.org/
Generate movie from series of images, use FX, optional titles.

* HTML and web pages editor BlueFish
http://bluefish.openoffice.nl/index.html

* Hand-drawn (traditional) animation/cartoon creator
http://www.pencil-animation.org/

* Paint using charcoal, brushes...whatever
http://mypaint.intilinux.com/

*

OTHER
=====

* Lots of files strewn around on lots of disks, DVDs, CDs, etc ?
Virtual Volumes View - http://vvvapp.sourceforge.net/

* Lots of collections, digital and non-digital ?
Use GCSTAR -- http://www.gcstar.org/
Manages:
# Videos # Books # Music # Numismatic # Wines
# Board games # Comic books # TV shows episodes
# Stamps..... etc etc....

Building a tiny ARM based server (out of a discarded NAS box)

==> http://users.softlab.ece.ntua.gr/~ttsiod/arm.html

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Mice inherit specific memories, Epigenetics ?

http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2013/12/01/mice-inherit-specific-memories-because-epigenetics/

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Russian Science Fiction and Fantasy (English translations)

English site: --> http://rusf.ru/english/

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The Old Genie Hottabych...

http://lib.ru/LAGIN/hottabych_engl.txt

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How money moves around thru the banking system...

http://gendal.wordpress.com/2013/11/24/a-simple-explanation-of-how-money-moves-around-the-banking-system/

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Geometry, Space time and ...

Talk by Andreas Beutel, Pythagoras Institute
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5dA5eK7ECY

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Folding space-time music

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkmPDOq2WfA

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Making music with a Moebius strip

https://www.simonsfoundation.org/multimedia/mathematical-impressions-making-music-with-a-mobius-strip/

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Closing the gaps between primes...

There will be no shortage of primes.... The so-called "prime gap" (between consecutive prime numbers) is now established to be at most 600 (and counting down?)

https://www.simonsfoundation.org/quanta/20131119-together-and-alone-closing-the-prime-gap/

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How did ancient Greek music sound ?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24611454

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Desalination - forward osmosis, sunlight

http://cen.acs.org/articles/91/web/2013/11/Sunlight-Helps-Turn-Salty-Water.html

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Misc links to read.

* What is Free Will ? And, does your smart phone have Free Will ?
https://medium.com/the-physics-arxiv-blog/1e223b77e60

* If you ever want to write a stage play script or screenplay, the tool to use:
http://fountain.io/

* Which 10 corporations control almost everything you buy ?
http://www.policymic.com/articles/71255/10-corporations-control-almost-everything-you-buy-this-chart-shows-how

* What is the "parable of the broken window" or the "broken window fallacy" ?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window

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University rankings -- ARWU 2013 (Shanghai rankings)

Academic Rankings:
http://www.shanghairanking.com/ARWU2013.html

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French, MRSA, other Readings...

** Listen to some French... many different passages
http://french.about.com/od/listening/a/la-haute-route.htm

** Being a thinker.... means no *#@&&!*... *what* ? (find out)
http://edition.cnn.com/2013/10/23/tech/innovation/thinking-time/index.html?c=tech

** 15 min read... MRSA and the end of antibiotics.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/health-science-technology/hunting-the-nightmare-bacteria/dr-arjun-srinivasan-weve-reached-the-end-of-antibiotics-period/

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Open Courses... Iversity

Iversity
--------

Iversity : OpenCourses, video, feedback... https://iversity.org/

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Flash fires, auto-ignition

Watch this. Temperature for vaporization and availability of O2 are key
factors.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suce6QNkVRI

Do not try this at home ! :)

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Economics in Plain English (video)

http://www.theatlantic.com/video/categories/series/Economics-in-Plain-English/

c/o Amma

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gutbliss

Hi,

(YvesHerman/Reuters; TobyMelville/Reuters; DeanFosdick/AP)

Robynne Chutkan, MD, is an integrative gastroenterologist and founder of
the Digestive Center for Women, just outside of Washington, D.C. She
trained at Columbia University and is on faculty at Georgetown, but her
approach to practicing medicine and understanding disease is more
holistic than many specialists with academic backgrounds. She has also
appeared on The Dr. Oz Show (of which I've been openly skeptical in the
past, because of Oz's tendency to divorce his recommendations from
evidence).

Chutkan's first book comes out today. You might pick out an Oz-ian air
to the title: Gutbliss: A 10-Day Plan to Ban Bloat, Flush Toxins, and
Dump Your Digestive Baggage. Oz even endorses it on the back of the
jacket: "Dr. Chutkan blasts away the bloat as she tastefully explains
the guts of our problems."

Dr. Chutkan helped me reconcile some of this—blast away a little bloat,
if you will—on simplifying medicine, subspecialists embracing therapies
aimed at overall wellness, why a gastroenterology clinic would be
sex-specific, and how to think about the whole gluten-free idea; among
other answers to questions I wouldn't have thought to ask.

The title of your book is catchy and uses this evocative term
"gutbliss." I'd not heard it before. Did you come up with it, and what
does it mean?

I did come up with it. The earlier part of my career, my first eight
years after my training I was at Georgetown full-time in an academic
practice seeing patients in my area of expertise, which is Crohn's
disease and Ulcerative Colitis. I was treating people who had serious
medical problems, we were doing complex procedures, and prescribing
complicated drugs with a lot of side effects. And then things sort of
shifted for me. I began to feel like academic medicine didn't pay enough
attention to the contribution of diet and lifestyle and stress, to
digestive health, which felt, to me, like an obvious connection.

So I decided to open an integrative practice where we focus on
additional things besides the illness, like the things that created the
illness. I switched from being at the top of the pyramid treating people
at the end-stage of the disease, to the base of the pyramid counseling
more people who were starting to have symptoms, but didn't necessarily
have bad diseases yet. So "gutbliss" for me evokes this idea of how you
can create wellness in your digestive tract. And this blissful
gastrointestinal tract has a lot to do with how you eat and how you
live, since most diseases don't just fall out of the sky into your lap.

I had started a nonprofit in '09 called Gutrunners, which was sponsored
by one of the large GI societies, and we put on races at our national GI
meetings, and the idea was to focus on the contribution of nutrition and
exercise in preventing digestive disorders. So, this whole "gut" thing
for me was very natural.

People advised against calling the book Gutbliss and said, "Oh, it's
sort of in your face; it makes me think of stool and intestines." But I
think the intestines are beautiful and marvelous, so I wanted to include
that. And I wanted to show how something that is, in many ways,
closeted, mainly bowel movements and intestinal function, could actually
be this wonderful, blissful thing. In fact, there's a little bit of
focus on this in the book. There's a chapter on "Beauty and the Bloat,"
on how what you put into your body, mainly your GI tract, profoundly
affects how you look. So that was how I came up with the term "gut
bliss." Sort of combining the intestines, which people think of as not
so lovely, with a blissful state of health.

You mentioned some things we could eat that might influence appearance.

Skin disorders like rosacea, which a lot of people confuse with acne is
a good example. A lot of people are using harsh things on their skin for
this sort of redness on the cheeks and nose. Rosacea's actually an
autoimmune disease and, like most autoimmune diseases, we don't actually
know what causes it, but there's a very strong association with
something called dysbiosis, a bacterial imbalance and overgrowth of the
wrong kinds of bacteria in the gut.
[IMAGE DESCRIPTION] (stefnoble/flickr)

When I work with people on their diet, whether it's cutting back on
dairy, or switching them from a starchier, sugary processed diet, to a
more plant-based way of eating, their skin often clears up. And I sort
of joke with my friends because they're like, "Aren't you a butt doctor?
Why are you so obsessed with the skin?" And I'm like, "Well, I'm more
than a butt doctor."

But, I find there's such a fascinating skin-gut connection. One of the
things I talk about in the book is the idea that the skin actually
represents the outside of our GI tract, and the GI tract represents the
inside of our skin.

You probably don't know this because you probably don't wear makeup, but
when you put makeup on, like foundation and eye makeup and so on in the
morning, by the end of the day it's gone. Literally gone—it looks like
you don't have anything on. Where does it go? It gets absorbed into our
body. And the opposite thing can happen when you eat certain foods; you
can see the effect coming out on your skin. There's this incredible
connection between the two. And the same way we overuse antibiotics and
expose our digestive tract to chemicals that alters this delicate
balance between good bacteria and bad bacteria, we do the same thing to
our skin. We use harsh soaps that contain chemicals that kill off a lot
of the skin bacteria that are really important for healthy skin, and
then our skin is dry and unhealthy and peeling. So there are a lot of
parallels there. I think most of us have had that experience of seeing a
person who has a real inner glow. Maybe if you're 20 you just have good
genes and you can have pizza and beer every day and still glow. But if
you're over 40, often there is a fair amount of kale involved. There
could be some cookies and ice cream too, but usually the people who have
that glow are doing something right, and it often involves getting
sweaty on a regular basis and eating the right food.
[IMAGE DESCRIPTION] Chutkan

The tagline of the book is "A ten-day plan to ban bloat, flush toxins,
and dump your digestive baggage." Can you give us a preview of what that
is working towards, or some of the steps?

Sure. Full disclosure, I didn't love that tagline. This really is not a
diet book, and I wanted to be very clear on that. This is a book about
how to achieve and maintain digestive wellness. Hippocrates said it
first: All disease begins in the gut. The 10-day plan makes the
information in the book more accessible to people. It's very similar to
the advice that I give patients in my practice. It's not about eating a
perfect diet every day. But ten days is actually enough time to make
some changes and see some results. Maybe get rid of a lot of the sugary
stuff, maybe get off the gluten, eat more plants, do some exercises
using a light dumbbell on your tummy to get rid of gas. So it gives
people some very simple but very effective things that they can do so
that they can experience what it feels like to get rid of the bloat, to
be regular, to not have digestive upset. And beyond not just having
digestive upset, to experience a little of this gut bliss.

So once you do that, what about the rest of your life? It's really about
the 80 percent rule. Most of us are "toxing" 80 percent of the time and
detoxing 20 percent of the time. And we should really think about
flipping that—we should think about detoxing 80 percent of the time. And
I'm not suggesting anything extreme. Today I did some work at home, I
made a fruit and veggie smoothie for breakfast, went to spin class, I
met some people for lunch, and I had a kale salad with roasted chicken
and a big bottle of water. Nothing so profound, but all healthy stuff
that made me feel good. And if you're doing that 80 percent of the time,
you can tolerate that 20 percent of debauchery in whatever form that
might be, whether you're drinking a bit too much, or not exercising,
eating the wrong food, having too much ice cream. And then we don't have
this need to constantly be detoxing and cleansing all the time.

Try to maintain these healthy habits about 80 percent of the time, and
then 20 percent of the time you'll have something that is not
necessarily the best, but that you enjoy. It means you can go out to
dinner and not be so rigid or careful about what you eat, but that most
of the time you are paying attention. Because there's this incredible
disconnect I find in medicine today (and obviously there's lots of
commerce involved in this), that promotes the notion that disease just
falls out of the sky and there's no connection between how you live and
what happens to you from a health point of view.

Of course there are diseases where we don't know the cause, or they're
environmental, or it's bad genes or bad luck, but certainly for a lot of
the illnesses we see there is this connection. So this book tries to
help people, and women, more specifically, make that connection that if
you're bloated—which can be such a large and confusing expression for
women of things not being quite right in your GI tract—there are
actually things that you can do to try and figure it out. You can be a
bit of a medical detective, and you can look at these areas: is it the
food you're eating, is it something you're drinking, is it lactose
intolerance, is it gluten sensitivity, is it hormonal imbalance? Or, is
it an anatomical problem? Do you have ovarian cancer, is it bad
endometriosis, do you have a voluptuous female colon where your colon's
wrapped around your uterus?

Without giving specific medical advice, the book gives people ideas on
what sort of places they can look. Because one of the things I see so
often is women who come in and they're given that pat on the head, and,
"Oh, you have irritable bowel syndrome and here's a Xanax. You're just
stressed out." Sometimes there's some truth to that, but when you dig a
little deeper and slice up that irritable bowel syndrome pie, there
often is something more tangible as well as a solution. There's an
undiagnosed parasite, there's a food sensitivity, there's undiscovered
hypothyroidism. There's estrogen dominance. There's some reason,
physiological, functional—or it's because of something in the medicine
cabinet. Some vitamin, prescription pill or supplement that's not
agreeing with you.
[IMAGE DESCRIPTION] Image from "virtual colonoscopy" (Dr. Perry J.
Pickhardt/AP)

To just sort of say your bowel is irritable but we don't know why, I
feel like that's not a real diagnosis. It's like saying, "You're tired,"
and that's your diagnosis: Well, you have tired disease and here's a
pill to take for the rest of your life to pep you up. So, again, why are
you tired? And I think that's what people, not just women, want. They
want answers. And I think that's why there's so much investigation on
the Internet that can lead to all kinds of problems down the road when
you're self-diagnosing pancreatic cancer and you really just have
heartburn. The book provides sensible, practical information. It's a bit
of a roadmap and a guide for the woman who is bloated or has digestive
problems, not instead of a doctor, but in addition to, to help her
figure out where she should be looking.

Do you only see female patients in your practice?

Even though my clinic is called the Digestive Center for Women, I do see
male patients. A lot of the patients I see have Crohn's disease and
ulcerative colitis, which affects men and women equally. About 10
percent of the patients I see are male.

What are some differences in the way you approach female patients as
opposed to men? In my mind, at least, the digestive tract isn't
something commonly thought of as a gendered part of the body.

I'm glad you asked that. There actually are some profound differences
between the female and male digestive tracts. To start with, the female
colon is longer than the male colon, on average, about 10 centimeters
longer. We don't know why, but we think part of that is to allow for
more absorption of water or fluid during childbearing. Because you have
to keep the amniotic fluid replete, and the circulation and blood volume
increases during pregnancy.. And what that extra length in the colon
does is create this redundancy, these sort of extra twists and turns,
and that's why women are so much more bloated and constipated than their
male counterparts. So there's that difference in length as well as
redundancy. Think of the male colon as kind of a gentle horseshoe, and
the female colon as being a tangled-up Slinky.

Not only is that due to the difference in length, but think of the
pelvis. Women have this rounded, gynecoid pelvis so that when the uterus
expands there's room for a baby. Men have a narrow, android pelvis. What
happens in women is that more of the colon drops down deep into the
pelvis. In women, the colon is really right there mixed up with the
uterus, and the ovaries, and the Fallopian tubes, and the bladder. In
men, the only hardware you have is this little bitty prostate gland, and
the bladder, and that's it. So in men, most of the colon is up in the
abdomen where there's tons of room and not fighting for space with the
reproductive organs, like in women. So that's anatomical difference
number two.

The third thing is that because of differences in hormonal levels with
men having more testosterone on board, you guys have a well-developed
abdominal wall. So even a man who's overweight and has a big beer belly
still has a tighter, more robust abdominal wall just because of the
testosterone. Men will complain that they're fat, but will rarely
complain that they're bloated because that tighter, more defined
abdominal wall, the rectus abdominis sheath, which is, to some degree
dependent on testosterone, that holds the bowel in place. It's sort of a
Spanx-type thing that muscular wall. In women, our abdominal wall is
much less rigid and tight and doesn't hold things in place as much,
because of the difference in hormonal levels, so our bowels bulge out
more, and we bloat more. And of course many women have had children, and
their abdominal wall is stretched, and they may have something called a
diastasis recti where there's a split in the abdominal wall muscles
because of the pressure from pregnancy. So the abdominal wall is the
other big reason why men complain of being fat, and women complain of
being bloated. Estrogen and progesterone can have really profound
effects on the GI tract, whether you retain water or not, and how things
move through your intestines. So, these are just some of the factors,
not even getting into brain differences, but just from a hormonal and
anatomical point-of-view.

Pelvic floor disorders in women are another big difference in the male
and female GI tract. The pelvic floor is sort of like a hammock that all
of the organs that are down in that area sit on—the bladder rests on it,
the uterus rests on it, the bowels rest on it, and it often becomes
stretched out after childbirth, or just with age, and things can start
to descend. The uterus can change position and it can press on the
bowels. So when you approach constipation in a woman, you always have to
be aware of these pelvic floor issues. Because if you just do the basic
things like give them a fiber supplement to help them get stuff out, and
the problem is a pelvic floor issue, they're actually going to feel
worse; they're going to be more bloated. You have to consider whether
the sphincter may have been damaged during pregnancy or childbirth, or
if the pelvic floor may have dropped. These are not considerations in
men.

There are lots of different gender factors. Thyroid disease is much more
common in women than in men, so that's one of the first things that I
check in a constipated women. Perimenopause is another factor. And that
isn't just when you stop having your period. It's really that decade
before you stop menstruating, which for most women is going to be 40 to
50, sometimes 35 to 45 — and it can profoundly affect the gut and bowel
habits. Men don't go through that; that's not a factor with men at all.
So there are lots of different things that you have to think about when
you're approaching bowel issues in women.

You mentioned going gluten-free, and I wanted to get your take on that.
It seems like a lot of people going in that direction don't have a
diagnosis of celiac disease. What do you tell people who are interested
in trying it? Is there evidence that people who tested negative for
celiac disease still benefit?

First of all, I think it's important to distinguish celiac disease from
gluten sensitivity, because celiac disease is an autoimmune disease that
is associated with a lot of other problematic things, like osteoporosis,
iron deficiency anemia, arthritis, diabetes, even cancer. And if you
have celiac disease, whether or not you have symptoms, it's important to
come as close as you can to 100 percent avoidance of gluten, because the
ongoing exposure to gluten can damage the small intestine and lead to
some of these other associated problems. So that's the first thing I
tell patients, is that we have to figure out what's going on. And some
patients say, Well, can't I just empirically avoid gluten? And I tell
them, no, because if you have celiac disease, you have to be 100 percent
regardless of whether you have symptoms. If you have gluten sensitivity
(but don't have celiac disease) and you want to eat an almond croissant,
go for it. Part of the issue is that the wheat itself is not what it
used to be. It's been hybridized and had different things done to it to
increase the crop yield and shorten how long it takes for the wheat to
bear. One can make all sorts of scientific and unscientific arguments
about what we're meant to eat, but I don't think we're meant to eat
animal crackers, for example. I think it's a stretch to call the
refined, processed wheat products a food group, but I also don't think
everyone needs to empirically avoid them all the time.
[IMAGE DESCRIPTION] Gluten-free porridge (elenaspantry/flickr)

Certainly if you're having digestive problems, it's worth trying. I
usually tell people to do a six-week elimination trial; if you don't
notice a difference there's no reason to avoid it. But my biggest caveat
is to tell people there's no point in doing this and then eating
gluten-free bread, and gluten-free pancakes, and gluten-free cookies.
It's sort of like sugar-free. If you're diabetic, I would say to you,
you should think about having fruit for dessert. I would never recommend
that someone have sugar-free ice cream or a sugar free drink, because
that stuff's worse than the sugar quite frankly. The same thing applies
to gluten. If you think you're gluten sensitive and you feel poorly when
you eat gluten, you should avoid wheat. It just makes sense. If you're
lactose intolerant you should avoid dairy. This is your body giving you
feedback saying no, I don't like this thing. But if you decide once a
month, I'm going to have a sandwich using regular bread and I may not
feel so great, but I don't have celiac disease, just a sensitivity, I
think that's okay and I think that is preferable to eating gluten-free
garbage every day. Gluten-free processed products can be just as bad for
you as the regular stuff that contains gluten. They're not providing you
any nutrients, they're empty calories. So that's a big challenge that I
face with some of my patients. If you're just gluten sensitive, have a
pancake on the weekend if you really want it, but don't eat gluten-free
cookies every day of the week and think that somehow this is being
healthy. Just like I would never eat low-fat or sugar free ice cream. If
I'm going to have ice cream I'm going to have the real thing—I'm just
not going to eat it every day.

In terms of a mechanism for gluten sensitivity, do you think we're going
to find antibodies that we're going to be able to quantify for people in
the future? Or is this akin to an allergy?
Related Story

Gluttony Without Gluten

I think it's not going to be something that we can pinpoint easily. Like
if you have rheumatoid arthritis and your joints are destroyed and we
can see that on a X-ray and you have antibodies that we can measure. I
think it belongs in that very grey area of food intolerances, and I
think we have to have common sense about it. If you eat something and
you feel sick, I don't think you need a doctor, an antibody test, or an
allergist to tell you that maybe you shouldn't eat that thing. I love
the point Michael Pollan makes about nutritionism and trying to make
everything so scientific. We've just lost our common sense a little bit.
If you drink milk and then you have gas and diarrhea and bloating and
you feel terrible, I don't think you need a doctor to tell you [that]
you shouldn't drink milk, or you should drink less of it. So much of
food science is driven by food manufacturers and this huge market for
products. I cringe when I see the gluten-free section of the
supermarket—which is getting bigger and bigger. And it's mostly a whole
bunch of junk. If the package says gluten-free, don't buy it because
guess what, a potato doesn't say gluten-free. A pineapple doesn't say
gluten-free, and a piece of chicken doesn't say gluten-free. So if it
says gluten-free on it, be wary. There are incredible fortunes being
made in the gluten-free world, and I'm not sure they're doing consumers
much of a favor.

I feel inundated by gluten-free product marketing. It's on labels right
next to "sugar-free" and "low fat," as if it's becoming understood to be
universally a good thing. Knowing that there's a discreet mechanism
behind lactose intolerance—we make less lactase [the enzyme that breaks
down lactose] as we get older, some people genetically make less than
others; not breaking down lactose leads to gas. The condition is
explainable. We still wonder what it is about the insensitivity toward
gluten—in people who don't have celiac disease, if it really is gluten
that's making us have these symptoms like mental fogginess, or whatever
constellation of things some people associate with it.

This is sort of a simple way to look at it, but I think the farther
differentiated the food is from the original source, the more likely you
are to have some of these issues. That's a huge oversimplification, but
a thought, nonetheless.

This article available online at:

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/10/what-we-eat-affects-everything/279922/
Copyright © 2013 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All Rights Reserved.

--
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free Python course, how spiders lift themselves..etc

Python programming course (MOOC -- highly acclaimed!)
http://www.topfreeclasses.com/course/6880/An-Introduction-to-Interactive-Programming-in-Python

Intro to Computer Science (online course)
http://www.topfreeclasses.com/course/6888/Introduction-to-Computer-Science

Spiders use electrostatic force to generate lift..
https://medium.com/the-physics-arxiv-blog/98345796bba4
(riding on 120V/m electric field pointing downward; spider silk
has a negative charge!)
/A

The world's shortest explanation of Goedel's theorem...

* http://blog.plover.com/math/Gdl-Smullyan.html
(World's shortest explanation of Goedel's Theorem)
... any machine that prints only true statements must fail to print some true statements.
... Or conversely, any machine that prints every possible true statement must print some false statements too !

* ...and, give us our Daily Butter !
http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?287647

/A

For artists on the computer: Context Free art !

See:
http://www.contextfreeart.org/mediawiki/index.php/Context_Free_Art:About

Sample art:

Sample code to try:
-------------------

startshape dotpage

rule dotpage{
100* {y .2} {
100* {x .2} dotgroup {}
}
}

rule dotgroup{
DOT{x .2 y .2}
DOT{x .2 y .3}
DOT{x .3 y .2}
DOT{x .3y .3}
}

rule DOT{
CIRCLE { size 0.01 x 0.01}
}

rule DOT{
CIRCLE { size 0.01 x -0.01}
}

rule DOT{
CIRCLE { size 0.01 y 0.01}
}

rule DOT{
CIRCLE { size 0.01 y -0.01}
}
-------------

/A

books link

http://iitjeebooksfree.blogspot.in/2013/07/educative-jee-mathematics.html


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wherever you are

Regain that Ubuntu classic desktop look (dump Unity)

How to: step by step, commandline instructions...
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1966370

/A

Building the portable 3D printer

Watch the Ben Heck show
building the portable 3D printer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJndXebTG9I

/A

Misc.. and getting rid of Ubunty Unity desktop

An English-Malayalam dictionary of 1907
http://shijualex.in/an_english-malayalam_dictionary_1907/

Thiruppavai (and its contemporary Old Malayalam)
http://ml.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%B4%A4%E0%B4%BF%E0%B4%B0%E0%B5%81%E0%B4%AA%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%AA%E0%B4%BE%E0%B4%B5%E0%B5%88

And... bring back old Ubuntu look (get rid of Unity desktop)...

http://lifehacker.com/5869503/get-rid-of-unity-and-bring-back-to-old-ubuntu-look-with-a-few-tweaks

/A

Link to: "A Historical Sense -- What Sanskrit has meant to me"

A Historical Sense
What Sanskrit has meant to me
Aatish Taseer
http://www.openthemagazine.com/article/art-culture/a-historical-sense

/A

FW: Flower parade in Holland, a must see

--_000_B338EA335C032C4B9C0CBD8DB1D772CDDBA1006ASCSU83Acampusst_--

Hyperloop.... rapid travel

Elon Musk's Hyperloop concepts revealed...
800 miles/hr transport system!

http://news.discovery.com/autos/future-of-transportation/elon-musk-hyperloop-details-revealed-130812.htm

/A

Misc reads...

*Guy who knows 29 languages*
http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/other-states/way-with-words/article5014933.ece

*Do you use paper/pen/pencil .... ?*
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/parenting/back-to-school/laptops-in-class-lowers-students-grades-canadian-study/article13759430/

*Ambient Backscatter -- Wireless communication without batteries!*
http://abc.cs.washington.edu/

/A

MEMS eCompass -- 3 axis accelerometer + 3 axis magnetometer

ST Hawks Smallest MEMS Compass
2 Aug 2013

PORTLAND, Ore. -- ST Microelectronics has introduced what it is calling
the world's smallest digital e-compass -- a three-axis magnetometer
combined with a three-axis accelerometer on a 2x2mm MEMS chip.

By saving board space on next-generation mobile devices, this device
should enable new ultra-miniature, location-aware applications.
Micro-electromechanical systems already provide much of the smarts to
smartphones, and ST is already a major supplier for devices from Apple's
iPhone to Samsung's Galaxy. However, a new generation of smartphones and
other personal devices will have even less board space.

Source:

http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1319133
and
http://www.st.com/web/en/press/p3445

/A

Magnetic monopoles ? Do they exist ?

One of the very first facts you learn about electromagnetism—long before
you walk into your first physics class—is that every magnet has two
poles. Cut a bar magnet in half and you wind up with two magnets, each
of which has its own north and south poles. And that's true for every
single object in our experience that boasts a magnetic field—whether
it's the entire Earth or an iron atom. There are no solitary poles.

Strangely, though, there is no fundamental reason why that has to be the
case. In fact, there are a few good reasons to suspect that there might
be single-poled magnetic objects—magnetic monopoles—floating about in
the universe. If these particles exist, they are probably quite rare,
but that hasn't stopped physicists from looking for them. Here's why: If
they exist, they could help answer long-standing questions about the
nature of the universe, shedding light on the way fundamental forces of
nature are tied together.

Read further ==>
http://spectrum.ieee.org/semiconductors/materials/the-hunt-for-the-magnetic-monopole

/A

On Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle

"... Bohr, for his part, explained uncertainty by pointing out that answering certain questions necessitates not answering others."

"... And in the "many worlds" picture of the physicist Hugh Everett III, all the possibilities given odds by the oddsmaker come to fruition, but in parallel worlds. Here the abstract quantum state is regarded as physical, and interactions are connections that develop between different bits of this strange reality.

All of these interpretations have their pros and cons, but in none do observers play a fundamental role."

"... all the truly wild claims -- that observers are metaphysically important, that objectivity is impossible, that we posses a special kind of mental energy -- are the result of foggy interpretations made even less sharp by those wanting to validate their pet metaphysical claims with quantum physics."

More at:
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/21/nothing-to-see-here-demoting-the-uncertainty-principle/?_r=0

/A

Britain & Hinduism - The current situation (article)

http://vijayvaani.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?aid=2891

"... the core of the Hindu belief system thus created and celebrated is the concept of the Universal Soul, known more fondly now as God. In Hindu cosmology God is not in Heaven or separate from the Universe but immanent. Everything is God, including ourselves. What separates the essence from the dross of the Universe is the delusion of Maya: to have a material body is to be part of its endless shadow play."

Read on at
http://vijayvaani.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?aid=2891

/A

Video lectures of Feynman... various topics.

Feynman on the double slit paradox. Particle or Wave ?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUJfjRoxCbk

More Richard Feynman talks... on the way nature works (clip)
http://amiquote.tumblr.com/post/2568211283/richard-feynman-on-the-way-nature-work-you-dont

Richard Feynman: Disrespect for authority
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhD0MxacnIE

Feynman: The Scientific Method
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYPapE-3FRw

And...
learning with the Feynman technique... tips for students (=everyone!)
[not from Feynman]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrNqSLPaZLc

/A

Old Travancore in pictures etc

TRAVANCORE Kingdom and Kerala
==> http://pazhayathu.blogspot.com/2010/11/old-travancore-kingdom-and-kerala.html

KERALA AND CHINA 1347 AD AND COCHIN ROYAL FAMILY
==> http://pazhayathu.blogspot.com/2011/12/kerala-and-china-1347-ad.html

/A

On Vitamin Supplements

From 'The Atlantic':
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/07/the-vitamin-myth-why-we-think-we-need-supplements/277947/?1

The Vitamin Myth: Why We Think We Need Supplements

Nutrition experts contend that all we need is what's typically found in a routine diet. Industry representatives, backed by a fascinating history, argue that foods don't contain enough, and we need supplements. Fortunately, many excellent studies have now resolved the issue.


On October 10, 2011, researchers from the University of Minnesota found that women who took supplemental multivitamins died at rates higher than those who didn't. Two days later, researchers from the Cleveland Clinic found that men who took vitamin E had an increased risk of prostate cancer. "It's been a tough week for vitamins," said Carrie Gann of ABC News.

These findings weren't new. Seven previous studies had already shown that vitamins increased the risk of cancer and heart disease and shortened lives. Still, in 2012, more than half of all Americans took some form of vitamin supplements. What few people realize, however, is that their fascination with vitamins can be traced back to one man. A man who was so spectacularly right that he won two Nobel Prizes and so spectacularly wrong that he was arguably the world's greatest quack.

.....

Article at:
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/07/the-vitamin-myth-why-we-think-we-need-supplements/277947/?1

/A

Self-assembling multi-copter, networked flight control

Check this out;
http://www.gizmag.com/distributed-flight-array-self-assembling-multicopter/28380/

ETH Zurich research:
http://www.idsc.ethz.ch/Research_DAndrea/DFA

/A

Electric charge, Gauss' Law problems/solutions

Nice problems with solutions:
http://www.physics.gatech.edu/~mj38/Summer_2013/2212K/main/quiz_help/201205/q2s.pdf

/A

Gauss's Law study material

(PDF) Gauss's Law (Maxwell's 1st equation) study material
http://www.physics.byu.edu/faculty/rees/220/book/lesson7.pdf

/A

Why are there so many Gods in Hinduism ?

Very interesting video of a talk by Chinmayananda.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kg8L4-wv4Vg

/A

How Muscles work... 50 year old assumptions set aside

http://www.washington.edu/news/2013/07/09/biceps-bulge-calves-curve-50-year-old-assumptions-muscled-aside/


/A

UK ICT Education revamp

English Schools To Introduce Children To 3D Printers, Laser Cutters,
Robotics -

http://tech.slashdot.org/story/13/07/08/203227/english-schools-to-introduce-children-to-3d-printers-laser-cutters-robotics

/A

Priority to Free software legislated for Higher Education in France

http://www.april.org/en/first-time-france-parliament-votes-legislation-gives-priority-free-software

/A

Gondwana land, how continents separated

New video
http://vimeo.com/68311221

/A

Funnies... Zynga customer support

Link: http://kotaku.com/zynga-mistake-puts-random-stranger-in-customer-support-664780630

Sample advise:

Can you tell me if you are on Mac or Windows? And, would you say you move the cursor (mouse) slowly, or quickly? Sometimes it helps to move the cursor more slowly on Facebook as you are going into the game. I would see if that makes a difference. It can also make a difference if you put the cursor in all four corners of the screen before clicking into the game. Please let me know if this does not resolve the issue.


/A

Bacteria, health etc..

How to give a great presentation

Useful tips from TED Talks...

* http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-features/tp-opportunities/how-to-give-a-killer-presentation/article4828446.ece

/A

Choosing your passwords...

See what common passwords look like... And how not to.
http://securitynirvana.blogspot.com/2012/06/final-word-on-linkedin-leak.html

/A

Facebook Mum on User Dossiers

http://securityledger.com/2013/06/facebook-mum-on-future-of-ghost-user-accounts/

/A

Air Quality Index AQI -- Singapore link

http://aqicn.org/city/singapore/central/

/A

Cookies, Firefox advances Do Not Track...

http://www.informationweek.com/security/privacy/firefox-advances-do-not-track-technology/240157010

/A

Whistle gizmo can now recognize words !

http://www.limpkin.fr/index.php?post/2013/06/30/The-whistled%3A-from-whistle-to-sound-recognition

/A

Beyond Silicon: Transistors Without Semiconductors

(Fwd from Charu mama)

Beyond Silicon: Transistors Without Semiconductors
Michigan Tech News (06/21/13) Marcia Goodrich

Although electronic devices continue to shrink, transistors based on semiconductors can only get so small. "At the rate the current technology is progressing, in 10 or 20 years, they won't be able to get any smaller," says Michigan Technological University's Yoke Khin Yap. He also notes that semiconductors waste a lot of energy in the form of heat. He is working to develop semiconductor-less transistors using a nanoscale insulator with nanoscale metals on top. Yap and Oak Ridge National Laboratory researchers found that the method allowed electrons to jump very precisely from gold dot to gold dot, a phenomenon known as quantum tunneling. When sufficient voltage is applied, the transistor switches to a conducting state. When the voltage is lowered and turned off, the transistor returns to its natural state as an insulator. In addition, no electrons from the gold dots escaped, thus keeping the tunneling channel cool. The key to the gold-and-nanotube device is its submicroscopic size. "The gold islands have to be on the order of nanometers across to control the electrons at room temperature," notes Michigan Tech's John Jaszczak.

View Full Article
http://www.mtu.edu/news/stories/2013/june/story92119.html

----- End forwarded message -----

nano stuff

Beyond Silicon: Transistors without Semiconductors

Last Modified 8:10 AM on Fri Jun 21, 2013

mtunews@mtu.edu

906-487-2343,

By Marcia Goodrich

June 20, 2013—

For decades, electronic devices have been getting smaller, and smaller,
and smaller. It's now possible—even routine—to place millions of
transistors on a single silicon chip.

But transistors based on semiconductors can only get so small. "At the
rate the current technology is progressing, in 10 or 20 years, they
won't be able to get any smaller," said physicist Yoke Khin Yap of
Michigan Technological University. "Also, semiconductors have another
disadvantage: they waste a lot of energy in the form of heat."

Scientists have experimented with different materials and designs for
transistors to address these issues, always using semiconductors like
silicon. Back in 2007, Yap wanted to try something different that might
open the door to a new age of electronics.

"The idea was to make a transistor using a nanoscale insulator with
nanoscale metals on top," he said. "In principle, you could get a piece
of plastic and spread a handful of metal powders on top to make the
devices, if you do it right. But we were trying to create it in
nanoscale, so we chose a nanoscale insulator, boron nitride nanotubes,
or BNNTs for the substrate."

Yap's team had figured out how to make virtual carpets of BNNTs,which
happen to be insulators and thus highly resistant to electrical charge.
Using lasers, the team then placed quantum dots (QDs) of gold as small
as three nanometers across on the tops of the BNNTs, forming QDs-BNNTs.
BNNTs are the perfect substrates for these quantum dots due to their
small, controllable, and uniform diameters, as well as their insulating
nature. BNNTs confine the size of the dots that can be deposited.

In collaboration with scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory
(ORNL), they fired up electrodes on both ends of the QDs-BNNTs at room
temperature, and something interesting happened. Electrons jumped very
precisely from gold dot to gold dot, a phenomenon known as quantum
tunneling.

"Imagine that the nanotubes are a river, with an electrode on each bank.
Now imagine some very tiny stepping stones across the river," said Yap.
"The electrons hopped between the gold stepping stones. The stones are
so small, you can only get one electron on the stone at a time. Every
electron is passing the same way, so the device is always stable."

Yap's team had made a transistor without a semiconductor. When
sufficient voltage was applied, it switched to a conducting state. When
the voltage was low or turned off, it reverted to its natural state as
an insulator.

Furthermore, there was no "leakage": no electrons from the gold dots
escaped into the insulating BNNTs, thus keeping the tunneling channel
cool. In contrast, silicon is subject to leakage, which wastes energy in
electronic devices and generates a lot of heat.

Other people have made transistors that exploit quantum tunneling, says
Michigan Tech physicist John Jaszczak, who has developed the theoretical
framework for Yap's experimental research. However, those tunneling
devices have only worked in conditions that would discourage the typical
cellphone user.

"They only operate at liquid-helium temperatures," said Jaszczak.

The secret to Yap's gold-and-nanotube device is its submicroscopic size:
one micron long and about 20 nanometers wide. "The gold islands have to
be on the order of nanometers across to control the electrons at room
temperature," Jaszczak said. "If they are too big, too many electrons
can flow." In this case, smaller is truly better: "Working with
nanotubes and quantum dots gets you to the scale you want for electronic
devices."

"Theoretically, these tunneling channels can be miniaturized into
virtually zero dimension when the distance between electrodes is reduced
to a small fraction of a micron," said Yap.

Yap has filed for a full international patent on the technology.

Their work is described in the article "Room Temperature Tunneling
Behavior of Boron Nitride Nanotubes Functionalized with Gold Quantum
Dots," published online on June 17 in Advanced Materials. In addition to
Yap and Jaszczak, coauthors include research scientist Dongyan Zhang,
postdoctoral researchers Chee Huei Lee and Jiesheng Wang, and graduate
students Madhusudan A. Savaikar, Boyi Hao, and Douglas Banyai of
Michigan Tech; Shengyong Qin, Kendal W. Clark and An-Ping Li of the
Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences at ORNL; and Juan-Carlos Idrobo
of the Materials Science and Technology Division of ORNL.

The work was funded by the Office of Basic Energy Sciences of the US
Department of Energy (Award # DE-FG02-06ER46294, PI:Y.K.Yap) and was
conducted in part at ORNL (Projects CNMS2009-213 and CNMS2012-083, PI:
Y.K.Yap).

Michigan Technological University (www.mtu.edu) is a leading public
research university developing new technologies and preparing students
to create the future for a prosperous and sustainable world. Michigan
Tech offers more than 130 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in
engineering; forest resources; computing; technology; business;
economics; natural, physical and environmental sciences; arts;
humanities; and social sciences.

--
http://www.fastmail.fm - Same, same, but different...

Old S'pore... 1957

1957 film (15 min)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nw7toyYrqjs

/A

Colorimeter using PIC etc... homemade by UK 1-man co

Enjoy this interview:
http://banu.com/blog/41/interview-of-colorhug-maker-richard-hughes/

Also... you thought you know how to draw a circle ? Then read this:

http://banu.com/blog/7/drawing-circles/

/A

Stanford's flying fish, graphene image sensor, space telescope for u

Stanford's flying fish glider:
http://www.gizmag.com/flying-fish-glider/27690/

Graphene image sensor for low light photography -- from NTU researchers
http://www.gizmag.com/graphene-imaging-sensor/27718/

Space telescope to take your pictures
http://singularityhub.com/2013/05/29/diamandis-and-planetary-resources-to-build-first-crowdfunded-public-space-telescope/

/A

Indian musical instruments in UK

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AstYQrdN_1M

/A

Buddha at the Gas Pump interview -- Michael Fischman

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBhpTinDXD0&nofeather=True

/A

Curriki -- Open Courseware

Courseware -- http://www.curriki.org/

/A

Thought for the day

"It isn't what you have, or who you are, or where you are, or what
you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It is what you think
about" -- Dale Carnegie.

/A

Play ancient warfare (0.A.D)

0 A.D. is an open-source game of Ancient Warfare:
==> http://play0ad.com/

/A

Cool whistle switch....

Made by LimpKin... and sold on tindie.com

=> http://www.limpkin.fr/index.php?post/2013/04/26/The-whistled%3A-how-to-remake-a-dozen-years-old-project-the-right-way

/A

Sleep deprivation and study

Lack of sleep blights pupils' education

Sleep is Brain food:
... "I think we underestimate the impact of sleep. Our data show that across countries internationally, on average, children who have more sleep achieve higher in maths, science and reading. That is exactly what our data show," says Chad Minnich, of the TIMSS and PIRLS International Study Center. ...

==> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22209818

/A

Anthropology/Evolution

MODERN THEORIES OF EVOLUTION:
An Introduction to the Concepts and Theories That
Led to Our Current Understanding of Evolution

http://anthro.palomar.edu/synthetic/default.htm

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http://www.fastmail.fm - The professional email service

Subscribe to the TechShop !

TechShop: an industrial revolution for $125 a month

By Brian Heater posted Apr 24th, 2013 at 2:30 PM

Someone, Mark Hatch, if I had to guess, has left a Square reader just
to the left of where we've set up our cameras. It's on a table next to
a small, but exceptionally diverse array of gadgets. There's a wooden
book that unfolds into a desk lamp and a polymer incubation blanket for
infants that's "on track to save 100,000 children's lives," according
to Hatch, TechShop's spikey-white-haired CEO. But it's the little white
plastic dongle that's the star of this show, through the power of sheer
ubiquity, popping up in coffee shops and taxicabs everywhere. Square's
modest undertaking has since ballooned to a roughly 300-person
operation. The project was born in this very space, eventually moving
to a building in San Francisco's SoMa district a block or so away, the
mobile payment company having opted not to travel too far from the
place where it was first conceived.

When it comes to proximity, Square is by no means an anomaly -- if
anything, the company's strayed a bit away from the pack. TechShop's
overseers have, quite cannily, begun to offer up a portion of the
warehouse's 17,000 square feet as office space, giving its members a
shot at some prime San Francisco real estate, a flight of stairs up from
an impressive array of machine tools -- laser cutters, waterjets and
more 3D printers than most mortals have seen in one place. "Literally
everything you need to make just about anything on the planet," says
Hatch, in typically definitive terms. And while there's arguably still
some sense of hyperbole in the notion of the "next industrial
revolution" (as 3D-printing evangelist Bre Pettis loves to put it), it's
hard to stand here in the well-lit warehouse amongst the buzz of
machinery and ideas and not appreciate the sentiment.

TechShop's mini-empire of social hackerspaces stands as a testament to
the right idea at the right moment. It's the result of a whole lot of
distinct elements congealing into a successful business model,
including a membership fee that gains you access to the tools and
classes to help you do just about anything yourself. A $125/month fee
gets you access to everything you need to get in on the ground floor of
the hardware startup revolution. Inside the warehouse, you'll find a
makeshift salon of students, young professionals, industry veterans and
curious hobbyists meeting in the downstairs machining area and upstairs
on sunlit benches for makeshift beta testing and freeform workshopping.

TechShop's mini-empire of social hackerspaces stands as a testament
to the right idea at the right moment.

Founder Jim Newton, a robotics professor and onetime MythBusters science
adviser, set up shop at the first Maker Faire in 2006, behind a sign
reading, simply, "TechShop: Build Your Dreams Here." The 250 showgoers
who signed his mailing list formed the basis of the company's first
space, a cobbled-together collection of equipment housed in an
industrial building just off the freeway in Silicon Valley-entrenched
Menlo Park. The company's since launched locations in Detroit,
Pittsburgh, Raleigh-Durham and Austin, and added an additional two to
its Bay Area arsenal, included this San Francisco locale, which has
become something of a de facto flagship location for the organization.
Locations in Arizona, Brooklyn and Washington, DC, are currently in the
planning stages.

Hatch cites any number of factors as contributors to his company's
success, beginning with a dramatic reduction in the price of machining
equipment, thanks in no small part to the influence of Japanese and
Chinese producers. The phenomenon has led to an astonishing 75 to 85
percent drop in the price of the tools that are so core to the TechShop
experience. The introduction of desktop computing has also had a
profound effect on that front.

"A lot of these tools are hooked up to computers, so they're
computer-numerically controlled machines," says Hatch. "And of course
that computer and that software have followed Moore's law. The CNC mill,
10 to 15 years ago, would've been a quarter-million dollars, and we're
now buying this machine for less than $20,000. What we do is we layer
this, you know, membership-based system on top of this. So for $125 a
month -- or as I like to say 'for the cost of a coffee addiction' -- you
now have access to the tools of the industrial revolution."

Then there are all of those elements that have driven the birth of the
hardware startup movement. As foreign influence has driven down the
price of manufacturing tools, the race for dominance in the commercial
mobile space has significantly dropped the pricing and size of mobile
components, all while power and availability have skyrocketed. The
explosion of commercial 3D printers and microcontrollers means that
prototyping is no longer the semi-exclusive domain of larger companies.
And, of course, the influence of crowdfunding has offered more than
enough incentive for creative tinkerers to fully invest in seeing
notebook sketches through to fruition.

"As a result, you create your own job," explains Hatch. "You create a
job for your friend, and your next friend, and pretty soon you need an
office."

The company has constructed offices on-site, allowing fully formed
companies to exist in the same space as newly realized projects,
maintaining access to the impressive array of tools and the TechShop
hive mind.

While there's much to be said for the communal nature and exchange of
ideas that comes with setting up camp in the kitchen of one's
hackerspace, the time eventually comes for most companies to do business
behind closed doors. For TechShop, the answer is quite simple: be the
one to build those doors. The company has constructed offices on-site,
allowing fully formed companies to exist in the same space as newly
realized projects, maintaining access to the impressive array of tools
and the TechShop hive mind.

"Part of our design is to have startups actually officing on-site, and
they often graduate," says Hatch. "Then they'll move, you know, a couple
blocks away like Square. It's literally a half a block away and they now
have something like 300 employees." Now the place is home to a diverse
and fascinating array of companies and organizations like San Francisco
Made, a non-profit that, quite fittingly, is focused on promoting local
manufacturing.

There's also Type A Machines, a company borne out of the RepRap 3D
open-source 3D-printing home revolution.

"All of us are members here," says CEO Kevin Roney. "We actually base
our operations here in an office on the third floor. Type A Machines
does its complete production here in San Francisco at TechShop. We use
the Tormach [CNC mill] for milling out the hot ends, the waterjet for
cutting the fanblade mounts [and] the lasers for cutting the casing."

It's a small, but powerful reminder of how the hardware revolution
may some day turn the tides on the steady loss of manufacturing jobs
in this country.

It's quite a thing to behold, really: the company's full production line
laid out in its small, backroom offices, its Series 1 printers all
assembled on-site. They're a small, but powerful reminder of how the
hardware revolution may some day help turn the tides on the steady loss
of manufacturing jobs in this country. This all still seems a bit of a
pipedream for major manufacturing, but as demand for products becomes
more fragmented and niche, it's possible to see an increasingly
important role for localized manufacturing.
Located just next door, ProtoTank is more an idea factory than a
miniature in-house hardware manufacturer. "We're three guys and one
girl who just decided it was way too much fun to build hardware
together," explains co-founder Sam Brown. The company started life with
the creation of a Mario Bros.-inspired desktop lamp, a cube sporting
the familiar question mark that illuminates with impact. The location
of its first office space was a natural fit, given the communal nature
that gave rise to the company.

"These are some of the brightest minds I've come across," explains
fellow co-founder Adam Ellsworth. "While it's a four-person team, we
certainly wouldn't be in the place we are without the community. We can
create prototypes and small manufacturing runs with tools it wouldn't be
possible to fund ourselves. We couldn't afford a waterjet, and a laser
cutter would be a pretty large investment, but being in this building
allows us all that."

In amongst all this movement, the US government itself is beginning to
take notice of TechShop's goings-on.

The solution to improved communication between the two parties is a
sort of red Batphone that connects directly to the USPTO hotline,
located just to the side of a bank of computer workstations on the
second floor.

"One of our biggest fans is David Kappos, [former] head of the US Patent
and Trademark Office," says Hatch. "He came to Menlo Park a few years
ago and did a presentation to a bunch of inventors, and at the end of
it, grabbed our founder, Jim Newton, and said, 'Hey, we've got to work
with you guys because this is exactly what we need. We need more
inventors in the US, and we need to communicate better on what the
provisional patent means and how to go through the patent process and my
examiners are really there to help.'"

The solution to improved communication between the two parties is a sort
of red Batphone that connects directly to the USPTO hotline, located
just to the side of a bank of computer workstations on the second floor.

"We told the commerce department [about the phone]," says Hatch. "They,
of course, then told us that we need[ed] to have a green phone that
hooks directly to Commerce Connect."
It's easy to see why the government would take notice of TechShop. The
space is a utopian prototype for the push to foster a more
startup-friendly environment in the US. As with the media landscape
before it, one can foresee a future when a fair amount of hardware will
shift to a hyper-specialized model, with many consumers trading in
mass-produced products for limited-run devices targeted toward their
individual needs and desires. The smartphone revolution has done wonders
for the speed, size and price of components and explosions of
programmer-friendly hardware like Arduino boards and desktop 3D printers
have made it that much easier to transfer ideas from the drawing board
to the real world. If the US government has its way, of course, that
manufacturing will be happening right in our backyard. And with the help
of crowdfunding sites and desktop prototyping, it just may be TechShop
that leads that charge.

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BBC video...ancients

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-sBNzuVBgs&nofeather=True
BBC documentary takes you to 'Jal Yantra' waterclock, huge sundial... etc

/A

Kumbh Mela -- Nat Geo 2013 documentary

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIRptSUEOAg

Mac + OpenSource

Mac FOSS Directory - http://www.freesmug.org/review
Cool apps for every occasion!

/A

Mobile phone, creativity and boredom

Quoting: 'Numerous studies and much accepted wisdom suggest that time
spent doing nothing, being bored, is beneficial for sparking and
sustaining creativity. With our iPhone in hand — or any smartphone,
really — our minds, always engaged, always fixed on that tiny screen,
may simply never get bored. And our creativity suffers. ... For example,
psychology professor Gary Marcus distinguishes between the two primary
types of pursuits we use to defeat boredom. "Boredom is the brain's way
to tell you you should be doing something else. But the brain doesn't
always know the most appropriate thing to do. If you're bored and use
that energy to play guitar and cook, it will make you happy. But if you
watch TV, it may make you happy in the short term, but not in the long
term."

http://readwrite.com/2013/03/29/the-iphone-killed-my-creativity

/A

The Usefulness of Useless Knowledge

1939 Harpers essay...
http://library.ias.edu/files/UsefulnessHarpers.pdf

Enjoy!

/A

An American Hindu speaks...

http://www.youtube.com/embed/0KkZfM3aiGs

/A

Kunjunni Mash

Kunjunni Mash kavitakal : http://www.mathrubhumi.com/books/article/fiction/2323/

/A

watch "Beware of God"

"Beware of God" --> http://www.youtube.com/embed/Lzo4zPOYWvM?

/A

Music

Musician Leszek on Flute:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKI9HH3de90
(Bhimpalas)

Music related

Plumber's Flute : Make Your Own Instrument From PVC -
http://www.makingmusicmag.com/forte/pvc-flute.html

Practise Yoga to enhance your music:
http://www.makingmusicmag.com/music-and-health/yoga-enhances-music.html

/A

What most schools don't teach....

Watch the video...
http://www.youtube.com/v/dU1xS07N-FA?version=3&hl=en_US

/A

Carnatic music of yore

Alathur Brothers - Chokkane Raja (Kharaharapriya):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0x5eXmp2g60

Semmangudi -- Nagumomu (Abheri)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofgoh6Ef3io

/A

Online Education site, Intro to Mathematics by A.N. Whitehead etc...

* Online Free Education (courseware, streams, final exams, online certs)
[from Saylor Foundation] --> http://www.saylor.org/


* Intro to Mathematics by A.N. Whitehead (This is a classic!)

PDF (8.5MB, 270 pages) scanned copy at
http://ia700307.us.archive.org/22/items/introductiontoma00whitiala/introductiontoma00whitiala.pdf

/A

Science and Beyond Reason... (film)

Watch the film "Beyond Reason"
(video)
http://beyondmefilm.com/index.php/beyond-reason

/A

Girl scientist fights malaria

http://www.forbes.com/sites/deniserestauri/2012/12/19/mosquitoes-and-malaria-in-india-are-no-match-for-this-teen-girl-scientist/?ss=change-agents

/A

Higher Education: Pointers to read

2013 Predictions:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brian-kibby/higher-education-predictions_b_2553114.html

Bill Gates thinks something is wrong in College Ratings:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/luisakroll/2013/01/31/bill-gates-says-there-is-something-perverse-in-college-ratings/

/A

v. useful link

Achcha, pls try to download and save...

http://www.jyu.fi/ipho/problems.html
thanks/rgds
--Vasudha

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Egg-Bot... draw on eggs

Hobby stuff, repurposable h/w and s/w robot
to draw on eggs or anything!
==> http://www.egg-bot.com/

kuto vidhyaarthinaha sukham ?

"She could not control her emotions and burst into tears when she heard
the news of her CA results. "I was happy for me, my family and for the
new life that I will enter," said Prema Jayakumar, daughter of an
autorickshaw driver from Tamil Nadu, who lives in a chawl in Malad,
Mumbai.

Prema has topped the nationwide Chartered Accountancy examination in her
first attempt.

The tenement that she calls home is all of 280 sq. ft. where she and her
family live. But she is excited by the sudden elevation of her social
status, which will be soon be followed by financial uplift.

Not only was she happy for her, but also for her younger brother, who
along with her cracked the same examination. "We both can take care of
our family very easily. It's a matter of few months now, till I get a
job. I hope I shouldn't face much difficulty in that now," Ms. Jayakumar
told The Hindu."

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Take a test

Taking a test is not just a passive mechanism for assessing how much
people know, according to new research. It actually helps people learn,
and it works better than a number of other studying techniques.

The research, published online Thursday in the journal Science, found
that students who read a passage, then took a test asking them to recall
what they had read, retained about 50 percent more of the information a
week later than students who used two other methods.

One of those methods — repeatedly studying the material — is familiar to
legions of students who cram before exams. The other — having students
draw detailed diagrams documenting what they are learning — is prized by
many teachers because it forces students to make connections among
facts.

These other methods not only are popular, the researchers reported; they
also seem to give students the illusion that they know material better
than they do.

In the experiments, the students were asked to predict how much they
would remember a week after using one of the methods to learn the
material. Those who took the test after reading the passage predicted
they would remember less than the other students predicted — but the
results were just the opposite.

"I think that learning is all about retrieving, all about reconstructing our knowledge," said the lead author, Jeffrey Karpicke, an assistant professor of psychology at Purdue University. "I think that we're tapping into something fundamental about how the mind works when we talk about retrieval."

Several cognitive scientists and education experts said the results were
striking.

The students who took the recall tests may "recognize some gaps in their
knowledge," said Marcia Linn, an education professor at the University
of California, Berkeley, "and they might revisit the ideas in the back
of their mind or the front of their mind."

When they are later asked what they have learned, she went on, they can
more easily "retrieve it and organize the knowledge that they have in a
way that makes sense to them."

The researchers engaged 200 college students in two experiments,
assigning them to read several paragraphs about a scientific subject —
how the digestive system works, for example, or the different types of
vertebrate muscle tissue.

In the first experiment, the students were divided into four groups. One
did nothing more than read the text for five minutes. Another studied
the passage in four consecutive five-minute sessions.

A third group engaged in "concept mapping," in which, with the passage
in front of them, they arranged information from the passage into a kind
of diagram, writing details and ideas in hand-drawn bubbles and linking
the bubbles in an organized way.

The final group took a "retrieval practice" test. Without the passage in
front of them, they wrote what they remembered in a free-form essay for
10 minutes. Then they reread the passage and took another retrieval
practice test.

A week later all four groups were given a short-answer test that
assessed their ability to recall facts and draw logical conclusions
based on the facts.

The second experiment focused only on concept mapping and retrieval
practice testing, with each student doing an exercise using each method.
In this initial phase, researchers reported, students who made diagrams
while consulting the passage included more detail than students asked to
recall what they had just read in an essay.

But when they were evaluated a week later, the students in the testing
group did much better than the concept mappers. They even did better
when they were evaluated not with a short-answer test but with a test
requiring them to draw a concept map from memory.

Why retrieval testing helps is still unknown. Perhaps it is because by
remembering information we are organizing it and creating cues and
connections that our brains later recognize.

"When you're retrieving something out of a computer's memory, you don't change anything — it's simple playback," said Robert Bjork, a psychologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, who was not involved with the study.

But "when we use our memories by retrieving things, we change our
access" to that information, Dr. Bjork said. "What we recall becomes
more recallable in the future. In a sense you are practicing what you
are going to need to do later."

It may also be that the struggle involved in recalling something helps
reinforce it in our brains.

Maybe that is also why students who took retrieval practice tests were
less confident about how they would perform a week later.

"The struggle helps you learn, but it makes you feel like you're not learning," said Nate Kornell, a psychologist at Williams College. "You feel like: 'I don't know it that well. This is hard and I'm having trouble coming up with this information.' "

By contrast, he said, when rereading texts and possibly even drawing
diagrams, "you say: 'Oh, this is easier. I read this already.' "

The Purdue study supports findings of a recent spate of research showing
learning benefits from testing, including benefits when students get
questions wrong. But by comparing testing with other methods, the study
goes further.

"It really bumps it up a level of importance by contrasting it with concept mapping, which many educators think of as sort of the gold standard," said Daniel Willingham, a psychology professor at the University of Virginia. Although "it's not totally obvious that this is shovel-ready — put it in the classroom and it's good to go — for educators this ought to be a big deal."

Howard Gardner, an education professor at Harvard who advocates
constructivism — the idea that children should discover their own
approach to learning, emphasizing reasoning over memorization — said in
an e-mail that the results "throw down the gauntlet to those progressive
educators, myself included."

"Educators who embrace seemingly more active approaches, like concept mapping," he continued, "are challenged to devise outcome measures that can demonstrate the superiority of such constructivist approaches."

Testing, of course, is a highly charged issue in education, drawing
criticism that too much promotes rote learning, swallows valuable time
for learning new things and causes excessive student anxiety.

"More testing isn't necessarily better," said Dr. Linn, who said her work with California school districts had found that asking students to explain what they did in a science experiment rather than having them simply conduct the hands-on experiment — a version of retrieval practice testing — was beneficial. "Some tests are just not learning opportunities. We need a different kind of testing than we currently have."

Dr. Kornell said that "even though in the short term it may seem like a
waste of time," retrieval practice appears to "make things stick in a
way that may not be used in the classroom.

"It's going to last for the rest of their schooling, and potentially for the rest of their lives."

A version of this article appeared in print on January 21, 2011, on page
A14 of the New York edition.

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Interesting videos

http://k12videos.mit.edu/

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