Patterns

What Are Patterns? by Nello Cristianini

In the above video, the speaker talks about patterns, its history and the significance and usage of patterns.

Wikipedia quotes for Nello Cristianini-

Recent research has focused on the evolution on gene families in mammals, the automatic detection of reporting bias in media content, and the development of a unified framework for pattern analysis algorithms.

VideoLectures.net  has a collection of good videos on a variety of subjects.

if you are interested in patterns, read Turing pattern on Wired.com.

I am happy but not contended

Why do I blog?

1. Improve communication skills
2. Clarity of thought
3. To express myself (that’s the motto of the blog-Abhivyakty means expression)
4. Share my thoughts and experiences with others

During school days, as I would start studying on verandah, my neighbor would turn on radio/TV and put it on high volume. Instead of cursing his jealousy (if any), I maintained calm and developed myself to study/learn in a noisy environment. That proved to be a boon in my later life.

There was a time when I could hardly talk with peers, friends, relatives, known people and strangers, let alone sharing my personal thoughts and experiences. During childhood I was a shy kid reluctant to talk to anybody, as a teenager I was sometimes afraid, sometimes feared of sharing personal things. During school, as a teenager I ignored social networking (I am not talking about online social networking here), sharing and talking with peers solely because I thought it was such a waste of time.

But no! That’s not how the world and society works. After I came to Pune and started working on the job, I realized the importance of communication skills, interpersonal skills and presentation skills among others in addition to intelligence. At times I had to convince others, and at other times I had to order, take permission, delegate, ask for help, and offer help to get the job done.

During course of my employment of 3 years, I pursued M.S. (from BITS Pilani). During 4^th semester I had to do a dissertation-all the tasks had to be decided by me and worked upon them-to successfully complete it. During the course of this dissertation, I learnt a lot about the process itself.

Recently I was searching for some “how to” articles on PhD and stumbled upon Azuma’s ‘A graduate school survival guide’. The guide described what the author should have known at the start of the graduate school but had to learn the hard way instead. As the Chinese proverb goes-“To know the road ahead, ask those coming back”, I thought of going through the guide. As the guide offered some tips from an experienced PhD student, I began reading it.

Go, read it. Its not enough just to be academically successful, but be able to inculcate the skills required to survive in this highly competitive world. After reading the guide, I contemplated over my professional experience of 3 years and I have to say my job has taught me some of the skills described in this guide.

Once I get my MS degree, it will be time to start working on PhD. My mother wants her children to pursue formal education as much as possible (whether this is truly an education is altogether a different story; self-learning has to be inculcated)-which is a primary factor for my success in education. I am the first one in my family to complete graduation (I am aware that this is not a big achievement. There are many in this country who have achieved greater heights despite social, economical and cultural hindrances/barriers) and her support and will power helped me to achieve it.

I am happy but not contended:)

Update: Surely I would not have been in a sound condition today had it not been the perseverance of my teachers in the school. I owe a lot to them.

Related post:

https://siddheshabhivyakty.wordpress.com/2009/08/31/a-milestone-reached

How to be more creative?

While education traditionally has focused on literacy and maths, the ability to think creatively – in this case, generate ideas – has been forgotten and neglected. Creativity is a vague term, and is commonly regarded a gift or a talent that can not be learnt. Creative professionals rely on the ability to create something out of nothing. People use a variety of tactics in order to produce good ideas, but few of these are rooted in science and an understanding of how the brain functions. The problem might be that we are unaware that such ideas and techniques exist. It might also be based on misconceptions about what creativity is.

Read more at http://www.thethinkingblog.com/2007/10/study-how-to-be-more-creative.html.

11 things they did not and will not learn in school

Bill Gates gave a speech at a High School about 11 things they did not and will not learn in school. He talks about how feel-good, politically correct teachings created a generation of kids with no concept of reality and how this concept set them up for failure in the real world.

Rule 1 : Life is not fair – get used to it!

Rule 2: The world won’t care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.

Rule 3: You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won’t be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.

Rule 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.

Rule 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your Grandparents had a different word for burger flipping: they called it opportunity.

Rule 6: If you mess up, it’s not your parents’ fault, so don’t whine about your mistakes, learn from them.

Rule 7: Before you were born, your parents weren’t as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent’s generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.

Rule 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT. In some schools, they have abolished failing grades and they’ll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer. This doesn’t bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.

Rule 9: Life is not divided into semesters. You don’t get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. Do that on your own time.

Rule 10: Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.

Rule 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you’ll end up working for one.

Source: http://pankajkm.blogspot.com/search/label/Interesting%20Information

Don’t get stuck in a learning stage

While browsing on net, I found a nice article on the learning curve – “Don’t get stuck in a learning stage” by Harwell Thrasher.

I’ve heard that we go through a progression of stages as we learn a new topic. Before starting to learn a topic, we’re so oblivious to the subject matter that we’re not even aware of what it’s about. We’re in Stage 1: we don’t know what we don’t know. Gradually, we become aware of our own limitations in knowledge, and we go to Stage 2: we know what we don’t know. Then, as our knowledge increases, we enter Stage 3: we know what we know. At this point we have the knowledge, but it’s new enough to us that we consciously have to think about using it. Finally, as we integrate the knowledge into our day-to-day lives, we go to Stage 4: we don’t know what we know. The knowledge becomes part of us, and it’s buried so deep inside us that we don’t even have to think about it to use it.

The progression sounds reasonable – it rings true with my own experience. But I’m convinced that some people get stuck in some of these stages.

Stuck in Stage 1: we don’t know what we don’t know
There are those who are stuck in Stage 1. They are fundamentally ignorant about a topic, yet they think they know everything about it, and can best be described as “often wrong but seldom in doubt.” People like this who aren’t aware of their own limitations are dangerous. Working with them is like walking on a frozen lake in the spring – we never know where the ice will be so thin that we fall through into the frigid water below.

If you have to work with Stage 1 people, try to get a second opinion for everything they recommend in the topic area. If you are the kind of person who gets stuck in Stage 1, then start figuring out what your strengths and weaknesses are, and learn to tell the difference. Ask yourself, “What can I learn that will help me do what I need to do?”

Stuck in Stage 2: we know what we don’t know
Then there are the people who get stuck in Stage 2. They get overwhelmed by their lack of knowledge, just as someone might be overwhelmed by trying to count the grains of sand on a beach. They lose perspective, and they forget their strengths by overshadowing them with all of their perceived weaknesses. Some of the Stage 2 people become knowledge junkies, always trying to read more, learn more, get a better understanding.

Not long ago, a university professor told me about one of his students who had graduated and gone on to a professional career. The former student kept calling the professor to get a good reference book or article for this problem or that. The professor was lamenting to me that he couldn’t make the former student understand that it’s time to just do something, and to quit trying to do so much research.

The student was stuck in Stage 2, frightened by all of the things in real life that aren’t taught in college. What the student was forgetting is that no matter how good we are or how prepared we are, we’re going to make mistakes. If you’re stuck in Stage 2, then you need to leverage your strengths and move on. Use what you know, learn about some of the things you need to learn, but don’t get overwhelmed by all of the things you don’t know.

Stuck in Stage 3: we know what we know
Being stuck in Stage 3 is a bit different. It’s usually the result of a lack of self-confidence. Most people who learn a new skill will eventually get comfortable with it. If you don’t get comfortable, then either you don’t really have the skill yet (keep trying), or the difference between your skill level and the skill levels of others is so great that you’re overwhelmed.

It helps to remember that the others who are more skilled have a lot more experience than you do. Don’t expect miracles overnight – just keep trying to get better and better every day. Ask yourself, “What can I do that will help me use what I’ve learned?”

Stuck in Stage 4: we don’t know what we know
What does it mean to be stuck in Stage 4? After all, Stage 4 is the point where we’ve integrated the knowledge into our life, so isn’t that the end stage?

Unfortunately, no it isn’t. Human beings are on a never-ending journey to constantly increase their knowledge and skill throughout their lives. After Stage 4 comes Stage 1 again, just at a different level of proficiency or for a different subject. Being stuck in Stage 4 is like being stuck in Stage 1: we’ve progressed to a certain level, and we’ve stopped learning. It may not seem quite as bad as being stuck in Stage 1, but the result is the same: no forward progress.

Conclusion
Learning comes in stages that help us learn, integrate the knowledge, use the knowledge, and then learn some more. If we focus on the learning without deriving any benefit from the learning, then we’re not progressing as individuals. If we focus on the doing without continuing to learn, then our progress stops as well. Improvement in our lives depends on both learning and doing in the proper mix.

Don’t get stuck in a learning stage: keep making things better for yourself, for your family, and for your business.

Indian education dumb? Think Again…

It probably holds good for the whole world, but it’s demonstrably true that in India there isn’t a parent who does not think his or her child is the cutest, smartest prodigy anywhere. In the timeless and torturous Indian ritual, children are introduced to memory feats in this manner: ” Beta, uncle aur aunty ko twinkle twinkle little star sunaa do ,” the parents will flute. If you are lucky to be a parent yourself, you will smile indulgently at the infant’s schtick; if not, you will grin and bear it.

Indian education typically involves teaching by repetition. Learning by heart, cramming, mugging are some of the terms we use for memorisation. To this day I can recite reams of Shakespeare, sundry shlokas and mantras, several laws of physics, and multiplication tables deep into double digits, some of them inspired by caning from the teachers Varghese and Joseph. Little of it has come to any use. Last month, I surpassed my grasp of trivia by recalling the playing 11 in the first Test of the 1969 Australian team that toured India, my first exposure to international cricket.

Such demonic passion for mnemonics was recently displayed on YouTube by a proud Indian father who got his three-year-old son to recite the capitals of all 50 American states. Doubtless, he will not go on to be Einstein, about whom one of his teachers said “would never be able to do anything that would make any sense in this life,” and another essayed that his “available grade reports present a picture of, at worst, a moderately successful student.”

In contrast, American kids are less into learning by rote or trivia, although one does come across the oddball who can reel off the 1969 Mets V Orioles World Series scores. My friend Adam cares diddly squat about Boyle’s Law or the Bible, but he gutted his entire bathroom down to pot and plumbing, tub and tiling, and rebuilt it himself for less than $5,000 (half of what a contractor would have charged). Meantime, I blew a gasket paying $80 to get my lawnmower fixed ($56 labour, $24 parts), thanks to an education system that didn’t allow me to get my hands dirty.

But, it turns out that there is something to be said for our desi system of bending our brains rather than our backs, beyond paraphrasing a successful Indian who insisted he wouldn’t bother about paying $56 an hour if he could bill $500 an hour.

Recent reports say there is now a growing craze in Japan for Indian style education. The few Indian schools in Japan are reporting a surge of application from locals. Bookstores are filled with titles like Extreme Indian Arithmetic Drills and The Unknown Secrets of the Indians . And newspaper reports speak with awe about how Indian children memorise multiplication tables far beyond nine times nine, the standard for young elementary students in Japan.

In the US, a documentary called Two Million Minutes (the estimated time that students spend in high school) which compares American students unfavourably with their Indian and Chinese counterparts, has become part of the national discourse on education. Some commentators are talking up India as an education superpower. And Tom Friedman goes around the country warning young Americans that hungry Indian kids burning the midnight oil are out to take their jobs.

So, there is something we are doing right, even if it isn’t teaching our kids to fix things. It’s a thought though that had we tweaked our system to teach our generation to tweak things around, we might also have been a great manufacturing power by now.

var RN = new String (Math.random()); var RNS = RN.substring (2,11); var b2 = ‘ ‘; if (doweshowbellyad==1) bellyad.innerHTML = b2;

Education Dumbed

Could You Have Passed the 8th Grade of 1895?
Probably Not…Take a Look at http://mwhodges.home.att.net/1895-test.htm

Education : A hacker’s perspective

Well I can go on with my own words , but somehow I failed to be so conclusive and convincing than this speech by Wark McKenzie - How a hacker feels about education :

Education

Education is slavery, it enchains the mind and makes it a resource for class power. When the ruling class preaches the necessity of an education it invariably means an education in necessity. Education is not the same as knowledge. Nor is it the necessary means to acquire knowledge. Education is the organisation of knowledge within the constraints of scarcity. Education ‘disciplines’ knowledge, segregating it into homogenous ‘fields’, presided over by suitably ‘qualified’ guardians charged with policing the representation of the field. One may acquire an education, as if it were a thing, but one becomes knowledgeable, through a process of transformation. Knowledge, as such, is only ever partially captured by education, its practice always eludes and exceeds it.

The pastoralist class has resisted education, other than as indoctrination in obedience. When capital required ‘hands’ to do its dirty work, the bulk of education was devoted to training useful hands to tend the machines, and docile bodies who would accept as natural the social order in which they found themselves. When capital required brains, both to run its increasingly complex operations and to apply themselves to the work of consuming its products, more time spent in the prison house of education was required for admission to the ranks of the paid working class.

The so-called middle class achieve their privileged access to consumption and security through education, in which they are obliged to invest a substantial part of their income. But most remain workers, even though they work with information rather than cotton or metal. They work in factories, but are trained to think of them as offices. They take home wages, but are trained to think of it as a salary. They wear a uniform, but are trained to think of it as a suit. The only difference is that education has taught them to give different names to the instruments of exploitation, and to despise those their own class who name them differently.

Where the capitalist class sees education as a means to an end, the vectoralist class sees it as an end in itself. It sees opportunities to make education a profitable industry in its own right, based on the securing of intellectual property as a form of private property. To the vectoralists, education, like culture, is just ‘content’ for commodification.

The hacker class have an ambivalent relationship to education. The hacker class desires knowledge, not education. The hacker comes into being though the pure liberty of knowledge in and of itself. The hack expresses knowledge in its virtuality, by producing new abstractions that do not necessarily fit the disciplinary regime of managing and commodifying education. . Hacker knowledge implies, in its practice, a politics of free information, free learning, the gift of the result to a network of peers. Hacker knowledge also implies an ethics of knowledge subject to the claims of public interest and free from subordination to commodity production. This puts the hacker into an antagonistic relationship to the struggle of the capitalist class to make education an induction into wage slavery.

Only one intellectual conflict has any real bearing on the class issue for hackers: Whose property is knowledge? Is it the role of knowledge to authorise subjects through education that are recognised only by their function in an economy by manipulating its authorised representations as objects? Or is it the function of knowledge to produce the ever different phenomena of the hack, in which subjects become other than themselves, and discover the objective world to contain potentials other than it appears?