math - remains scary for most

I hopped on the International Math Olympiad (IMO) website which lists the ranking of countries those participated in it. For the year 2011, it shows that India stands at a ranking of 23, and when I look at the ranking for the previous years, it is shocking to see how the ranking has been running down the slope.. During the year 1998 the ranking stood at 7.During the last twenty three years, the ranking with a single digit has been only twice. And today in Times of India, there is an article under Times Crescent which talks on the similar topic. At the Schools and Colleges it is the race for taking a course that would get the best paying job and during all this race what has happened is...a student is turned into a machine that accepts inputs from various sides with no self learning. The interest of learning is kept aside while the interest to get a job is kept alive since the day one of school to the end of graduation day. This reminds of the movie Three Idiots which has shown this scenario really well. What has happened through the years in the education system is - make the pupil read and retain (not learn), give them loads of books, make them appear for various entrance exams and don't allow them to think and see what they really want to do. Courses have become more of a job oriented than of a benefit to a larger mass. Like, today, there are very few takers to learn about Math or do research in Math. The papers published on Math has been decreasing, thus giving very few people who can be part of National Research for the good of the larger mass. All the while what happens is the student is not able to cope up with too many things and devote good amount of time in studying on his own. This has lead to attending tuitions outside the school/college and tuitions have become like a must have thing for a student. Spending around 1/3 of the time at school and 1/4 of the time in tuitions, the student is not left with time to learn the things on own. This leading to fear about some subjects. Math has the large number of students who fear it. Mathofabia! Math requires ample time to be sent in learning how those can be applied in real life scenarios.. Learning about theorems, equations, etc is fun if the approach and the liking is towards learning the subject and enjoying it, than just being a passenger in the Math train where the knowledge is retained for just a while...after few months of exams, hardly most of the pupil would remember how to solve a problem... "Like being best on the job or eating a meal, learning can't be enjoyed unless there is a liking..." Well to increase liking and support Math, Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh  declared 22nd December to be celebrated National Mathematics Day (in remembrance of contribution from Srinavasa Ramanujan) and 2012 as a year of 'National Mathematical Year' .

the new look of the blogger...continued...

The new look of the blogger makes it easy for posting and managing different blogs. The dashboard view with the page view information is great.. The section in particular..named as Stats is impressive. I always wondered if this kind of information would be available someday...and it is now... I was surprised to know the different traffic sources to my blog as well as the audience (giving information on the country, browser and the OS information including the mobile ones). One thing I need to try is to enable mobile view of the blog...and I am keen to see how the mobile version of the blog would appear on i-touch and blackberry...

the new look of the blogger...

Almost four months since blogger.com changed the layout of the screens to manage the blog and posts! I am definetly late here... Zero blog posts during 2011! Thats a big change which I had never thought would happen - with me not posting at least even one post during a year.. Well its never late, and to wake my writing habit I am starting with this post... There is lot to write yet...

its worth sharing…

while i was programming….

Programming was good while i did it during my college days..and sometimes when i do it now to help my blog improve.. Well I began to write this post to describe how it was..when i was completely into programming… Some of the languages i used then are not relevant now, however they did help develop the logic..logic is independent of programming language like music is… Cobol, Lisp, VB 6 and not to forget C and C++ which still rule the world… While I was completely into Computers and programming, it was a good fun… change a variable, the results are so different… developed my own Operating System while i was in graduation…may be i will work on that after retiring from my job to improve that..and some funny programs written to print everything into caps or in reverse order were fun and exciting…from the machine language programming i learnt that the pc does not multiply x * y, it actually adds x, y times…wow that was something interesting..and more interesting was LISP and PROLOG to help build systems like humans which have thinking and power to correct themselves… all in all it was a good fun writing programs that involved prime number identification to learning systems… well i say technology helps to be creative till you have the solution, after then it makes people lazy or in other words get used to convenience…and its not bad…we always try to reduce the effort and see gains in productivity, don't we? Logic is what matters in the world today, no matter how you achieve it…either by C or by C# you got to describe the logic else #include in C or C# won’t understand what you are trying to achieve…

 

image courtesy - http://degreedirectory.org/cimages/multimages/2/computer_programming.jpg

flying… I am not advertising thou…

For the last three times while I came out of India, I took Emirates…couple of reasons for it… First, the fares are not that expensive as compared to BA..the airport tax to go via London is around 24k while to go via Dubai is 4k..a net savings of at least 20k on the fare..Second, the service in Emirates is well known for it being a world class service with a good crew to assist…

Third, the stop over at Dubai is worth…The duty free and the airport itself is worth visiting. In the recent times, Dubai has been challenging the norms of buildings..the mega structures it has built in the last few years are amazing..be it the airport or the burj al arab hotel..the structures are a great view..and the city often features in the Nat Geo’s Mega Structures… the city from the air looks to be well planned with wide roads and fast moving traffic…Well the temperature is always around 40 degree Celsius during day, while you are surrounded by ac, it does not make a difference. Lastly, the huge airport does not make it crowded while there are so many flights landing and taking off especially during the local morning hours…However I still hate the long flights…it takes 18 hours flight to travel from Bangalore to New York, science should advance a little more and have the flights fly at a speed of double than what they currently fly to make the flights less lengthy!

once upon a time…

Wondering that I am saying a story that would begin like ‘once upon a time..long long ago…’ na…its not a story time..a time to write the Once Upon Time in Mumbai..movie review.. The songs of this movie are different and reminds of old bollywood songs…and yes, after a long time, there have been some nice songs from bollywood that I liked.. Peeloon…and Tum Jo  Aaye are the two songs that make me listen to them often… Movie is nice with good screenplay and story line.. background music adds more to the movie..Movie is about two smugglers who struggle to remain on top and want control over the underworld of mumbai. Based on true stories of two gangsters of mumbai – Haji Mastan and Dawood Ibrahim, the movie is a result of good research done by the writer and director to put it on the screen. The way the movie is made reminds the old hindi movies with those old cars and old streets of mumbai..the attire of the cast makes it more look like the old movies. Ajay Devgan (Sultan Mirza) is the top underworld gangster who has the policy not to make enemies when something can be achieved by offering friendship. He does illegal activities however is good to the poor and needy. Emraan Hashmi (Shoaib Khan) son of a inspector in Mumbai like to be rich in short span of time however his path to being rich and powerful is different than of Sultan Mirza. And yes Emraan Hashmi has a decent role in this movie unlike his other movies where… you know what I mean to write! The fight between two which starts in the second half of the movie leaves Sultan Mirza killed by Shoaib. Kanaga Ranaut (Rehana) plays a role of famous bollywood actress in the movie and is close to Sultan Mirza. She has come quite well in this movie and finally she gets a role where you dont find her drinking or being addicted to drugs and being betrayed by someone. Prachi Desai (Mumtaz) plays a role of sales girl in a jewellery shop and is in love with Shoaib. After Rock On, she has come good in this movie. The movie is a narration from an inspector who is on a mission to free Mumbai from the hands of underworld. The story telling and the screenplay with a old style background score and punch lines make the movie nice and it does deserver  a four star (****) and a post on my blog..

imbd link

official website

movie trailer

driving my car…

Ah… Driving my car, it is a wonderful experience when it is post 11 pm (most of the times, unless you have the opposite vehicle coming with high beam in city limits! Damn when will people learn)… While I drive during day, it is painful…traffic and more than traffic it is the unorganized traffic. Bikes, autos and sometimes even cars try to overtake you from the wrong side. Minute the traffic light goes green, the vehicle behind you starts the painful to listen horns… Dude, I don't have any intensions to set up my office or leaving room in the traffic signal..give me a second till the vehicle ahead me moves or the auto tries to sneak into the little very little space between my car and the vehicle ahead me…just chill..The roads have lanes, why don’t you follow, if you want to take a right, be on the right lane..there is neither nobody trying to judge your driving skills nor anybody trying to take you in the next fast and furious by seeing your driving skills that take a right turn by being on the extreme left of the lane…ah well if you can drive in Bangalore, I think you can drive anywhere…i mean anywhere, be it nyc, or be it the airport runway of Dubai..you will know when to apply breaks and when to accelerate and make your way! Jokes apart..you will be a driver with patience if you manage to drive in Bangalore traffic without loosing your patience…