Music

I don't have many regrets but one of the biggest is not learning music.

Around the age of 8, and by quite an accident, I discovered I had a mellifluous voice. In fact I was one of the best singers in the school! It was during those days that I tried my hand at my first instrument - harmonium. For the uninitiated Harmonium is a ancient Indian wind-powered keyboard, similar to an accordion. Then my attention was hijacked by percussion instrument, tabla. That did not last. I was soon fascinated by the Hawaiian guitar instead. Which was followed by a few weeks of acoustic guitar lessons.

No matter what the instrument, I leaned it intently for a few weeks but before I got actually good at it I moved on...Somewhere along all this cavorting around, puberty happened. Vocal chords cracked up, and I was kicked out of the choir. And as a final blow to the musician inside of me I switched to a school where there was no music teacher. No choir. No music.

In college I picked up violin but Gods willed otherwise.... Whenever I practiced violin in my room (which mostly meant in the evening), a stupid bat would enter my room and start circling around. I am not making this up! It used to be hot in Kanpur so typically our doors and windows were kept open. This stupid bat (all right I don't know for sure if it was the same one every time but still..) would invite himself. This was bad enough but one fine day the shit hit the fan. I mean literally, the bat hit the ceiling fan. Broke his wing and fell on the floor. My room mate, Devvrat, tried valiantly to cure him using antiseptic cream but the bugger did not survive the night. And that ladies and gentlemen was the last day I played violin. The end.

Now why after all these years am I boring you with the sissy story. For one it is funny (I mean seriously, a bat!). Secondly I heard an interesting fact. Because it is a tonal language, Mandarin speakers are more likely to have a perfect pitch. Perfect pitch, considered to be the preserve of only talented musicians, is the ability to

"differentiate a musical note of a particular pitch without the benefit of a reference note. The visual equivalent is calling a red apple "red". While most people do this effortlessly, without, for example, having to compare a red to a green apple, perfect pitch is extremely rare in the U.S. and Europe, with an estimated prevalence in the general population of less than one in 10,000."

Imagine the ability to reverse engineer a song it its constituent notes by just hearing it. Even more magical than deciphering the ingredients by sampling a dish, isn't it?

Of course the highest level of excellence is to not just recreate but invent - the talent of composing a brilliant new piece of music. Or is it?

Listen to this man. He not just composing music, he is extracting it from random chatter that most would consider noise. Notice the beauty here, he recreates an orchestra using weights, bottle caps, duct tape and ping-pong balls !!

Hauschka at NPR: Improvisation from NPR on Vimeo.

Hauschka at NPR: Mount Hood from NPR on Vimeo.

Difference Between Insanity & Genius is Sucess

Or in this case the difference between "World's dumbest videos" and "World's top daredevils" is walking away alive.Watch this jaw dropping compilation of stunt jumps. If you are short of time watch the rank #1 at least.

Human Body

Watched a very moving BBC short on human physiology. My words can't do it justice, so I suggest you experience it yourself.

Fossilized Rain Drops!

Today I read an intriguing study about fossilized rain drop impressions and how they can be used to measure earth's atmospheric pressure 2.7 billion years ago!

(Image: Verrisimilus/CC BY-SA 3.0)

Firstly, it is pretty amazing that something as delicate as a rain drop impression can fossilize and survive for 2.7 billion years! All you need are perfect conditions - ground is covered with a fresh covering of volcanic ash and rainfall is not too heavy or too light but just the right size. The impressions may then harden into into stone, preserving them for present day scientists.

The second and more beautiful aspect is the implication. It turns out that size of a rain drop is strongly correlated with surface tension, force of gravity, and most importantly atmospheric pressure. By careful measurement of the indentations and some simulation, the atmospheric pressure seen by the earliest microbial lifeforms can be extracted. The value of atmospheric pressure is also useful to extract the amount of insolation the young earth received.

While geologists did have some idea about the gas composition of the ancient atmosphere, before this study almost nothing was known about the pressure. The full paper is under peer-review.

Immortal Game

Recently I have picked up Chess with mild enthusiasm. I have started learning about all the standard openings: Roy Lupez, Sicilian defence, King's Gambit, etc. Caught up on the history of the game, e.g. did you know that Chess comes from an ancient Indian game of caturaṅga(Sanskrit: four divisions [of the military] – infantry, cavalry, elephants, and chariotry, represented by the pieces that would evolve into the modern pawn, knight, bishop, and rook, respectively)?

Looking at historical games, it is hard to find a more audacious version of King's gambit than the "Immortal Game". German chess master Adolf Anderssen, while playing Lionel Kieseritzky, sacrificed the Queen, both Rooks and a Bishop, but still managed to checkmate his opponent with only three minor pieces!

While I agree that this happened in an era when chess defenses were not that well developed but it still is brilliant game play.

"Hope is a Thief"

Dying and Dinner Parties from ThinPlace Pictures on Vimeo.

It is hard to find anything wrong to say about hope! It makes a hard life worth living, keeps the society motivated and productive, allows us to tide over a bad day. For a more convincing defense, I advise you to watch Shawshank Redemption.

However, I also have Buddhist leanings. In fact among all the religions/philosophies I have come across, it is the one that makes most sense. Buddhism values only the present. Past or future are beyond ones control so no point worrying about them. In that perspective, hope isn't a positive feeling. By definition hopefulness betrays a yearning for future and should be avoided.

Personally, I am still on the fence. Can't really decide... Can you?

Molyneux's question

Frankly I had never heard of either Molyneux or his question before today morning. In brief, Molyneux wondered whether a man who has been born blind and who has learnt to distinguish and name a globe and a cube by touch, would be able to distinguish and name these objects simply by sight, once he had been enabled to see.

The question has been debated by philosophers for 300 years, and lately neuroscientists have become interested in it as well. According to Dr. Pawan Sinha of MIT, the question relates to how perceptions are formed in brain [1].

"Do the different modalities, or senses, build up a common representation, or are these independent representations that one cannot access even though the other modality has built it?"

While there has been some indirect evidence, no one was able to perform a direct test because of lack of test subjects. In rich countries, curable congenital blindness is identified and cured in infancy. Dr. Sinha realized that this was not the case in developing countries. In 2003 he conducted a study in India where he identified 5 young adults with curable blindness. By measuring their ability to discriminate between shapes first using touch and then sight, he was able to experimentally recreate the conditions posed by Molyneux.

The short answer, it turns out, is no. Although after restoration of sight, the subjects could distinguish between objects visually as effectively as they would do by touch alone, they were unable to form the connection between object perceived using the two different senses. So we do not have a central memory where information from all the senses in stored.

This makes me wonder how does brain cross-reference data from different senses in form one coherent version. Maybe the versions are not coherent. What if one version dominates over others and so we end up with a less than true version of reality!


[1] http://www.news.com.au/technology/sci-tech/molyneuxs-question-gets-answered-after-300-years/story-fn5fsgyc-1226037177460
[2] Held, R.; Ostrovsky, Y.; Degelder, B.; Gandhi, T.; Ganesh, S.; Mathur, U.; Sinha, P. (2011). "The newly sighted fail to match seen with felt". Nature Neuroscience. doi:10.1038/nn.2795

Journalism and Ethics

Today I read a very interesting article that highlights the ethical issues of journalism. Question is: at what point it behooves a journalist to stop reporting and sympathize with victims? How does a journalist best serve the society; by reporting the story in the most thought proving way or by reacting humanely?

Recently a photograph captured by photographer Paul Hansen, was chosen as the best International News Image at the Swedish Picture of the Year Awards. The subject is a 15-year-old Haitian earthquake victim Fabienne Cherisma who was shot in the head by the police for looting two plastic chairs and three framed pictures.

The image is striking. To me it signifies the scale of destruction in Haiti, the desperation of the poor, and psychological scarring of children. To others it may throw questions about police brutality, ethics of stealing for survival or the unfairness of life. But what we can all agree on is that the picture captures all that is sad about a phenomenal tragedy. Pictures like these force us to empathize with victims at a very personal level, and are instrumental in raising awareness and money for rescue and relief efforts.

But there is another side to the story. Here is a photograph by Nathan Weber, showing a group of photographers crowding around the poor girls body. Sadly, the media circus continued even in front of the bereaved family.

You can't help but wonder at the intentions of these journalists? Is it all about getting a big story? Do they even care about the victims? In fact is it their job to care about the victims? Don't they best serve the society by just doing their job? What about individual right to privacy? Why should anyone profit from a victims misery? And finally why should such controversial pictures be awarded top prizes?

Phan Thị Kim Phúc in Trang Bang, Vietnam
by Nick Ut/AP, 1972 Pulitzer Prize

Emaciated girl, Sudan 
by Kevin Carter, 1994 Pulitzer Prize

The debate is old. From Vietnam to Sudan, there have been photographs that make you question professional ethics. The problem is particularly severe for reporters because unlike professions like engineering or medicine, there is no objective measure of repercussions. A doctor can be sued for bad judgements on the operating table and an engineer can be tried for a faulty bridge. But how do make journalists accountable? In most democracies libel laws tend to side with the press, and rightfully so. The lack of negative feedback has led to a situation where there are no repercussions for screwing up. It is acceptable to run a story that is in bad taste or is false. Somebody's life gets ruined and all they can hope for is a one line retraction in the next issue. In some sense lawyers suffer from the same problem. It is part of the job to help acquit a serial killer on a technicality!


What do you think?

One Liners..

Saw a good post today. It was about interesting one liners. Some of my favorites are:

1. I asked God for a bike, but I know God doesn't work that way. So I stole a bike and asked for forgiveness.
2. Before you insult a man, walk a mile in his shoes. That way, when you insult him, you'll be a mile away, and have his shoes.
3. Do not argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience.
4. Depression is just anger without enthusiasm.
5. We never really grow up, we only learn how to act in public.

Physical Fitness

Growing up in an education obsessed middle-class Indian family, physical fitness was never a priority. Interestingly, this is a new phenomenon. Even as late as my father's generation, youngsters were encouraged to be active. My uncle played basketball at the national level and my father swam for 4 hours everyday. Unfortunately by the time I was born, India had changed.

Rate of population growth outpaced growth of opportunities. College degrees became more important than physical fitness. Studies trumped sports. Focus was always on doing well in school, nothing more was expected or encouraged. My father was not particularly happy with the change but economics always wins out. Consequently, by the time I got to IIT Kanpur I could barely run a mile.

But this post is not about sports in India. It is about my slow realization that fitness is also important. Having a working set of knees at 60 is a worthy goal! The change started late in undergrad but took a firm hold when I came to US. I ran a marathon in 2007. It was probably the first time in my life when I felt fit and it was a nice feeling. Since then I have dabbled in squash, weight training, and lately yoga.

During the time I have learned a few things. Some of them are:

1. Human body is very quick to react to a fitness regimen. All it takes to run a marathon is 16 weeks of supervised training! Regularity is the key. Find a regimen no matter how easy but stick to it.

2. Balanced workout is very important. You can't attach a jet engine to a car. Workout only the arms and you will get injured. Try improving your running times without strength training, you will get injured. If done in isolation. routines like "100 pushups in 6 weeks" can be harmful.

3. Stretching is not very useful for runners. This is especially true for static stretching. At best it it should be done after workouts, and not before. Warm ups, strength training are known to work for runners, stretching is not.

4. But flexibility does have some injury prevention benefits. Active stretching is the way to go. I have found yoga to be very fun way to increase flexibility.

5. In strength training, machines are useless and nothing beats barbell training. Exercising isolated muscles is neither healthy nor comprehensive. Normal physical activities use many muscles, not just one. So developing only one muscle at a time does not train them to work together.

Why is renewable energy ALWAYS expensive?

As a researcher in Photovoltaics(read solar cells), I think a lot about renewable energy. For the Rip Van Winkles of the world, we seem to be running out of oil. Also most scientists believe that all the fossil fuel burning is heating up the planet too much (Let me be precise here. We know that earth is heating up but we are not sure if it is caused by humans.). So we need alternative sources of energy that are not exhaustible and do not produce prodigious amounts of excess greenhouse gasses.

Enter renewable energy. By definition it refers to energy derived from sources that can regenerate ("renew") naturally. Biggest examples are wind, water, geothermal, sunlight, etc. Also included are solutions like bio-diesel, which do emit carbon dioxide but that carbon is subsequently recycled it back into fuel.

Now the big question. Compared to fossil fuels, why are all the renewable energy sources so expensive? No matter what technology you chose, solar-electric, solar-thermal, algae-diesel, wind, etc. compared to fossil fuels it is always more costly. It turns out that the problem is not availability but the low density of energy. Let me explain....

What is the ultimate source of all energy on the planet, other than nuclear power, it is the Sun. Everything from weather to food is ultimately being powered by our star. On an average day the Sun beats down around 174 pentawatts of power; that is more energy in one hour than what the total energy consumed by the world in 2002 [1]. Where does all this energy go? A substantial portion is radiated back to space. In fact it is the reduction in this reflected power, due to green house gasses, that is responsible for global warming. The rest of the energy gets dissipated as wind, stored as biomass, etc.

While this is a lot of energy, it is very dilute. The amount of energy falling on the surface of a typical car (~8 m sq. [2]) is only 8 kW, i.e. 10.5 bhp. Compare this to the power of an average gasoline engine (~110 bhp) and you realize that even if we capture 100% of the incident energy, we can't power a car purely from sunlight falling on it. To make a solar powered car, we need to concentrate the Sun's energy into a more dense form. We can store the energy into a battery, or make bio-diesel, or generate hydrogen from water, etc. Now fossil fuels have done this concentration naturally over the course of many million years, but renewable sources do not have that long! Since this extra time is not being priced by the market, all such technologies seem more expensive.

In some sense we have been spoiled by oil. Our requirements of energy density are just way too high and unfair. May be we need to reduce standards by going for efficiency. Smart grids, lighter cars, smaller cars, etc. are all needed before renewables can take off.


[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_energy
[2] http://www.usatoday.com/money/autos/2007-07-15-little-big-cars_N.htm

Technology and Development

Today I came across a fascinating bit of news on BBC. It details the business model of a small supply chain company, United Villages, based in rural Rajasthan, India.

While there has been a lot of talk about fortunes at the "bottom of the pyramid", not many businesses have yet reached out to the poor rural masses of India. As it turns out, the bottleneck is cost. In the isolated pockets of India, i.e. the middle-of-nowhere villages with a population of less than 5000, it is just not cost-efficient to establish a supply chain. This is especially true for small and medium businesses that typically have a short return horizon. The downside of this is that retailers in these villages need to shut down shop and trudge to the nearest "big" market to restock. This is not only inefficient but also leads to revenue loss.

The solution according to United Villages is technology, specifically the ubiquitous mobile phone. The idea is to send restocking orders via cell phones to state level hubs. The requested goods are dispatched to the retailers! A simple idea but I am sure it is making a huge difference to the productivity of the system.

Of course there are bottlenecks. It turns out that the retailers are pretty conservative when it comes to technology and who can blame them? Most of them are on razor thin margins and without a security net to fall back on, they are risk averse. On top of that, I guess most of them are either unfamiliar or totally ignorant of the technology. This makes the sales staff with the requisite local connections very valuable, leading to problems in finding and retaining staff.

But on the whole a very neat idea that is being implemented well. This is similar to a wave of schemes that leverage proliferation of mobile phones to help the poor in India ( for e.g. banking, news, etc. ). Entrepreneurship, especially the low-cost targeted-for-the-poor type is the only way towards sustainable and equitable growth.