Analog Clock - Drosophila melanogaster of 2D graphics programing ?

Drosophila Melanogaster ( fruit fly ) is a favourite animal of geneticists. It is the most studied organism in the field of genetics. Computer Chess was considered the "Drosophila melanogaster" of Artificial Inteliggence programming.

I was teaching 2D computer graphics to a friend of mine. Over the years ,I have found that drawing an Analog Clock is a nice way to get introduced into 2D graphics programming. The Clock program can teach a person concepts like 2D co-ordinate mapping , 2D co-ordinate transformation , Trignometric ratios , Matrix transformation , Positioning Text radially , Bitmap graphics for clock background , Scaling of geometries , Vector animation to name a few.

Personally I believe , Analog Clock is the "drosophila melanogaster" of Computer Graphics Programming.

BarCamp Kerala Edition 5

Rather than me explaining what a Bar Camp is Pls. take a look at the wiki link
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BarCamp.

The Venu of BarCamp Kerala 5 is @ Technopark, Trivandrum. if u are interested in participating
pls. go to http://www.barcampkerala.org/blog/

I participated in BarCamp Kerala 3 and was the resource person for a session titled "Programming Paradigms". The theme of the session was centred around the failed attempt of Bertrand Russel and David Hilbert to axiomatize the entire mathematics discipline. This led to some Paradoxes and Austrian Logician Kurt Godel proved that this paradox is inherrent in any formal systems. Alonzo Church (with his lambda calculus ) and Turing (with Turing machine ) stumbled upon the same idea . The suprising side affect is these two formalisms and predicate
calculus form the basis of modern programming languages. Functional Programming is based
on Lambda Calculus. Most conventional languages are based on the idea of turing machine. The Logic Programming model is based on Predicate calculus.

To my surprise , the session was well recieved and there were questions too on what was abstract topic for most professional programmers.

Even though i was scheduled to present a session titled "The Paradox of the open source software" , i could not pariticipate for the BarCamp 4

For the forthcoming event , i am planning to teach how to construct "toy" compilers , in an hour.

http://www.barcampkerala.org/blog/sessions/

The Compiler has got support for all the structured programming constructs u encounter in any programming language. Moreover, it supports recursive invocation.
The Compiler generates .NET executables.

Limits of Self study

I have always been a firm believer in the merits of self study. This has worked for me over the period of years and now i am suspecting there is a law of diminishing returns from this model.
Take mathematics for example. One can learn mathematics and apply it in professional life , even
if u are a self learner. I would like to call it using mathematics. But, To do mathematics , u require
different skill set which i suspect can only be acquired through word of mouth or assisting a mathematics researcher.

My postulate here is "U can teach yourself , upto undergraduate texts " , for rest watch university lectures over the youtube and befriend an expert in respective subjects or learn it from intellectual circles where the subject in question is pursued vigorously.

Business Numeracy

The Economist Guide to Business numeracy is a must have book for any one who works in
the social sciences arena.The book covers topics like systems of linear equations, logarithm, Present Value analysis , Probability , Statistical sampling , Hypothesis testing etc. The attractive part of the book is conceptual orientation of the mathematical tools used through out. We can get formulas from text books . Who will explain why certain stuff works the way it is ?! This book seems to be a good answer for the above question.


http://www.amazon.com/Numbers-Guide-Essentials-Business-Economist/dp/0471249548

A Nice tutorial and book on Windows Programming

I Learned to Program MS Windows in the year 1994. I had Borland C/C++ 3.1 installed on my 2 MB ram 80386 machine. The installation contained 57 floppy disks and my floppy got corrupted after 54 floppy disks. I had to restart the installation and finally i somehow could run some examples from Borland's OWL library.

The Article which from i was trying to learn was published in a magazine called "SysReader". The magazine was popular in those days and it contained the windows programming tutorial and i happen to come across the mention of Linux from that magazine. It took weeks for me to understand what that article was all about. Later,
Robert Lafore's Windows Programming made easy and another title "Windows Programming
Primer Plus" helped me to learn the nuances of Windows Programming.

Every year , when i mentor people , i ask them to learn Windows Programming from Charles Petzold's book. The few who has managed to cover the first eight or nine chapters , has become successful programmers who knows what they are doing. Still,
i consider learning Windows Programming , MFC , ATL and COM very much essential to understand what windows programming is all about.

IMHO,if some one does not know Windows Programming at the SDK level , he does not know much about Programming.

I am using a nice tutorial on Windows Programming from the Relisoft web site to teach C/C++ and Windows SDK.

http://www.relisoft.com/win32/index.htm


Do not forget to check this as well

http://www.relisoft.com/book/web_preface.html

Rich Dad Poor Dad in malayalam

DC books has translated the book "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" into malayalam language. They are doing a wonderful service to keralites by translating some of the best books in english to malayalam. The book is priced at Rs. 100. The quality of the translation is good and my brother was inspired by the book to look into his business affairs with a renewed vigor. What amazed me was the way he started quoting from the book while conversing with this friends ( which i overheard).

A good book on statistics and probability.

Understanding Probability and Statistics is a nice book written by Ruma Falk. The book contains lot of Problems which one is supposed to solve to get a good understanding of
Descriptive statistics ( mean , median , mode, standard deviation , correlation, covariance etc ) and Probability. The book contains problems as well as multiple choice questions to test our understanding of the subject.

I highly recommend this book to any one who is interested in theory of probability.


http://www.flipkart.com/understanding-probability-statistics-ruma-falk/8173714401-zv23f7bwhc

Confrontation - better have it early !

I happen to come across an "incursion" into others territory ,the other day. In this case , i had conversation with the aggrieved party. He is of the belief that direct confrontation is not his cup of tea and he will take up the matter to the "authorities". Even though lot of onlookers considered this a virtue , i was generally at odds with the idea.

It is always good to have confrontation of a Tit for Tat nature than showing restraint.One of my close relative falls into the consensus group and i have noticed he has to be prepared for a big showdown later and things turn out ugly.

I am of the view that , if someone is agressive to u RETALIATE. Or else the cost of
confrontation goes up exponentially (by the passage of time).


Even Richard Dawkins and other evolutionary biologists have mentioned that TIT for TAT is a evolutionarily stable strategy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionarily_stable_strategy

Operational view of mathematics

Over a period of time , i have used most of the mathematics which i have taught myself, in my professional life. This include Vectors , Matrices , Numerical methods,
Calculus of variations , Complex numbers , Logarithms to name a few.

The Other day , one of my colleague came up with a problem which on a prima facie observation could be classified as a Linear Programming Problem. Even though , i am having a good collection of books on OR , this is the first time i am encountering
such a problem in a programming house. I understood that , i am poor at formulating a scenario as a mathematical problem which could be solved as a LP Problem.

Once some one has formulated it as a Mathematical statement , i could use algorithms available in the OR text. Formulating some Problem as a LP problem comes under mathematical modeling and solving the problem using tools ( even by writing code ) is another skill. The latter skill , i would like to call Operational View of mathematics.

Hindsight Bias

It seems most of us suffer from something called a Hindsight bias. We are forced to take decisions in life with available information in the horizon. In this process , we could gloss over certain opportunities which are up for the grabs. After some time , when one reflects back , we will be bogged down about the missed opportunities.

This is especially true about the career matters. After this hindsight nirvana , we fantasize about what would have happened had we chose alternate paths available in the past. Most of the office gossips centers around this theme.

Reading a book like Fooled by Randomness Or Black Swan could give u better idea about what i am hinting at.

JIT programmers vs AOT Programmers

The Other day , i coined a pair of terms to describe two classes of programmers during an argument.

Just In Time Programmers ( JIT Programmers )

A class which uses Google ,discussion forums and other search engines to finish the task at hand. Such people are very effective in their day to day job and regarded as heroes in their respective organizations.

Ahead Of Time Programmers (AOT Programmers )

Another class which is analytical in nature , follows the trends in the technology and they are passionate about Computer Programming that they sit with books to learn wonderful algorithms and in general has got a broad over view of Programming.


In virtually every Organization , for a naive onlooker both are more or less the same. AOT Programmers generally get "pissed off" when JIT Programmers are given more
importance. This is especially true when doing a comparison.

Generation GAP

Every man is basically the product of his times. Whatever is in vogue, he will try to do well in it. From a statistical perspective , most of them do very well be it in their personal lives or professional life. Then a feeling of invincibility comes to one's mind. It is just a matter of time , before the guy in question will be in soup because of this invincibility "disease". So, in every person's life there is something called a "Peak Period". This might be happening roughly around when he is between 25-35. Some Paradigm shift in between can make any guy obsolete in a matter of days. The Prudence lies in understanding this phenomena and slowing down the pace of one's own life and act as an enabler for the young to tap the opportunity available for them.

As South African Anthropologist MAX GLUCKMAN Observed

"A Science is any discipline in which fool of this generation can go far beyond the point reached by the genius of earlier generation"

Yes , Today's genius can be equated to tomorrow's fool !.

A good video on Sub prime crisis

My colleague ( Anil C John ) forwarded a link from the youtube which clearly explains how the credit crisis in the US came into existence. Visuals are clearly laid out to make the comprehension better.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0zEXdDO5JU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYhDkZjKBEw&feature=related

Some one has cleverly marketed Ganesha worship as a Therapy

Soon , u will be forced to pay a lump sum of money to a US company to worship Lord Ganesha. Somebody has marketed Ganesha Vandanam ( i created this term , i do not know the usage is in vogue ) as super power brain yoga !. (I do not know whether some one has a patent on this )

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSwhpF9iJSs

Gossip makes the world go around

In my younger days , barber shops were the only place where one could get access to trivia of the
xxxxxwood (bollywood,kolliwood,tollywood etc ) film industry. With advent of the internet , now it is information galore. Every person who is interested in striking conversation with strangers while traveling ought to be well versed in filmi gossip.

I happen to stumble upon http://southindiancelebrities-cinenews.blogspot.com/


Pls. do not forget to read the archives too.

A cool site

One of my Colleague , is the most agile DOG ( wait..wait ... Digitally Optimized Geek !) i have come across in the recent times. Like me , he shares a passion for books and of late we exchange our reading list (and books ) as well. He ( http://technikhil.com/ ) showed me a site called ReaderNaut, where one can share the reading lists and maintain notes of the stuff u are reading. The site's url is http://readernaut.com/ . Pls. take a look at the ReaderNaut page of my friend
at http://readernaut.com/nikhil/

OutSourcing - no one can ever stop it ?!

The US president Barrack Obama is in the mind of most IT professionals of late because of this rhetoric against IT outsourcing. Mr. Obama can do well in the case of US govt. funded projects . Can he stop outsourcing of terrorism ? Well, it seems hard for any nation to enact a law for this. They operate outside the rule of law. Latest in the case is a possibility of LTTE outsourcing the terror tasks to islamic outfits in paksitan. Read this interesting article @ http://counterterrorismblog.org/2009/03/attack_on_sri_lankan_cricketer.php

It is just a hypothesis.

Hierarchiology

Heard about the Peter Principle ? if not , the Peter Principle and the Parkinson's law are the most important management principles which orginated in the 20th century. Parkinson's law states that "Work expands so as to fill the time available for it's completion". We often finish our tasks just in time to meet the deadline , even if we are given more time. Today ,when i was traveling back from Aluva to Trivandrum, i was reading the book "Peter Principle". It will make u laugh for sure , and i suspect u will be more wise in the ways of the world. The Peter Principle
state that "Every man rises to his level of incompetence" (and stays there
rest of his life )

Wikipedia page on the Peter Principle
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Principle

Wiki page on the Parkinson's Law
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson's_law

The Amazon url for the book the Peter Principle
http://www.amazon.com/Peter-Principle-Laurence-J/dp/1568491611

The Amazon url for the book the Parkinson's Law
http://www.amazon.com/Parkinsons-Law-Cyril-Northcote-Parkinson/dp/1568490151/ref=pd_bxgy_b_text_b

A Disturbing news indeed !

It seems , some Islamic fundamentalist outfits have started a new strategy of 'love conversion'. I first came across this phenomena a decade back. Like all others , i tried to convince myself that it was a odd event which i happen to know. Later , on the internet i came across a term called 'Jihadi Romeos'. Since one of my relative has come across a pamphlet which outlines the strategies for enticing girls of other faiths into islam by seduction, i knew the meaning of the term moment i heard it. Later when Mangalore incident happened, one 'reliable source' did tell me that this pub was a haven for such 'jihadi romeos'. Last month on Kariali TV , i happen to hear about a news item which appeared in Deepika along this line. In this case , a girl from
muvattupuzha was 'trapped' in a love affair got converted to islam and she is living in a muslim seminary at ponnani. This seminary was in news when four mallus got killed in Kashmir. One of the christain (who converted to islam ) was converted to islam in this seminary. Pls. read this story in the kerala kaumudi @ http://news.keralakaumudi.com/news.php?nid=3e4ad5698e12b6ac4241a6c144dc822e

The disturbing fact is that most of these affairs do not last long and these girls will be used for terrorist activities.