Thinkers, Visionaries and Philosophers

[via Pradeep Padala]

Thinking is one of the important ingredients for creativity. It’s essential for human development. This is especially true in research where imagination is more important than knowledge. “Few people think more than two or three times a year. I’ve made an international reputation for myself by thinking once or twice a week.” — George Bernard Shaw “If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?” — Albert Einstein I am collecting some nice web pages about thinking and great thinkers. Right now this is a list of links to intersting sites.

• Great Thinkers and Visionaries
• Albert Einstein’s life with lots of photos.
• BluePete’s list of biographies
• Another list of biographies, organized by sciences.
• Proof of Fermat’s last theorem, a must read. Absolute passion for solving the problem is no match for any thing else.
• UG KrishnaMurti’s site, Ground breaking thinking. Kind of difficult to digest. Very good read, though.
• Philosophy Pages
• Exploring Creation/Evolution controversy, read the arguments against creationism.
• Evolution vs Creationism. a collection of links
• Is creationism Science?. Any scientist (including me) would immediately say – ofcourse, not ! But heck, people still pursue scientific creationsim.
• Atheism, Agnosticism etc.

Life is a Jar – Dont fill Sand

[via http://www.eecs.umich.edu/~ppadala/quotes/full.html%5D

A philosophy professor stood before his class and had some items in front of him. When the class began, wordlessly he picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with rocks, about 2 inch in diameter.
He then asked the students if the jar was full? They agreed that it was. So the professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles, of course, rolled into the open areas between the rocks. He then asked the students again if the jar was full. They agreed it was.
The professor picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else. He then asked once more if the jar was full. The students responded with an unanimous — yes.
The professor then produced two cans of beer from under the table and proceeded to pour the entire contents into the jar effectively filling the empty space between the sand.

Now, said the professor, as the laughter subsided, I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life. The rocks are the important things — your family, your partner, your health, your children — things that if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full.
The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, your house, your car. The sand is everything else — the small stuff. If you put the sand into the jar first, he continued, there is no room for the pebbles or the rocks. The same goes for your life. If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff, you will never have room for the things that are important to you. Pay
attention to the things that are critical to your happiness. Play with your children. Take your partner out dancing. There will always be time to go to work, clean the house, give a dinner party and fix the disposal.
Take care of the rocks first — the things that really matter. Set your priorities. The rest is just sand.

One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the beer represented.
The professor smiled. I’m glad you asked. It just goes to show you that no matter how full your life may seem, there’s always room for a couple of beers.

Gallica – French answer to Google Print/Library

[via http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/programmes/click_online/4619019.stm]

The French, concerned that the internet is in danger of becoming the exclusive preserve of the English language, are responding to Google’s project to put 15 million books and documents online with their own French version. David Reid (Reporter, BBC Click Online) finds out about Gallica.

BIBLIOTHEQUE NATIONALE
1) Origins in the 15th century
2) Receives copies of all printed French works
3) Collection now includes more than 12 million books and manuscripts, 500,000 periodicals, 800,000 medals and coins, and 650,000 maps and prints

The French are far from relaxed about their creative treasures, and especially the contents of La Bibliothèque Nationale de France (BNF), their National Library. It is an asset that France’s rulers believe is under-represented on the internet.With the Google Print project planning to put 4.5 billion pages of English onto the web, France has decided to do something similar with French, though on a smaller scale. In fact, France started digitalising parts of its national collection as long as 13 years ago, and in 1997 they began to put this collection online.

Catherine Lupovici, head of the digital library department at the BNF, says: “It was a project with the new library to create a network that would be available for scholars, representing an encyclopaedic French library of French culture.” The project they call Gallica has already put some 80,000 works and 70,000 images online, and it is currently working its way through the BNF’s basement of 19th century newspapers. But it is a long way off from the scope of Google Print, which has got those at the top of the BNF wondering how France can respond to what they see as a cultural challenge from across the pond.

Jean-Noël Jeanneney, director of the BNF, believes it is only natural that Google Print should present an Anglo-Saxon or American view of history and the world. Culture is not chaos. Culture is a way of putting things together. “I have no reproach; this is normal”, he says. “But this will require a counterpart on our side of the ocean.”
This counterpart, or counter-attack, to what the French press calls “omnigooglisation”, would be organised on a different basis to Google.

Rather than using Google’s famous algorithm, Mr Jeanneney proposes a panel of experts to rank works. He says: “I am not confident in the power of the market, when it works along profit-making alone, to organise the best page-ranking or hierarchy of knowledge. I think this is dangerous. Culture is not chaos. Culture is a way of putting things together. A book helps to know another book and to understand it.”

One book helping another book is similar to the way Google’s page ranking works. There, one page helps another. Pages are ranked according to the number of other pages that are linked to them or from them. Throw out a search term and it is more than likely that a homepage, with all its links to and from, will float to the top of your list of results. It means that while Google’s results are certainly relevant they are also influenced by a form of popularity, something that might not work for the obscure subject matters and bibliographies of the BNF’s collection.

Mats Sarduner, the director of Google France, says: “We find it an excellent idea because it is about making sure that there is a representation of the cultural diversity on the web and we do the same, we want the diversity to be there. “Their principle is to gather a committee of experts. We do it differently. It is more about technology and algorithm, but the result will be the same, so we have the same goal.”
There is nothing new in France’s ruling elite treating its culture as if it is an endangered species. Indeed, there are already laws and subsidies to protect the country’s film industry.

While this looks like it could be more of the same, the BNF says it has not ruled out being part of Google once its own print project is set up. Google is the first port of call for 74% of French people doing a web search. If the BNF’s aim is not just to preserve but also to proliferate French culture, they may well choose to go with Google.

Smart home dream could be for all

[via http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/technology/4607747.stm]

Smart homes in which a single button controls lighting, heating, security, music, film – everything digital – has long been promised, but has never quite delivered.
This is partly down to technology that cannot talk to each other. It has also traditionally been a dream that only the uber-rich can make reality. But with rising broadband speeds and connections, the rise of wireless networks, and cheaper more powerful machines in homes, it is getting easier to realise the smart home dream. A lot more now can be controlled from one central machine, with one central and easy interface, which is what convergence is supposed to be about. Hooking devices together, either wirelessly or with cables, is another matter.

Technical know-how is just one of the stumbling blocks many face when trying to work out why one gadget will not talk to another. Homes that are smart are not just about being able to send pictures and video to different rooms either. It is also about the more mundane technologies in life, such as heating and lighting, and security technologies. Central locking for homes, for example, could be all controlled through fobs in the near future, for instance, or even through biometrics. Will Levy, founder of Touch of a Button, imagines one day soon being able to pick up the phone directory and easily find the equivalent of a registered “digital plumber”.

For a reasonable fee, they could come and install your fresh bit of kit, advise on security, and be on hand at the end of an e-mail or phone for aftercare services. Mr Levy’s vision of “digital plumbing” is squarely aimed at ordinary people who want their homes smart and more connected. “There is a huge amount of integration needed between different products,” he told the BBC News website. “There are hundreds of companies which are home automation installers. “The problem for me is that the starting price for that is a minimum of £27,000.” That is not the way to push convergence and smart home technologies out to the mass market, he says. “These are not distant future technologies, they are all out on the shelf today, and they are just a few hundred pounds. He thinks there needs to be more qualified people who can take the ordinary non-technical person step-by-step through the set-up and the integration of technologies with other systems around the home. “It could be very much like getting the plumber around,” says Mr Levy. “I could see in five or 10 years’ time having them in the Yellow Pages alongside plumber of electricians that you call out.”

According to research by US digital home consultants, The Diffusion Group (TDG), more than half of US households are interested in some sort of home control system, if the price tag is less than $200. TDG also found that global home networking is set to grow from 35 million households in 2004 to more than 162 million by 2010. With that, says TDG, the number of devices and gadgets that will be able to use that network will rise from 108 million in 2004 to just shy of one billion by 2010.
Instead of three devices able to talk on the network to others in every household in 2004 on average, there will be six.

Others predict that 23 million European households will be using wireless home networks to share media content by 2009. Despite these healthy-looking predictions, Intel research on the 21st Century living room revealed that 42% of Brits complained that technology was already crowding them out of their own houses. One in four living rooms are stacking up more than seven separate technology devices. The average Brit does not have an American style open-plan living space either. Rooms are smaller and ceilings are lower. But if there are going to be digital plumbers who can come around and fiddle with plugs and networks, there needs to be an industry standard qualification to protect against digital cowboys.

The ComTIA international standard for teaching such skills is being promoted in certain areas of the UK, such as Yorkshire.

GUd Life – TODO

1) Fears over UK forces readiness
The UK armed forces are so stretched they could struggle to respond to a sudden emergency, a watchdog says…

2) Something on Bush’s statement of technology and energy efficiency

frank flash movie