| Random Ideas |
[Jul. 4th, 2007|10:58 am] |
Amazon.com ratings: Is it actually more useful to go to lowest ratings first? I usually do so since the rational, but dissatisfied customers usually suggest relevant alternatives. I think that most useful least approving ratings are usually a treasure.
Give a digital library with a 3-D browsing experience. Search is a powerful feature of things online; browsing is equally powerful! But online browsing experiences in shopping are very bland. This is because most online shops zoom into one particular thing that we are looking for. But, especially in shopping, equally as in going to a library, the feature that enhances the experience is when you realize that what you had in mind is better matched by something "around" what you were looking for. I remember Joseph Doob saying that the one good thing about the Harvard Library of the1930s was that it was ill-maintained: there was a librarian missing, you asked her for a book that you wanted to issue, and she would go to the stacks and get it, you had no direct access to the stacks. As a result of this sloppy (lack of) appointment, Doob had direct access to the stacks, and he could get a 'preview' as well as 'fuzzy browsing' that seemed to have enhanced his experience [citation needed :)] |
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| Varamozhi |
[Apr. 29th, 2007|05:24 pm] |
Varamozhi is a rather useful tool that has found very wide popularity in Kerala, written by Sibu C. J. I remember when we were in Calicut one of our profs, Vinod Pathari mentioning that he had done the 'naamakaranam'. Very nice and appropriate name too, I must add - Vaa Mozhi is the spoken tongue, and Varamozhi is the written language.
The idea of Varamozhi is that we can type the Malayalam (substitute any Indo-European language) in English text, and systematically replace the alphabet clusters in the Manglish version, and replace it with the glyphs to get the document in Malayalam script. As in reading the word 'khasakh' and converting it into ''.
So, to install Varamozhi from the source in Linux: first install Perl, then install Perl/Tk by
perl -MCPAN -e 'CPAN::Shell->install( "Tk" )'
and then compiling and running Varamozhi. |
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| Firefox |
[Apr. 11th, 2007|11:04 pm] |
Ostensibly to take an independent shot at the leaks in Firefox, I decided to download and build the source of Firefox for the heck of it. For the benefit of later reference, I took the following steps:
- Download Service Pack 5 for Visual Studio 6
- Download Processor Pack for Visual Studio 6.
- Run the mozilla build bundle for VC6.
- Edit the mozconfig file in the mozilla/browser/config directory and put it in my home directory
- Run the mozilla build script.
- make -f config.mk build
And one hour later, I have a tinderbox build of Firefox. Overwhelming at first, there's a lot of code to navigate around. But I think I get some of the picture that goes into the front-end : the dialog boxes etc. are specified in a front-end spec language called XUL, and the associated actions with each buttons and such are in a javascript file.
Enough insight for today. Sign off! |
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| (no subject) |
[Mar. 22nd, 2007|09:34 am] |
Gödel, My Philosophical Viewpoint
1. The world is rational.
2. Human reason can, in principle, be developed more highly (through certain techniques).
3. There are systematic methods for the solution of all problems (also art, etc.).
4. There are other worlds and rational beings of a different and higher kind.
5. The world in which we live is not the only one in which we shall live or have lived.
6. There is incomparably more knowable a priori than is currently known.
7. The development of human thought since the Renaissance is thoroughly intelligible(durchaus einsichtige).
8. Reason in mankind will be developed in every direction.
9. Formal rights comprise a real science.
10. Materialism is false.
11. The higher beings are connected to the others by analogy, not by composition.
12. Concepts have an objective existence.
13. There is a scientific (exact) philosophy and theology, which deals with concepts of the highest abstractness; and this is also most highly fruitful for science.
14. Religions are, for the most part, bad- but religion is not.
From Hao Wang: A Logical Journey |
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| Spring! |
[Mar. 14th, 2007|07:04 am] |
| [ | mood |
| |  rejuvenated | ] |
Spring is here:
Saw a cloud of common grackle yesterday.
Saw a flock of geese northbound.
And the tornado sirens in Iowa State are tested these days! |
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