Is it only me or has someone else noticed? ..................... I upgraded to Windows 10 and now, Chrome and Mozilla, open only after about 40 sec to a minute, sometimes longer and sometimes not at all, but the new Microsoft edge (which came automatically with Windows 10) opens as soon as you click it.
Sunday, 27 September 2015
Thursday, 24 September 2015
babu-bots?
An Olympic-hopeful sportsperson could not get timely sanction to go for training, because some babu slept over it; a state water board runs a series of water testing labs manned by "chemists" who do not understand the tests that they need to perform regularly; the municipality dumps soil into an already stressed lake for the Ganesh immersion because some babu does not understand (that's the charitable view, it could also be that he understands very well and is filling up for a builder lobby); the author of one of the blogs I follow says the state ground water officials do not take notice of research done on aquifers; forest officials organise vanamahotsav and plant single species of foreign trees to "rejuvenate" forests...........
Perhaps if we had no government, we would be better off. Today's paper says by 2030, 90% of the news may be written by bots, leaving only the extraordinary news for journalists to deal with. Why not have 90% of government run by bots?
Perhaps if we had no government, we would be better off. Today's paper says by 2030, 90% of the news may be written by bots, leaving only the extraordinary news for journalists to deal with. Why not have 90% of government run by bots?
Monday, 14 September 2015
Chemistry in the early 80's
A post in one of the blogs set me thinking............While big changes take place, one does not really realise it. It is
only many years later, one looks back and sees the big picture.
When I was working for my PhD, we used second gen IR spectrophotometers, but towards the end, there were some labs where you could get an FTIR done. It was remarkably better resolved, but still, I did not really appreciate the big leap in technology--just happy to be able to identify bands unambiguously. I left soon after that.
Similarly, I used to punch cards on noisy punching machines and submit a deck for running on the computer. We would get a printout next day. As I was finishing my thesis, the whole system got changed and we were allotted terminals to directly interface with the mainframe computer. We thought it was cool, but again, I left before I had a chance to really get to work on this.
Since I left the field of scientific work totally, I did not really understand the significant changes that took place in the early 80's in India.
It is now in retrospect, I see that those were significant times for chemists, when instrumentation improved in large spurts.
When I was working for my PhD, we used second gen IR spectrophotometers, but towards the end, there were some labs where you could get an FTIR done. It was remarkably better resolved, but still, I did not really appreciate the big leap in technology--just happy to be able to identify bands unambiguously. I left soon after that.
Similarly, I used to punch cards on noisy punching machines and submit a deck for running on the computer. We would get a printout next day. As I was finishing my thesis, the whole system got changed and we were allotted terminals to directly interface with the mainframe computer. We thought it was cool, but again, I left before I had a chance to really get to work on this.
Since I left the field of scientific work totally, I did not really understand the significant changes that took place in the early 80's in India.
It is now in retrospect, I see that those were significant times for chemists, when instrumentation improved in large spurts.
Tuesday, 1 September 2015
"development"
When I was about 4 or 5 years old, I thought this story was very clever.
The story goes like this... a man went into a restaurant and ordered some gulab jamun.
When the waiter brought it, he said "Take it back! I will have laddoos instead".
The waiter brought laddoos. The man ate and got up to go.
The manager said "What about the money?"
Man said "What money?"
"Money for the laddos".
"But I gave you gulab jamoon instead".
When the future generations ask "Why have you old people ruined our forests, air, land and water?"
We will say that "We gave you "development" instead".
The story goes like this... a man went into a restaurant and ordered some gulab jamun.
When the waiter brought it, he said "Take it back! I will have laddoos instead".
The waiter brought laddoos. The man ate and got up to go.
The manager said "What about the money?"
Man said "What money?"
"Money for the laddos".
"But I gave you gulab jamoon instead".
When the future generations ask "Why have you old people ruined our forests, air, land and water?"
We will say that "We gave you "development" instead".
Monday, 31 August 2015
Getting it right
Last month there was this news item that GVK Biosciences has been accused of faking some clinical trials. It is alleged that the exit ECG reports of some people undergoing the trials were not genuine.
Hyderabad is a Pharma hub with many companies undertaking contract research in clinical trials, drug development etc.
The people working in these would be those who have a BSc, MSc or BPharm, MPharm.
The problem is that all these degrees are awarded based on exams which give the highest marks to the one with exactly the "right" answer. They are all trained to get the right answer, not to do the experiment right. Such people cannot record a result that is not as per expectation. They would be compelled to alter it to fit the expected answer. That is the culture of experimentation all around.
In fact, in the school I volunteer at, when I conducted the science fair, there was this girl, very keen on doing some experiment, but not really up to it. So I gave a simple task.I asked her to keep 2 slices of bread, one in a dry place and another in a damp corner inside the house. I asked her to observe changes for a week and report. On the day of the science fair, she came empty handed, saying her bread was eaten by rats. One of the teachers got a fresh slice of bread, moistened it and dotted it with green felt pen ink and asked her to exhibit that.
I was very annoyed to see the "exhibit" and made her put it away, and told her to just explain the procedure and describe what she saw till whenever the disaster occurred.
In my IIX days, I had this friend whose Prof told her class that her physical chem record was the best. We pulled her leg and asked her to show us this magnificent record. Her reaction kinetics experiment had burette readings taken at intervals of 0.5 sec! She said her result had not been what it should have been and she had altered the values on the x axis to obtain the straight line. The x axis was time and it turned out that the best fit occurred if the readings were 0.5 sec apart and she did not stop to think how she could have filled a burette and titrated in 0.5 sec.
The point of these stories is, experimental manipulations are a matter of course. No one thinks it is not to be done. If you did not get the result you expected, of course you make it up. That is what is done.
Hyderabad is a Pharma hub with many companies undertaking contract research in clinical trials, drug development etc.
The people working in these would be those who have a BSc, MSc or BPharm, MPharm.
The problem is that all these degrees are awarded based on exams which give the highest marks to the one with exactly the "right" answer. They are all trained to get the right answer, not to do the experiment right. Such people cannot record a result that is not as per expectation. They would be compelled to alter it to fit the expected answer. That is the culture of experimentation all around.
In fact, in the school I volunteer at, when I conducted the science fair, there was this girl, very keen on doing some experiment, but not really up to it. So I gave a simple task.I asked her to keep 2 slices of bread, one in a dry place and another in a damp corner inside the house. I asked her to observe changes for a week and report. On the day of the science fair, she came empty handed, saying her bread was eaten by rats. One of the teachers got a fresh slice of bread, moistened it and dotted it with green felt pen ink and asked her to exhibit that.
I was very annoyed to see the "exhibit" and made her put it away, and told her to just explain the procedure and describe what she saw till whenever the disaster occurred.
In my IIX days, I had this friend whose Prof told her class that her physical chem record was the best. We pulled her leg and asked her to show us this magnificent record. Her reaction kinetics experiment had burette readings taken at intervals of 0.5 sec! She said her result had not been what it should have been and she had altered the values on the x axis to obtain the straight line. The x axis was time and it turned out that the best fit occurred if the readings were 0.5 sec apart and she did not stop to think how she could have filled a burette and titrated in 0.5 sec.
The point of these stories is, experimental manipulations are a matter of course. No one thinks it is not to be done. If you did not get the result you expected, of course you make it up. That is what is done.
Saturday, 22 August 2015
Monday, 3 August 2015
a hoarding
This hoarding advertised a school in Hyderabad some years ago and I had written down the words at that time. I came across it just now-
This is a verbatim reproduction of a hoarding advertising Oakridge School. I saw this huge hoarding beside a flyover, a few days back, but waited till I could get the exact words. Today I passed by this place again and noted the exact words, believe me.
"16 Nobel Laureates now faculty to Oakridgers at Stanford."
Can you believe it?
This is a verbatim reproduction of a hoarding advertising Oakridge School. I saw this huge hoarding beside a flyover, a few days back, but waited till I could get the exact words. Today I passed by this place again and noted the exact words, believe me.
"16 Nobel Laureates now faculty to Oakridgers at Stanford."
Can you believe it?
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