Some ideas to ponder, even if they donot have Nobel Prize calibre, they will certainly be counted for IgNobel awards [See the 2004 award winners http://www.improb.com/ig/ig-top.html and you will be surprised to find our contribution in getting IgNobel in economics for “outsourcing church prayers to Kerala”].
Desalination Plant at Kochi- Dubai alumni can help MACEians know about the same in Dubai.
A Kasargod-Trivandrum Sea Link
A resuable building material which gets stronger after each use.
An energy exchange[like the electronic stock exchange], where companies and households can trade energy stocks[buy and sell electricity, auction surplus energy resources].
A liquid based RFID [Radio Frequency Identification] material [crystalline gel] that can emit signals: This is particularly useful for petroleum industry, water resource management.
Wireless electricity transmission [possible? I like to know some thing about this.].
An inland-waterway public transportation vehicle- I remember some seniors in MACE[1994 mechanical batch, I persume] have made an amphibious vehicle.
A tablet PC for school students with malayalam software, that costs less than a PC.
A writing material made from anything other than bamboo [solid waste, biological waste].
“Audio” electricity [sound as an energy source]: This is interesting if we can think of converting the huge decibels of sound in rock shows, city junctions into some form of energy. It will be great if we can convert our voices into energy[all politicians, people with gift of back, and microphone addicts are potential sources].
Wednesday, October 06, 2004
The 2004 Ig Nobel Prize Winners
Well, more than the Nobel prize (genuine!), I like the NOBEL. The 2004 IgNobel has been announced and of particular mention are the following:
PUBLIC HEALTH: A Five second rule for eating food dropped on the floor Research questions: How long is it safe for the food dropped on the floor to remain on the floor before you pick it up again to eat it? Answer: 5 seconds (according to High-school student Jillian Clarke) Other findings: Women are more likely than men to eat food thats been floored. Cookies and Candy are the most picked up floored food items.
ENGINEERING:Baldness concealer: How to hide baldness using a series of methodological steps to cover the bald areas with exsting hair. A new Hair styling technique to conceal partial baldness. The explanation is given in wonderful detail with diagrams. My description will be of no consequence before this detail.
LITERATURE: Preserving the Nude Pictures and Heritage (American Nudist Research Library [ANRL] ): This is my pick..http://www.anrl.org/ does an enviable job in preserving nudist literature, photographs, and archives for future generations. Imagine year 2500, If ANRL survives the alien invasion all Playboy magazines will be national treasures? See their wonderful collection in case you want to see it ;-)
ECONOMICS: Vatican Bishops and Roman Catholic Clergy for Outsourcing Church Prayer mass to India [Kerala]. The Kochi diocese gets 350 requests monthly for thanks giving and special prayer mass. A prayer that costs $20 in the US costs roughly $0.45 in India. Even before that, Insourcing is done by Non-resident Indians in USA for doing a pooja for Lord Venkateshwara in Tirupathi, Andhra Pradesh India. talk about reverse sourcing! They can perform the pooja virtually through Internet and collaborative technologies. The time is not far when your mouse will sprinkle some vibhuthi (sacred ash) in your hand, and you can smell the camphor, flowers, and incense fumes through the virtual reality system. All for $1 sitting in your studio apartment in California.This was predicted...finally the Indian Outsourcing boom is getting recognised.
PEACE: [This is a Nobel contender]KAROAKE [Invented by Daisuke Inoue]: The invention of Karoake is a break through considering the fact that it maintains the peaceful equilibrium in a community because people become tolerant by listening to their own singing. This is a wonderful mental tolerance building method. So if you are intolerant and short tempered start a daily exercise...switch on the most difficult song to sing in Karoake mode and then sing...You will have to tolerate the most intollerable audio ever heard.
BIOLOGY: Well..the Nobel prize for Medicine went for "Odor recognition" [see my previos blog]. what about the finding that the Herring fish that makes mysterious sounds in the night is actually communicating with its fellow Herrings. The "hearing" of the Herring is sharp...but the discovery is that the mysterious sounds are emanated when they fart. farting communication skills anyone?? Humans too have distinct fart sounds..I donot know whether they actually use it for communication?
CHEMISTRY: COCA COLA COMPANY, UK for claimed that they used high technology NASA spacecraft water purification process to come out with a new bottled mineral water "Dasani", which was nothing but tap water from Thames river that underwent the basic reverse Osmosis treatment. It became a great marketing and PR disaster when, chemical tests revealed that it was contaminated with bromate- a carcinogen. In case you bought a bottle of "Dasani" water call freephone 0800 227711, Coke will refund you. To Malayalees, a question..Does "Dasani" ring a bell? "Dahasamini" is a great thirst quenching ayurvedic additive that Malayalees add to their drinking water. Nothing can beat this ayurvedic sophisticated technology from India.
Well, more than the Nobel prize (genuine!), I like the NOBEL. The 2004 IgNobel has been announced and of particular mention are the following:
PUBLIC HEALTH: A Five second rule for eating food dropped on the floor Research questions: How long is it safe for the food dropped on the floor to remain on the floor before you pick it up again to eat it? Answer: 5 seconds (according to High-school student Jillian Clarke) Other findings: Women are more likely than men to eat food thats been floored. Cookies and Candy are the most picked up floored food items.
ENGINEERING:Baldness concealer: How to hide baldness using a series of methodological steps to cover the bald areas with exsting hair. A new Hair styling technique to conceal partial baldness. The explanation is given in wonderful detail with diagrams. My description will be of no consequence before this detail.
LITERATURE: Preserving the Nude Pictures and Heritage (American Nudist Research Library [ANRL] ): This is my pick..http://www.anrl.org/ does an enviable job in preserving nudist literature, photographs, and archives for future generations. Imagine year 2500, If ANRL survives the alien invasion all Playboy magazines will be national treasures? See their wonderful collection in case you want to see it ;-)
ECONOMICS: Vatican Bishops and Roman Catholic Clergy for Outsourcing Church Prayer mass to India [Kerala]. The Kochi diocese gets 350 requests monthly for thanks giving and special prayer mass. A prayer that costs $20 in the US costs roughly $0.45 in India. Even before that, Insourcing is done by Non-resident Indians in USA for doing a pooja for Lord Venkateshwara in Tirupathi, Andhra Pradesh India. talk about reverse sourcing! They can perform the pooja virtually through Internet and collaborative technologies. The time is not far when your mouse will sprinkle some vibhuthi (sacred ash) in your hand, and you can smell the camphor, flowers, and incense fumes through the virtual reality system. All for $1 sitting in your studio apartment in California.This was predicted...finally the Indian Outsourcing boom is getting recognised.
PEACE: [This is a Nobel contender]KAROAKE [Invented by Daisuke Inoue]: The invention of Karoake is a break through considering the fact that it maintains the peaceful equilibrium in a community because people become tolerant by listening to their own singing. This is a wonderful mental tolerance building method. So if you are intolerant and short tempered start a daily exercise...switch on the most difficult song to sing in Karoake mode and then sing...You will have to tolerate the most intollerable audio ever heard.
BIOLOGY: Well..the Nobel prize for Medicine went for "Odor recognition" [see my previos blog]. what about the finding that the Herring fish that makes mysterious sounds in the night is actually communicating with its fellow Herrings. The "hearing" of the Herring is sharp...but the discovery is that the mysterious sounds are emanated when they fart. farting communication skills anyone?? Humans too have distinct fart sounds..I donot know whether they actually use it for communication?
CHEMISTRY: COCA COLA COMPANY, UK for claimed that they used high technology NASA spacecraft water purification process to come out with a new bottled mineral water "Dasani", which was nothing but tap water from Thames river that underwent the basic reverse Osmosis treatment. It became a great marketing and PR disaster when, chemical tests revealed that it was contaminated with bromate- a carcinogen. In case you bought a bottle of "Dasani" water call freephone 0800 227711, Coke will refund you. To Malayalees, a question..Does "Dasani" ring a bell? "Dahasamini" is a great thirst quenching ayurvedic additive that Malayalees add to their drinking water. Nothing can beat this ayurvedic sophisticated technology from India.
Tuesday, October 05, 2004
The Scent of Life
The Nobel prize for Medicine-2004 is given to two scientists for their effiot in decoding the mystery of the most exotic human sense of smell. The scientists, Dr. Richard Axel, and Linda B. Buck from Seattle USA discovered how neurons send information about odours and pheromones to our brain that helps us to memorize and recall most of the odours. It is interesting that many a times we have felt a sense of 'deja vu' when we smell an odour. They used a molecular-genetic toolbox to analyze the olfactory system based on its information storage mechanism. Neural circuits and biologocal architecture of the information flow network was studied. The most revealing aspect of the study is that the information about odour triggers emotional and psychological behaviors that create distinct perceptions for each of the odours. This is significant considering the fact that our brain can remember each of over 10000 odours, that too very uniquely.
DEJA VU SMELLS
Paint [water color]: I can clearly remember the first time I painted.
Paint [Emulsion]: Hmmm, I really like the smell of fresh paint...remember when my father got our old scooter painted.
Petrol: Another of those 'I get hooked on to' smell. All the wait standing in front of the scooter when the petrol tank in the petrol bunk was open was worth the wait.
Diesel: This is nauseating, because I never enjoyed sitting near the engine and gear lever of the bus.
Ash: The Shiva temple vibhuthi(ash) has a special smell
Sandal paste: The Guruvayur temple (Kerala) sandal paste is unique.
Mustard oil: Oh..the fried Puri Bhajji that I ate at Agra railway station during my trip to New Delhi in 1994.
Some of my friends have some aversions to some smell..like one of them threw up when he smelt anything that smells close to jasmine flower. same with the smell of oil.
Ig Nobel awards for "smell" any one??
and of course...the smell of those distinct farts.Well such a career option is available[Worlds Worst Job as a Dysentery Stool-Sample Analyzer]..some very pungent, some fruity..I will not be surprised to know people can identify with what they ate with the smell of their farts. Which fart made them smell bad? or which fart gave them a pleasant experience? Though it is a very unpleasant experience for the ones around you
Its so wonderful to learn how our senses are more important to our survival. Ask a person who survived the Bhopal gas tragedy or a bombing attack.
References: research abstract
The Nobel prize for Medicine-2004 is given to two scientists for their effiot in decoding the mystery of the most exotic human sense of smell. The scientists, Dr. Richard Axel, and Linda B. Buck from Seattle USA discovered how neurons send information about odours and pheromones to our brain that helps us to memorize and recall most of the odours. It is interesting that many a times we have felt a sense of 'deja vu' when we smell an odour. They used a molecular-genetic toolbox to analyze the olfactory system based on its information storage mechanism. Neural circuits and biologocal architecture of the information flow network was studied. The most revealing aspect of the study is that the information about odour triggers emotional and psychological behaviors that create distinct perceptions for each of the odours. This is significant considering the fact that our brain can remember each of over 10000 odours, that too very uniquely.
DEJA VU SMELLS
Paint [water color]: I can clearly remember the first time I painted.
Paint [Emulsion]: Hmmm, I really like the smell of fresh paint...remember when my father got our old scooter painted.
Petrol: Another of those 'I get hooked on to' smell. All the wait standing in front of the scooter when the petrol tank in the petrol bunk was open was worth the wait.
Diesel: This is nauseating, because I never enjoyed sitting near the engine and gear lever of the bus.
Ash: The Shiva temple vibhuthi(ash) has a special smell
Sandal paste: The Guruvayur temple (Kerala) sandal paste is unique.
Mustard oil: Oh..the fried Puri Bhajji that I ate at Agra railway station during my trip to New Delhi in 1994.
Some of my friends have some aversions to some smell..like one of them threw up when he smelt anything that smells close to jasmine flower. same with the smell of oil.
Ig Nobel awards for "smell" any one??
and of course...the smell of those distinct farts.Well such a career option is available[Worlds Worst Job as a Dysentery Stool-Sample Analyzer]..some very pungent, some fruity..I will not be surprised to know people can identify with what they ate with the smell of their farts. Which fart made them smell bad? or which fart gave them a pleasant experience? Though it is a very unpleasant experience for the ones around you
Its so wonderful to learn how our senses are more important to our survival. Ask a person who survived the Bhopal gas tragedy or a bombing attack.
References: research abstract
Are Indians really dumb?
Are Indians really dumb?
Are Indians really dumb? This seems to be a good topic to debate. Is India a desert when it comes to innovation and creativity?
Poverty in the mind and spirit is the reason for the lacklusture approach of we Indians. I am really appalled by some of the superficial knowledge of Indian students. The quality of work is so shoddy that there seems to be a loss of ingenuity.
JARGON USAGE
Lately, I see a lot of MBA students using the cliqued jargons in every situation.
BOTTOM LINE: The impact on the bottom line is significant. I understand when the tell "bottomline" when many of them wear their brains below the belt. In India, bottom line is the best metaphor for growth(forgive the pun)!. Growth for us is always sideways..increasing the girth. Who says "elephants cannot dance" when you have such a great "bottomline" growth.
SACROSSANCT sacrosanct. \Sac"ro*sanct\, a. [L. sucrosanctus.]: not capable of being violated or infringed. When you are not sure of a thing..tell that "there is nothing sacrossanct in this. Telling that you can be flexible in the most inflexible manner! Well the usage of this word in your ppt is not sacrossanct ;-)
For the time being, some like leveraging on core competence, adding up the value chain are taking a back seat. Ultimately it is those words that impact your "bottom line" that matters, is it not?
Are Indians really dumb? This seems to be a good topic to debate. Is India a desert when it comes to innovation and creativity?
Poverty in the mind and spirit is the reason for the lacklusture approach of we Indians. I am really appalled by some of the superficial knowledge of Indian students. The quality of work is so shoddy that there seems to be a loss of ingenuity.
JARGON USAGE
Lately, I see a lot of MBA students using the cliqued jargons in every situation.
BOTTOM LINE: The impact on the bottom line is significant. I understand when the tell "bottomline" when many of them wear their brains below the belt. In India, bottom line is the best metaphor for growth(forgive the pun)!. Growth for us is always sideways..increasing the girth. Who says "elephants cannot dance" when you have such a great "bottomline" growth.
SACROSSANCT sacrosanct. \Sac"ro*sanct\, a. [L. sucrosanctus.]: not capable of being violated or infringed. When you are not sure of a thing..tell that "there is nothing sacrossanct in this. Telling that you can be flexible in the most inflexible manner! Well the usage of this word in your ppt is not sacrossanct ;-)
For the time being, some like leveraging on core competence, adding up the value chain are taking a back seat. Ultimately it is those words that impact your "bottom line" that matters, is it not?
Monday, October 04, 2004
How Google Works? I read a wonderful article in the Economist Technology Quarterly September 2004, explaining the Pagerank technology behind the Google search engine It is a fine example of entrepreneurship of two Stanford graduates Mr Sergey Brin and Lawrence Page. In 1998, Mr. Brin and Page approach Mr. Andy Bechtolsheim, founder of Sun Microsystems who immediately wrote a cheque for $100,000 in favor of Google Inc.- an imaginary company at that time. Mr. Brin and Page thus started Google. This is a fine engine. No wonder students (espacially from Management studies) swear by google, their CUT-COPY-PASTE ENGINE. The only trouble is for professors like us who inturn use Google to pick out plagiarism. Google is thus an anti-plagiarism software too! While agree that Google is a plagiarism enhancer, all credit for it for making it a quick and easy to use research retrieval tool.
Saturday, October 02, 2004
FLOSS and Python
Free/Libre and Open Source Software [FLOSS] offers some good opensource educational software. It will be good if we can start using it in schools. A list of Linux educational software's for schools is available at http://wikiwikiweb.de/FlossInSchools
Lately, I am getting to become a great fan of Python definitely not the reptilian kind!). I am currently a novice, but will be using it a lot in my Object Oriented Design course.
Lately, I am getting to become a great fan of Python definitely not the reptilian kind!). I am currently a novice, but will be using it a lot in my Object Oriented Design course.
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