A bit of piano music

This six-year old, Ethan Bortnick, is pretty astounding.

The world has 6+ billion people. Even six-sigmas away from the mean, you are likely to find a pretty huge number of extremely extraordinary people. Makes you wonder how many don’t have access to what it takes for their various talents to flourish. This kid is not just talented — he is lucky. As Stephen Jay Gould had said, “I am somehow less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.”

Slowly wise and meanly just

The Vatican has decided that Charles Darwin was not really wrong. In a remarkable display of mealy-mouthed post-hoc rationalization, it claims that Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection is not inconsistent with the idea of a biblical creation of life. Vatican Buries the Hatchet with Charles Darwin, says TimesOnLine.
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Happy Darwin Day

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darwin

Feb 12, 1809 must have been an extraordinary day.

It is special for me because two of my heroes were born on that day. Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln were both born on this day 200 years ago. This year, 2009, is also the 150th anniversary of the publication of Darwin’s book, On The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection.

So I will dedicate the next couple of posts on Darwin and Lincoln.

Happy Birthday, Mr Lincoln and Happy Birthday Mr Darwin. The world is a better place for your having been here.

The Risk of Gas Pipelines

Energy security is not something that a country that is not energy independent can ever completely achieve.

India has to import energy — whether it is oil, or natural gas, or even nuclear fuel — and therefore it can never in the conceivable future be anything but be at the mercy of suppliers. Which necessarily means that India has to think really hard about how to mitigate the risks of disruption of its energy supplies from abroad.
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Where’s Waldo Now?

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Good news!

“Where’s Waldo Now” has been reissued. Worth having around the house. Kids of all ages would love it.

I have copied bits from one of the reviews at Amazon below the fold.

(If you are considering a gift for me, I strongly recommend “Where’s Waldo: The Complete Collection.”)

🙂

OK, so where am I now? I am in Mumbai on my way to Hyderabad this afternoon for a meeting at the Indian School of Business. I’ll be back.
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The “$10 Laptop” and Radical Ignorance

The radical ignorance displayed by those who claimed that the government had created a laptop costing Rs 500 (~US $10) is jaw-dropping spectacular. How on earth can one for even one moment entertain the idea that any entity — least of all the government and a bunch of students — could produce something for an order of magnitude less cost than currently possible is unfathomable.

As the photoshopped image in my first post on this matter previously states, “I see stupid people . . . they don’t even know that they are dumb.” And now we note the furious back-peddling. I had noted in the followup post that the claim is that it was a typo. It seems that India’s Minister of State for Higher Education D Purandeswari’s claim that a $10 laptop was a reality was based on a simple typo, a dropped “0”. (H/t: Sudipta)
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The “About” Page is Done

You know it took me only five years to get around to writing the “About” page. I think you should all read it and post comments.

🙂

Right now it only has a brief bio. I will add a photo and some links later. Thanks for visiting. Also, consider this to be an open comments post. Say what you will.

The Indian $10 Laptop — Revisited

[Follow up to the previous post.]

I suppose it should not come as any surprise that it is now being claimed that the $10 cost was a mis-statement and the actual cost is $100. And like the “$100” OLPC which actually costs twice as much, probably the Indian laptop will — if it ever is actually produced — cost anything between $200 to $400, at which point it would be pointless as currently laptops are being produced for around $200 a pop by many manufacturers. I think it is a safe bet that the government officials who continue to make their $10 claims are clueless about technology and about the complexity of building a complex machine.

The newspapers are reporting that the laptop will be unveiled today. A couple of reports even quote yours truly.
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Power and the Skoch Summit 2009

I was at the Skoch Summit 2009 Jan 22-23 held at the India Habitat in New Delhi. It was one of the better conferences that I have been to of late. Aside from the usual sponsors such as Microsoft and HP, consistent with the theme, “India: Challenges & Policy Responses,” it was co-organized by the Planning Commission, the Ministry of Human Resource Development, the Ministry of Information and Communications Technology, the Ministry of Panchayati Raj, the National Institute for Rural Development and the National Disaster Management Authority. So naturally the discussion panels were packed with lots of bureaucrats from these institutions.
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Feb 09 Pragati: Pakistan Needs a MacArthur

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This issue argues that if a stable, prosperous and peaceful Pakistan is in the common interests of India, the world’s major powers and indeed the wider international community, then it is incumbent upon them to engage in a MacArthur-like intervention to transform Pakistan. Merely providing more financial assistance, albeit under different budgetary heads, is unlikely to suffice. In fact, as our in-depth look at one of Pakistan’s biggest jihadi organisations suggests, the export of terrorism from the country is only likely to grow.

[Contents] [Download 2 MB PDF]