- "Actually, it took about two days, once I got the program done, but
it was eight years from the commission to the actual premiere on the
East Coast." - writer's block, David Cope
- "This one is breathtaking. I hear it's going viral. It should ideally be enjoyed in isolation" --- my comment on a video posted in Whatsapp group during the corona crisis.
- Tools get used in the way people *choose* to use them. #freewill
- "You don't have to be hopeful to keep fighting for a better future." --- from an article on climate change in The Economist
- "We are NOT interested in PROGRAMS. We ARE interested in PEOPLE." --- from an weekly email blast of the LIFE church
- "I don't have ego." #proudlyhumble --- my comment at a LIFE group session
- "God, may I have serenity to accept the things that I cannot change, courage to change the things I can change and wisdom to differentiate between what I can change and what I cannot." --- Serenity Prayer
- "We are not going to change the world, but at least we will be happy about it." --- Eats, Shoots & Leaves, Lynne Truss
- "Between 1993 and 2016, eight abortion providers were killed by anti-abortion activists, along with at least four police officers." --- Doxxing Wiki page
- "tyranny of things" (The Pursuit of God, A W Tozer), "molested by modernity" (Why We Sleep, Matthew Walker)
- "The production of too many useful things results in too many useless people." --- Karl Marx
- "Hell is a collection of individuals who are spending the bulk of their time working on a task they don’t like and are not especially good at." --- David Graeber, On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs
Wednesday 23 September 2020
Quotable Quotes
Tuesday 22 September 2020
The Screwtape Letters, C. S. Lewis
The Screwtape Letters is a book written by C S Lewis. The book talks about the various ways in which the Devil tempts humans. As a framework, the letters are written by a senior tempter Screwtape to his nephew and junior tempter Wormwood. Through these letters, Screwtape trains Wormwood in the art of tempting. Wormwood is assigned a human, who is only referred to as the Patient in the book. The book touches various aspects of the life of a Christian such as church, family, marriage and love.
The Screwtape Letters presents the Biblical truths and fine-tunes them for the modern age (restaurants, industrial age, jobs, various schools of thought such as communism and socialism). The book provides a Christian with many thoughts of wisdom and practical means to deal with trials and temptations. After reading this book, certain aspects become more apparent or pronounced in daily life. We begin to actively pursue certain goals (e.g. reading a book).
Trials vs. Temptations
James 1: 2, 3
“Consider it pure joy, my brother, wherever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance.”
James 1: 12
“Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised for those who love him.”
e.g. covid-19 is a trial; Abraham faced trial;
James 1:13
“When tempted, no one should say, ‘God is tempting me.’ For God cannot be tempted nor does he tempt anyone but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death”
e.g desire for absolute novelty leads to temptation;
The Devil exploits trials to tempt humans.
Summary
-
Screwtape rejects Wormwood's plan to use the power of reason as a weapon to turn the Patient away from the Enemy. I remember Ravi Zacharias signing off one of his books with the words “a world a reasonable faith.” Instead of overwhelming the Patient with doctrines and arguments, Screwtape recommends distracting the Patient with simple, ordinary matters of life because the pressure of the ordinary is too powerful a force to be reckoned with.
-
Screwtape is shocked to hear from Wormwood that the Patient has committed himself to Christian and has begun attending a church nearby. Screwtape now recommends to distract the Patient with the idiosyncrasies of the fellow church-goers. The underlying idea here is the challenges associated with achieving dreaming aspirations with laborious doing. I remember the advice I received as a Master’s student that research is dirty work but the final product is a significant and original contribution to science.
-
Screwtape recommends Wormwood to exploit the domestic tension between the Patient and his mother. The Patient should get irritated by her annoying behavior and his newfound spiritual experience should not help him deal with this crisis. The Patient should pray for her spiritual well-being and forget to pray for her physical and mental needs.
-
Screwtape touches upon the painful subject of prayer in this letter.
-
War has broken out in Europe. Screwtape recommends Wormwood to exploit the situation and ensure the Patient spends a lot of time worrying about his future. Wars, pandemics and recession offer uncertainty, pain, sorrow and suffering. According to Buddhism, human desire, which is the root cause of all pain and suffering, should be dampened through asceticism, meditation and good works.
-
Screwtape admits that the Patient will have a certain amount of benevolence due to this newfound fath in the Enemy. However Wordwood should direct the benevolence towards unfamiliar, faraway people and thus rendering it an imaginary feeling. At the same time, Wormwood can direct his malice towards his friends, family and neighbours rendering it a real experience.
-
Screwtape suggests Wormwood to exploit the European war and push the Patient to have extreme worldviews---either patriotism (so that he’s ready to take part in the ongoing war) or pacifism (so that he’s constantly disturbed by the ongoing war).
-
The Patient is experiencing a period of dryness in his spiritual life. Screwtape reminds Wormwood not to get too excited due to the law of undulation. According to this law, the Patient goes through highs and lows in this life and the Enemy works the most in times of distress. Some people of the Enemy (e.g. Sadhu Kochu Kunju Upadeshi) have experienced long spells of distress and have come out successfully.
-
Screwtape suggests way to exploit the period of dryness through various temptations. According to empirical evidence, sensual temptations such as scantily-clad women and pornography are the most effective. Drinking and smoking also make sure the Enemy stays subdued with constant guild and shame.
-
Screwtape is glad to know that the Patient has made some worldly friends. Screwtape now suggests Wormwood to make the Patient lives a double life---a pious life inside the church and a carefree life outside the church. This technique makes the Patient a hypocrite and further aggravates the wound of guild and shame in the spiritual front of this life.
-
Screwtape teaches Wormwood on various forms of laughter. Laughter can be aroused in four ways---joy, fun, jokes or humour and flippancy. The Patient should be tempted to crack lewd jokes or engage in flippancy with his friends.
-
“Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one---the gentle slope, soft underfoot (on the ground), without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts, ”
-
Screwtape reminds Wormwood to prevent the Patient from indulging in real pleasures of life such as enjoying movies, following cricket, enjoying music, reading books, walking, collecting stamps or meeting with friends. These are innocent pleasures and are not harmful in itself. “If something as pedestrian as reading a book saves one from evil, devil’s task is very difficult.” “An idle mind is the Devil’s workshop.”
-
Humility
-
Screwtape recommends Wordwood to make the Patient be too keen and anxious about the Future. Let the Patient spend all his time and energy chasing after the future (remember: chasing after the wind, Ecclesiastes). We do not know the what the future holds and so we strive for a better future by engaging in nobly pursuits such as social progress, evolution, communism, technological advances.
-
Screwtape chides Wormwood for allowing the Patient to attend only one church. Wormwood ought to ensure the Patient becomes a connoisseur of churches and keeps looking for churches that suit him. Let the Patient be concerned with the unessential matters such as mass vs. holy communion, candles, clothes, jewellery, food, saints, speaking in tongues and baptism. “Mere Christianity”
-
Screwtape talks about the temptation of gluttony which can operate in two ways: gluttony of excess and gluttony of delicacy.
-
Screwtape talks about sexual temptations. Family is a single unit composed of distinct members but united though Love. The purpose of marriage is fidelity (preservation of chastity), fertility (transmission of life) and good will (mutual help). Hell promotes competition (as opposed to co-operation), distrust and zero-sum game of life.
-
Screwtape discusses why God created humans? The answer, even Screwtape knows, is disinterested love (“unconditional love”).
-
Screwtape reveals the limitations of the Devil i.e. the Devil can’t tempt humans for ever. The best approach is to admit one’s weakness and have faith in God (e.g. Ecclesiastes, Job).
-
Screwtape suggests to develop a sense of ownership in the Patient---my time, my money, my body, my God. According to the Bible, we are ought to take care of everything on earth (Genesis 1:28). We don’t own anything. We are called to be stewards on earth.
-
Screwtape again admits the limitations of the Devil. There are many good things human can do---sleeping, washing, eating, drinking, making love, playing, praying, working. The Devil has to twist them for its own benefit. Nothing is naturally on its side.
-
--TODO--
-
Screwtape talks about developing a sense of spiritual pride in the Patient. Encourage him to distinguish Christians from the rest (unbelievers).
-
Screwtape talks about the horror of the same old thing. Humans tend to get fed up with monotony and tediousness associated with routine activities in life. Human like change (seasons, months, weekend/weekday, fashion). Wormwood should attempt to twist this need and make the Patient crave for absolute novelty. This is dangerous for humans because of the law of diminishing returns.
-
Unselfishness vs. Selflessness
-
Prayers
-
Screwtape reminds Wormwood that death of the Patient is something they should try to avoid as much as possible. Wormwood has the opportunity to tempt the Patient throughout his life. In this way, Wormwood can exhaust the Patient with his temptations (e.g. mid-life crisis, quarter-life crisis). Perseverance is key. “Experience is the mother of illusion (remember Roman German class)” “You don’t have to be hopeful to fight for a better future.---Fridays for Future” Humans believe that earth can be turned into heaven by politics, eugenics, science, psychology, communism. So humans work hard for a better world and create a better future.
-
Hatred vs. Fear vs. Cowardice vs. Courage
-
Reality
-
Screwtape chides Wormwood for letting him die. As the Patient was dying, he saw Wormwood, the angels and God.
Conclusion
The only goal of the devil is to win the human soul to its side. The Devil is not interested in what events happens on earth. For instance, Screwtape does not care about the European War (WW2).
Devil has many limitations. Everything is naturally good---eating, drinking, sleeping. The Devil has to corrupt them to be of use.
The temptations will keep increasing in life. Perseverance and courage are two keys virtues. Develop nice hobbies and interests---reading book, watching movies. It’s very easy to resist the devil.
He doesn’t always tempt us with material possessions, food or love. Instead the Devil attempts to:
-
confuse the Patient (e.g. worldly friends, fellow church goers),
-
to exaggerate his minor wicked characteristics (e.g. pride, sense of ownership) and
-
to twist naturally good aspects of life (e.g. eating->gluttony, novelty--> absolute novelty).
Thursday 10 September 2020
A Creative Discourse: Abortion
My humble attempt at making up a discourse on abortion. This work is modelled after Ted Chiang's `Liking What You See: A Documentary.'
Father:
My wife faced a lot of complications during her pregnancy. According to the
doctors, she could be saved if we were allowed to abort the foetus.
Now I have lost the love of my life and my son has lost his mother.
Abortion should be allowed in extreme circumstances.
Mother:
My husband and I wanted to have a child. However I was unable to
conceive. Both of us are old now. Whenever we see a family with small
children, we get overwhelmed with feelings of sadness and depravity. Abortion should be
banned. Children bring happiness to the family.
Feminist: A mother carries the child for nine months in her belly. A pregnancy can have major effects on her life such as career break and post-natal depression. The woman decides what to do with her body. Not even the father of the child has a say in this matter.
Pragmatist: We should treat this subject realistically and not judge on the basis of petty emotions and feelings. Both the parents should consciously make a decision to raise a child. In the event of an unintended pregnancy, abortion is a practical choice. No human should be an accident.
Idealist: We read in the news about incidents of abortion, especially female foeticide. This weakens sex ratio and aggravates gender disparity in the society. A perfect society cannot condone abortion. We as a society should strive for equality in all matters of life.
Euphemist: The question is whether I support premature termination of pregnancy or not. I think we should look at the big picture. Downsizing the population in this fashion, although might have some immediate adverse effects, will result in long-term benefits to the community.
Statistician: Our land is yet to reach the replacement level of 2.1 on population growth. So, statistically speaking, it is in the best interests of the land to allow abortion. This will slow down our population grown and thus reduce the strain on our resources.
Teenager: Yesterday I saw a video on abortion in my FB feed. Everybody in the comments supported abortion. It seems those who opposed were downvoted to oblivion. The hashtag #YayAbortion is trending on Twitter since Friday. Most of the Insta celebs have released videos supporting the cause.
Pacifist: Abortion is nothing but cold-blooded murder. Violence of any sort cannot be justified. The sad side of abortion is that the parents themselves give consent to the killing of their child.
Activist: We
have organized a public meeting in the town square tomorrow evening to
protest government's lack of enthusiasm to ensure immediate action on
the case. We invite everyone to join the protest and show your valuable
support to the cause. Remember, justice delayed is justice denied.
Politician: The opposition is trying to cash in on this case for political mileage. They have bought the media as well. There were 31,427 incidents of abortion in this land during their term. Those who failed to control abortion while in power now shamelessly question the current government. How long can they keep up with this shenanigan. The public cannot be taken for granted.
Conspiracy_Theorist: This is clearly a conspiracy to instil chaos in this land. To some extend, they have succeeded in creating a division among the people with this issue. We should instead direct our vision, time and energy on more pressing issues such as rising unemployment and uniform civil code.
Veteran: Nothing is gonna change. We have witnessed similar events
in the past as well. The media wants to attract our attention and when
something new comes up, they are gonna let go of this issue. The current hullabaloo on abortion will soon give way to something new.
Boomer: Youngsters these days engage in premarital sex and adultery. During our days, we made sure never to get intimate with anyone from the
other sex outside of marriage. Marriage is a covenant between two individuals based on trust and love.
Millennial: Our society has historically put severe restrictions on exercising personal freedom, particularly for women. Times have changed. I don't want anyone else to tell me what to do with my life. The decision whether to abort my pregnancy or not is solely the responsibility of me and my husband. Live and let live. #YOLO
Stranger: Adopting a child is too easy in this land. That is why abortion is so rampant here. In order to combat abortion, we should make it hard for couples to adopt a child.
Liberal: Abortion should be incentivized. Abortion should be permitted except in extreme circumstances. Infringement on our freedom and rights should be condemned at all costs.
Moderate: I do not have a strong opinion on this matter. I thought about this issue for 24 hours straight but I could not come to a judgement. Both permitting abortion and prohibiting abortion have their pros and cons. We have to strike the right balance.
Conservative: Abortion should be penalized. Abortion should be prohibited except in extreme circumstances. Infringement on our culture and tradition should be condemned at all costs.
Reactionary: Our forefathers would not have cared to even discuss such an immoral act, let alone support abortion. The rate of abortion has increased in the recent years. This clearly indicates the deterioration of moral principles and ethics in our society. Abortion should be criminalize.
Monday 7 September 2020
My Glossary
Meetings
conference; plenary session; keynote address; panel discussion; birds-of-a-feather
committee; sub-committee; standing committee; ad-hoc committee; executive committee; steering committee;
take minutes; have the floor; hold the floor; open the floor (for questions) ; move a motion; second a motion; call to order;
general body; agenda; quorum; minutes; floor leader; whip; chairperson; ex-officio member; observer;
5-second rule
ratify; vote; adjourn; veto
Monday 17 August 2020
Academia: Stay Clear of Predators
Today I was searching for a scientific article ("Entity Linking with a Knowledge Base: Issues, Techniques, and Solutions") on Google scholar and the results caught me by surprise. There were only two results. The article I was searching for has been published in IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering, which is a reputed journal. This one was the first hit, and the right one.
However the second hit was an article with the same title but published in a predatory journal. This bogus article is rife with grammatical errors. From a cursory scan of the paper, the content seems to be ruthlessly lifted from the original TKDE paper. The rogue authors did not even bother to 'copy-paste' the footnotes correctly. This is outright plagiarism --- unethical and punishable. I am ashamed of the fact that the authors of this paper are also from India. It is well-known that low-tier and middle-tier colleges in India publish in such journals either due to ignorance or to cheat, a quick and dirty way to increase your publication count. That the second author is himself a PhD indicates that the the act was not one out of ignorance but a deliberate act of fraud.
The predatory journal is called International Journal of Advanced Technology and Innovative Research. The name of any reputed journal or conference is very specific about the targeted special interest group, e.g. Association of Computational Linguistics or Knowledge Capture. Predatory journals are too vague about their areas of interest. So this is a simple heuristic to identify predatory journals. Reputed journals always publish articles after thorough peer-review process. In addition, reputed journals do not solicit any fees to publish articles.
This behavior also demonstrates the pathetic state of scientific research in the country. A majority of academics are unaware of the value of ethics in scientific research. Since only a certain elite can even comprehend or question the nuances of the research conducted on a topic, it is very easy to keep everyone in the dark on the details of a research project. Predatory journals can thrive in such an atmosphere. This practice penalizes honest academics and incentivizes rogue academics.
To the ignorant academic: you may use these two websites to decide for yourself before you decide to send your manuscript to a journal for 'peer-review':
1. https://predatoryjournals.com/journals/
Stay clear of predatory journals. Uphold the virtues of science, research methodology and communication.
Sunday 26 April 2020
Review: The IIT System
(Edit 1: May 2020, grammar correction; Edit 2: September 2020, minor edit)
- IIT-JEE is a very competitive exam. It tests the candidate’s understanding of concepts instead of one's memory. So it avoids rote-learning or cramming, which are heavily promoted in the Indian school system.
- The exams conducted in IITs also test the student's understanding of concepts. In addition, the projects, assignments and tutorials together make sure there is ample opportunity for students to learn from each other. The TAs assist in teaching by taking classes, grading assignments and conducting tutorial sessions.
- There are ample facilities in IITs for pursuing extra-curricular activities: sports facilities, sports fests, tech fests, department fests, cultural fests, PG-sports, clubs, colloquiums, and so on. Everybody is welcome to join these events.
- The professors know what they are teaching. Compared to low-tier institutes, every member of the faculty holds a PhD degree. The system is flexible enough to allow professors to decide the course syllabus.
- There is an undue craze to get into IITs. This results in students who are pressurized into clearing IIT-JEE by parents, peers and the society. The art of learning gets reduced to just an exercise with the aim of passing an extremely competitive national-level exam. These students would never enjoy the art of learning.
- IIT coaching centres only create students who are good at clearing IIT-JEE. The students lack any social skills or social awareness. Students who get into IITs are naturally exhausted after years of preparation for JEE and join IIT without any energy to realize their interests or follow their passion.
- IIT is a brand. That’s how everyone in India considers IIT. The downside of the brand value is that students are made to believe that just getting into any IIT secures their life for ever. However this is far from the truth. Students have to work really hard to earn a degree at IIT. Learning is a life-long journey. IIT aspirants want to make sure that once they manage to secure the IIT tag, they can latch on to it for the rest of their lives. IITs should be rebranded as technical institutes and research centres.
- The classes at IIT are not very inspiring. Except for a few courses, most of the courses are offered just because faculty members are required to offer at least one course every semester. The professors do not care how individuals perform and leave menial tasks such as invigilation and grading to their teaching assistants.
- Since IITs follow relative grading, there is tremendous competition among the students in a class. This impedes learning because students are not motivated to discuss with each other and thereby learn from each other.
- The system of awarding marks for attendance is not very effective. The students are forced to attend lectures even though they might not be interested in doing so. For instance, MOOCs from world-class universities such as Stanford can be a substitute for lectures. IITs should make sure that learning and creativity is encouraged, and unhealthy competition is discouraged.
- The placement season at IITs is highly overrated. Not everybody at IIT get 1 crore job offers. Only a bunch of students, from computer science or electrical engineering, get such heavy packages. This creates a bad impression about IITs on the society. This impedes creativity of students and forces students to participate in various extra-curricular activities just for the sake of ensuring their placement in an MNC with a high-paying job.
- The competitive nature of Indians is clearly visible within the walls of IIT. The IIT system provides ample platforms pitching students against each other - courses, technical fests, sports fests, cultural fests and placements to name a few. There is no shortage of talent in IITs. However the current state of affairs is not conducive enough to assist students to sharpen their skills and talents. Only a handful successfully manage to navigate the labyrinthine system.
- The academic pressure in IITs ensures students face the same amount of pressure they were made to feel during the JEE preparation phase. Every year a few students succumb to the pressure and thus reports of student suicide at IITs is not newsworthy anymore. A common pattern seen in IITs is that the first two months in every semester is pleasant for the students and then the students become a lot busier in the final two months. The students are finally unable to do anything else other than prepare for end-semester exams, finish assignments and projects.
- The research scholars are paid scholarship for TA duties. However this is not monitored well. There have been occasions when research scholars had to work more than what is stipulated by the institute (8 hours per week).
- The research culture at IIT is mediocre. Many PhD (and MS) students do not receive effective and efficient supervision. As a result, the research scholars face immense pressure due to the requirements of having to publish in high-quality journals or at conferences in spite of the deplorable research atmosphere. PhD students have to clear comprehensive evaluation, the purpose of which has always eluded me. Rather than copying the American system, IITs should develop their own style of teaching and research that meets the demands of the country. In this manner, IITs should be a role model for lower-tier institutes such as NITs or IIITs.
- The work culture at IIT is pathetic. Many scholars are night-owls and the labs are operational 24x7 with sufficient facilities for overnight stay such as recliner. A few food stalls are open throughout the night rendering it easy for night-owls for grab a munch during their `working (waking?) hours.'
- The number of research scholars who finish the PhD program successfully needs monitoring. For instance, in the lab where I worked for three years, only one scholar defended his thesis, while I personally know at least seven scholars struggling with their research, a handful of which are currently not in a position to even dream of their thesis defense. If IITs are aspiring to be world-class then there should constant monitoring of the status of research conducted by the scholars.
- The food at mess is horrible. The quality of food degrades continuously. Moreover, hostellers are forced to pay for food for the whole semester in advance. The system should be made more flexible. For instance, hostelers should have to option to cook food on their own in hostels itself. A common kitchen can be set up in every hostel, on every floor to be more efficient, so that those who do not want to eat from mess have the freedom to do so.
Monday 16 December 2019
Metaphor and Metonymy, Jeannette Littlemore
- cross-cultural communication; how metaphor and metonymy are used differently in different languages and cultures (emotions=heart/liver (Malaysia)); language learners (L2 speakers)
- discourse communities
- nursery - loose nappy(=for upset stomach0
- sports - put him under Reese(=Reese’s coaching)
- hospitals - room 121(=patient in the room 121)
- military - 12 o’clock for direction,
- business - hedge funds, ring fencing, angel investor, unicorn, …
- math and music education - high notes, low notes, thick notes, thin notes, ...
- how people talk about their traumatic experience, difficult moments of life (sexual abuse, physical abuse, mental abuse, miscarriage, rape, accident, violence, loss of dear ones, depression, isolation, )
- sexual health - The objective was to use metaphor and wordplay to raise awareness on sexual health in indirect and humorous ways. e.g. going to touch wood; visit her spaghetti garden, exploring their botanical gardens, ...
- advertising and branding - Jaguar Cars (as sleek and fast as jaguars), Rolls Royce Phantom (as strong and powerful as the superman character Phantom), The Beast (as scary as a beast),
- gestures - they are useful in establishing cohesion in conversation by L1 speakers; to find the right words (esp. by L2 speakers); some are metaphorical and some are metonymic (roof gesture for house) and some are pragmatic; sign language;
- non-verbal communication - metaphor and metonymy are common in verbal as well as non-verbal communication
- the pair of glasses on the table for the teacher: metonymy because the teacher wears the glasses
- handbag for Thatcher: metonymy because Thatcher used to have a handbag at public appearances
- sickle for the working class: metonymy because farmers use sickle in harvesting crops; no transfer of properties
- suit for the executive class: metonymy because corporate wear suits to meetings; no transfer of properties
- thumbs up for good luck, V for victory: metonymy because it’s a convention
- human-computer interaction - @MetaphorMagnet publishes metaphorical expressions generated by bots; how good are the metaphors (novelty, alliteration, Keats heursitic…)
- embodied metaphor - metaphors that trigger physical, mental and emotional responses; interaction between metaphorical and the physical (e.g. importance ~ weight, similar ~ close); metaphoric associations such as LOVE is JOURNEY; e.g. I have had a rough day; I am trying to climb Mount Everest in flipflops.
Languages of the World
- Families - The languages having a common ancestor are grouped into language families.
- Indo-Aryan (Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi, Punjabi, Bengali, Oriya, Haryanvi...)
- Dravidian (Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Konkani, Tulu…)
- Germanic (German, Dutch, English, Scots, Dutch…)
- Slavic (Russian, Lithuanian, Serbian, Croatian, Bulgarian, Polish...)
- Celtic (Welsh, Irish, Scottish Gaelic…)
- Romance (Italian, French, Spanish…)
- Sino-Tibetan (Chinese Mandarin, Chinese Cantonese, Tibetan, Burmese…)
- Scripts - Different languages follow different scripts.
- Devanagari (Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati…)
- Latin (English, Spanish, German...)
- Arabic (Arabic, Persian, Urdu…)
- Cyrillic (Russian, Ukrainian, Bulgarian…)
- Analytic - few inflections e.g. English
- Isolation - close to no inflections e.g. Mandarin
- Synthetic - many inflections
- Agglutinative - a single inflection conveys only a single grammatical category e.g. Finnish; English (goes → third person, am → first person), Malayalam
- Polysynthetic
- Fusional - a single inflection conveys multiple grammatical categories e.g. Italian future tense
Some Linguistics
- Linguistics - study of language e.g. universal grammar, syntax, semantics
- Computational Linguistics (or NLP or Corpus Linguistics) - study of language through computational means with the help of machine-readable corpora; natural language processing e.g. automatic question-answering, text summary generator
- Cognitive Linguistics (CL, in short) - study of relation between language and cognitive processes e.g. child language acquisition
- Diachronic (or Historical) Linguistics - study of changes in language over time e.g. semantic drift
- Philology - study of language in historical texts
- Etymology - the study of origin of words
- Onomasiology - the branch of linguistics concerned with the question “how to express the idea X as a word?”
- Semasiology - the branch of linguistics concerned with the question “what does the word X mean?”
- Sociolinguistics - study of language in respect to various social factors such as gender bias, social status, patterns of migration, influence of colonialism
- Multilingual society
- Code switching - switching from one language to another e.g Malayalam with wife, Marathi with shopkeeper, English with boss, Hindi with friends
- Code mixing - mix multiple languages e.g. Manglish, Hinglish
- Language shift - shift from language to another over a long period of time e.g. the common language shifted from Hindi to English in India
- Based on variety of language:
- Accent - variation in pronunciation e.g. Malayalam accents (Trivandrum accent, Palakkad accent, Kochi accent, Thrissur accent, Kasargod accent)
- Dialect - variation in pronunciation and vocabulary e.g. Hindi dialects (Bundeli, Awadhi, Kannauji), English dialects (British, Australian, African-American, American, Indian)
- Based on use of language in a multilingual society: I think a language can have many dialects but only some of them are considered the standard and other become vernacular.
- Standard - codified version of a language e.g. Standard English
- Vernacular - languages that are not official, non-standard version of a language e.g. African-American Vernacular English (AAVE)
- Lingua franca - e.g. English due to globalization, French by nobility, Latin by Catholic Church
- Based on official requirements:
- National language - e.g India (Hindi, Malayalam, Tamil, Kannada, Telugu, Marathi, Gujarati, Haryanvi, Punjabi, Oriya, Bengali)
- Official language - e.g. India (Hindi, English)
Tuesday 26 November 2019
Tuesday 11 June 2019
Writing Scientific Articles
- Pre-writing (content dump) - 70%
- Writing - 10%
- Revision (rewriting, formatting) - 20%
- Cut the clutter
- Remove clunky words/phrases - important, as it is well know that, and it should be emphasized that
- Remove hedge words - e.g. very and appreciable
- Remove unnecessary jargons and acronyms.
- Remove repetitive words/phrases.
- Eliminate negatives.
- Omit needless prepositions - e.g. that
- Use adverbs sparingly - e.g. really, basically, and generally
- Shorten long words and phrases - e.g. due to the fact that to because
- Use the active voice
- Write with verbs - Use strong verbs. Don't turn verbs into nouns. Don't bury the main verb
- Sentences - Sentences should be reasonably short and not too complex. In order to rearrange sentences, use compound sentence structures and complex sentence structures.
- Vocabulary
- In general, prefer short words to long words, ordinary words to grand words, familiar words to unfamiliar words, non-technical words to technical words and concrete words to abstract words.
- Use jargons only if they are genuinely necessary.
- Avoid fashionable words such as functionality, enhance (improve/increase?), parameter (value/variable?), peripheral, viable or inhibit (stop/reduce?) because they have become unreliable units of information exchange.
- Phrases
- Avoid roundabout phrasings that uses abstraction or nominalization. Avoid abstraction by being as being as specific as possible. Avoid nominalization, thereby getting rid of colorless verbs such as achieve, perform, accomplish, carry out, conduct, observe
- Avoid unusual phrasings that use words such as having and being
- Avoid excessive use of adjectives as premodifiers. Usually, one or two adjectives, especially number adjectives and color adjectives, come before the noun, and other modifiers come after it.
- Avoid excessive use of nouns as premodifiers. Premodifying nouns are less explicit than postmodifying prepositional constructions. Confusion may also arise when nouns are used as premodifiers along with prepositions, transitive verbs, and to be and to become. The trick is to introduce the agent as soon as possible.
- Verbs
- Tense - Use past tense to state what the objectives were, what equipments were used and what procedures were used. Use present tense to state ‘eternal truths’ and in discussions of data or results.
- Voice - Use a proper mixture of active and passive voice. Use active voice as far as possible. Use passive voice only when the agent is unimportant, when the agent is not known, when we do not want to state who the agent is and while stating a generally-held belief. Improper use of passive voice can lead to distortion in meaning, roundabout phrasing and ambiguity. Active writing does not have to be personal. It may be desirable to ensure objectivity in scientific and technical writing, but not at the cost of clarity. Avoid it...that constructions.
- Punctuation
- Use right punctuation at the right places. Punctuations are an integral part of written communication.
- Add comma after discourse markers such as however, well, since, ...
- Tone - Avoid cheap attempts at producing user-friendly text that may come across to the reader as overly-patronizing. A comfortable, conversational user-friendly tone is best produced by use of simple vocabulary in direct address to the user.
- Don’t wait, just start writing - forces us to be clear and focused; open the way to initiate dialogue with others; a way to develop ideas, instead of an output medium
- Identify your key idea - a paper is an idea-conveying mechanism; the paper should have exactly one clear, sharp idea; “the main idea of this paper is...”, “in this section we present the main contributions of the paper.”
- Tell a story
- narrative flow: (1) here is a problem, (2) it is an interesting problem, (3) it is an unsolved problem, (4) here is my idea, (5) my idea works, (6) here’s how my idea compares to other people’s approaches
- structure: (1) title, (2) abstract, (3) introduction, (4) the problem, (5) my idea, (6) the details, (7) related work, (8) conclusions and future works
- Nail your contributions to the mast - first page of the paper is very important; describe the problem and state your contributions; use an example; idea vs. contribution;
- Related work - put it at the end of the paper; explain your idea first, along with details and then compare to existing work; acknowledge weaknesses in your approach; be generous to the competition;
- Put your readers first - use examples, figures well
- Listen to your readers - internal review; experts and non-experts; use the guinea pigs carefully; “just put one mark where you get lost and then we’ll talk about it”;
The three important elements of successful academic writing are punctuation, paragraphing and style. This post deals with structuring paragraphs.
Body Paragraph - The three important elements of successful paragraphs are shown below:
- Unity - All sentences should focus on one main idea of the paragraph. Start the paragraph with the topic sentence. The topic sentence should contain the topic and the controlling idea. Ask the question words to come up with the controlling idea. If the paragraph is too long, then it is good to have a concluding sentence.
- Coherence - All sentences should be clearly related to each other. Repeat key words. Use synonyms. Use pronouns. Use transition words
- Development - All sentences should develop the one main idea. Use details and explanation. Use examples and evidence. Use references
Concluding Paragraph - Summarize the main points. State the main conclusion. Has the question been answered?
Monday 15 April 2019
മലയാളഭാഷാ വ്യാകരണം || Malayalam Grammar Basics
The major linguistic elements in Malayalam are the following:
സന്ധി - സന്ധി defines the joining of letters . There are many ways to perform സന്ധി in Malayalam: (1) അദേശസന്ധി (മരം+കൾ=മരങ്ങൾ), (2) ലോപസന്ധി (വനം+മേഖല =വനമേഖല), (3)ആഗമസന്ധി (ദയ+ഉള്ള=ദയ+യ്+ഉള്ള), (4) ദ്വിത്വസന്ധി (അര+പട്ട=അരപ്പട്ട), ...
സമാസം - സമാസം deals with the joining of words. ഉദാ: തീ തുപ്പുന്ന വണ്ടി = തീവണ്ടി, അച്ഛൻ + അമ്മ = അച്ഛനമ്മമാർ. An example for word composition in English is: attendant during flight = flight attendant
അലങ്കാരം - അലങ്കാരം deals with figures of speech ഉദാ: ഉപമ, ശ്ലേഷം. It is of two types: (1) ശബ്ദാലങ്കാരം, (2) അർത്ഥാലങ്കാരം
വൃത്തം - വൃത്തം deals with prosody.
Nouns - Nouns are inflected for case and number. Nouns are not inflected for gender in Malayalam. The cases in Malayalam are as follows:
- Nominative (രാമൻ) - Nominative case always denote the subject of the sentence.
- Accusative (രാമനെ) - Accusative noun denotes the object of the sentence. In sentences where there is a nominative, accusative and dative noun, the nominative will be the subject, the accusative the direct object and the dative, the indirect object.
- Sociative (രാമനോട്) - Sociative case is grammatically similar to accusative case, but semantically different. The sociative nouns do not function in the role of experiencer but only as recipients.
- Dative (രാമന്, മേരിക്ക്) - In sentences where there is no nominative noun, the dative functions as the subject. In sentences involving both nominative and dative nouns, the latter functions as the indirect object.
- Instrumental (രാമനാൽ, വടികൊണ്ട്, വടിയിട്ട്)
- Genitive (മേരിയുടെ, രാമന്റെ)
- Locative (മുറിയിലേക്ക്, മുറിയിൽ, തണലത്തു, വെള്ളത്തിലൂടെ) - Locative case provides temporal and spatial meanings.
- Vocative (രാമാ, രാധേ)
Subject |
Object
|
|
Nominative (e.g. രാമൻ_NOM) | + | - |
Dative (സീതയെ_DAT) | + | + |
Accusative (e.g. പുസ്തകം_ACC) | - | + |
Sociative (e.g. രാമനോട്) | - | + |
Verbs - Morphology of verbs in Malayalam is complex due to the rich agglutination. Verbs are inflected for tense, aspect, mood and voice. There is no inflection for gender, person or number.
Past | ചെയ്തു (simple)
ചെയ്തുകൊണ്ടിരുന്നു (continuous)
ചെയ്യാറുണ്ടായിരുന്നു, ചെയ്തിരുന്നു (habitual) ചെയ്തിരുന്നു, ചെയ്തുകഴിഞ്ഞിരുന്നു (pluperfect) |
resent | ചെയുന്നു (simple)
ചെയ്തുകൊണ്ടിരിക്കുന്നു (continuous)
ചെയ്യാറുണ്ട് (habitual)
ചെയ്തിരിക്കുന്നു, ചെയ്തിട്ടുണ്ട് (perfect)
|
Future | ചെയ്യും (simple)
ചെയ്തുകൊണ്ടിരിക്കും (continuous)
ചെയ്തിരിക്കും, ചെയ്തുകാണും (perfect)
|
Mood (1) Indicative - ചെയുന്നു, ചെയ്തു, ... (2) Imperative - ചെയ്യണം, ചെയ്യ്, ... (3) Interrogative - ചെയ്തോ, ചെയ്യാമോ, ചെയ്യുമോ, ... (4) Subjunctive - ചെയ്യുമായിരുന്നു, ചെയ്തേനെ, ചെയ്തിരുന്നെങ്കിൽ, … (5) Promissive - ചെയ്യും, ചെയ്തിരിക്കും (6) Possibility - ചെയ്യുമായിരിക്കും (7) Ability - ചെയ്യാം (8) Obligation - ചെയ്യണം |
|
Voice (1) Active - ചെയ്തു (2) Passive - ചെയ്യപ്പെട്ടു |
|
(1) കേവലരൂപം - ചെയ്യുന്നു (2) പ്രയോജകരൂപം - ചെയ്യിക്കുന്നു |
മലയാളം അക്ഷരമാല
സ്വരം, അനുസ്വാരം, വിസർഗം
വ്യഞ്ജനം, മധ്യമം
ചില്ല്
അനുനാസിക (ങ്ങ, ഞ, ന, ണ, മ)
- Malayalam-English Dictionary, Hermann Gundert, 1872
- മലയാളഭാഷാവ്യാകരണം, Hermann Gundert, 1851
- കേരളപാണിനീയം, AR Raja Raja Varma, 1896
- The Essentials of Malayalam Grammar, L Garthwaite, 1903
- ശബ്ദശോധിനി, AR Raja Raja Varma, 1918 (2nd ed. of കേരളപാണിനീയം)
- Asher, R.E and Kumari, T.C. (1997) Malayalam, Routledge, London and New York.
- A Grammar of Malayalam, PhD Thesis, RSS Nair, 2012
- Malayalam Proverbs, Pilo Paul, 1902
2.a GNU LGPL e.g.
Open source software vs. Free software
Free software focuses on the freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change, and improve a software. Think of free speech and not free beer. Their enemy is proprietary software released by companies such as Microsoft and Apple.
Open source focuses on the effective collaborative of software development. Remember the Cathedral vs. Bazaar analogy.
The underlying idea between the two terms is different. A neutral term is FOSS or FLOSS. e.g. Linux kernel.
GNU project has two licenses for its libraries. The important difference between the two is that using the Lesser GPL permits use of the library in proprietary programs; using the ordinary GPL for a library makes it available only for free programs.
So when is LGPL useful? LGPL is useful especially when the library's features are readily available for proprietary software through other libraries. With LPGL, such free library's get more users.
So when should LGPL not be used? However if the library's features are not readily available elsewhere, then LGPL should not be used because it goes against the principles of free software. GPL should be used in this case because it leads to the development of more free software, and encourages free software movement.