Logarithmic-Linear-Logarithmic

When the daughter was younger and had yet to start going to a classroom atmosphere, the father asked her to lift her right leg. Being the loving grand-daughter, she did. Then he asked her to lift her left leg and she obliged, by stamping the right foot down and lifting the other. Not satisfied with the legs, he started in with the little arms and asked for the left arm. Then the right arm, and both arms together. (Luckily, we have only 2 arms and 2 legs, for this gripping tale would have had us spouting steam otherwise.)

Having seen all this, he asked her to lift both legs together, to which she hardly spent a moment thinking and simply lay down on the floor and lifted both legs looking like a very adorable pup waiting to be tickled by the owner.

Fast forward to a time when formal schooling did start and the same exercise has her thinking about the problem and saying, “But the only way to do that is jump and see if we can fly!”

What makes me remember this you ask. A book I was reading recently: It spoke about how some tribes know not the notion of time or numbers. (They don’t need either concept for their survival.) This book actually has remarkable powers, because it has enabled me to forget the title and clean swiped the power of resurrecting the title from the dark crevices of the brain.

Anyway, according to the author, who spent many happy months among the tribes, Piraha Tribe in Amazon, trying to observe and study their behavioral patterns, he noticed something. When given a series of dots and told to plot them on a number scale between 1 and 10, the tribes with no formal introduction to numbers placed the numbers closer together as they approached 10, and farther and farther apart near 1 and 2. Their natural instincts were to think logarithmically.

A study that coincided with how kindergartners plotted their numbers. Basically, the tribes and the children saw the combination of dots as the pattern. Two dots together doubles the area of one dot, but 9 dots clustered together is only marginally smaller than 10 dots together.

But as these kindergartners approached second grade, they plotted the numbers from 1 to 10 evenly spaced on the number line. We move away from a more complex method of thinking logarithmically naturally to thinking linearly, and then relearn the logarithmic concept later in life.

It is a fact that structured thinking has its benefits, but I often wonder how different we would be if we were allowed to retain our ability to think with out being clouded by what is taught to us.

Edit: Relevant links:

Piraha tribe

Kindergartener Number Study

 

Mourning for books

I read the sad news that Borders declared bankruptcy this morning and it plans on closing the store in my small town. Now, I am depressed. First Barnes & Nobles closed, and now Borders. A co-worker asked me in concern if everything was okay because I looked so shocked and unhappy.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-02-16/borders-book-chain-files-for-bankruptcy-protection-with-1-29-billion-debt.html

That leaves no bookstores in my town. My family outings revolve around going to the bookstore and reading up with coffee and buying some book(s) almost every visit. The smell of the books excite me and that brings me to e-books.

I own a kindle, but I must confess, the few books I have on my device do not hold the kind of dearness to my heart that books made of paper hold. For one, when I read a good book, I like the essence of the book to linger for a while. I like to randomly open up pages and just immerse myself into the world again. I don’t like to have to search for a page and then go there. That feels too calculated – not the kind of lovely-aunt-dropping-by for a surprise visit anymore.

As I glance upon my bookcase, each object has a personality. A unique one. I know when the heart will start to feel a-flutter in each object. I know when I am just meandering through for laughs. Each books personality is there for me to savour, to go back to anytime I want to.

But I find all of those feelings missing in the E-books. I know a number of my friends who have adapted easily to the e-books and swear by them. For me, the charm simply isn’t there, and that means that I am losing out on a big part of what I term enjoyable with the e-crusade.

As my daughter and I meander through the shelves picking out books to read, I wonder, how I will recreate this feeling of being together in the E-world. Browsing for them doesn’t feel the same.

I feel lost.

Valentine Cockroaches

My college days found me staying in what roughly can be called a ‘hostel’. Only it wasn’t. It was a house that converted into shared lodgings for 30 odd girls. There is a whole saga of my life there in that hostel that would simply take up reams of space. Dining in the place was a simple problem. We had asked one of the messes nearby to bring us our food to the tin shed that doubled up as our dining hall.

I have often wondered how these eateries got the name, ‘Mess’, and it dawns on me that it is probably the mess that is all around that contributes to the name. Anyway, this particular mess that served our food was not the best, it certainly wasn’t the most hygienic. One day, as we were sitting with the sambar floating in our plates over the rice, one of my friends asked me to check whether the red chilli in the sambar looked red chilli enough. I gave her a feverish look. That day was one of the days, I was genuinely hungry and the watery sambhar even looked savory from a distance. It wasn’t as brick reddish as usual and I was rather looking forward to it. I gave her a look of disdain that was entirely lost on her. She was too busy staring into her plate. So, I joined the band of observers and it did seem a little strange that the red chilli should have sprouted little feet and arms. There were distinctly there.
“Maybe, the chilli split in that odd manner.” I said unconvincingly, only to have my co-observers give me a look of disdain. What goes around comes around I tell you.

And so it was that despite my best intentions to believe otherwise, the offender was classified as a cockroach. UGH!

In other news,Valentine’s Day is here, and the daughter is all a-twitter. I have been asked several times what I consider to be the most important day of February. There is love in the air. This time, with all the attention this day is getting in her life, I thought it a rather bright idea to see what is it that other folks were getting the loves of their lives. The roses and the chocolates I knew, but what I did not know was this….

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110211/od_uk_nm/oukoe_uk_valentine_cockroaches;_ylt=AqHiIYNehXxlvYRA3zuFdHvtiBIF;_ylu=X3oDMTMzc2EyY2hiBGFzc2V0A25tLzIwMTEwMjExL291a29lX3VrX3ZhbGVudGluZV9jb2Nrcm9hY2hlcwRwb3MDNwRzZWMDeW5fYXJ0aWNsZV9zdW1tYXJ5X2xpc3QEc2xrA3JvYWNoZXNhcmVmbw–

Here is a gift – I don’t know if any, but die-hard naturalists would consider the gift romantic, but there it is. The chance to name one of the species of cockroaches for now and ever more is the Valentine’s Day Gift.

Given that the creatures do not kindle any loving instincts in me – in fact the only images they kindle in me are those watery sambhar images, I think I’ll pass.

Modern Philosophers Stone

While the alchemists of yore spent their days figuring out the ultimate method of turning copper into Gold, it seems to me that modern alchemists will be better rewarded if they were to spend time finding the weight cure – the ultimate food source that can miraculously keep our muscles toned and our cholesterol healthy, no matter what we eat, how much we eat and where we eat. The ideal concoction will allow us to wallow like sloths and look and feel like cats. Recently, Dr. Oz proclaimed on the Oprah show that African Mango is probably the best bet for weight loss. Could it be the Philosopher’s Stone for Weight Loss?

http://www.post-sentinel.com/

Now all we need is for a food magnate to take 1 gm of African mango and juice it up with 98 gms of sugar and proclaim to the world that 16 oz of this at and between meals will keep you slim and healthy for the rest of your life, unless you develop diabetes before that.

That is what seems to have happened to good old popcorn. The lovely snack to pop at the movie theatre, till theatres decided this should happen.

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/19/popcorn/

Small portion size – GOOD, big portion size – BAD!

Sneeze Freeze

The past week has been rough. The nose acted up and sneezed its way through nights and what should have been tasty meals.

I remember someone telling me during my highly impressionable youth that if you stared at a bright light when you feel like sneezing, the sneeze will freeze midway through. So, you can go back to normal from a eyes-puckered-stomach-clutched-eyes-watering stance to a normal one without even sneezing. It has happened once or twice and always makes me laugh. So, I spent one morning staring at the Sun every few minutes. After this enlightening experience, I tottered into the home partially blind only to bang into sofas and chairs placed in my path while sneezing just as hard as before.

Imagine then, how special I felt when I saw the world took note of my misery and decided to have a program on National Public Radio about sneezing.

http://www.npr.org/2011/02/07/133499190/what-ah-choo-can-do-for-you

I smiled through my sneezes the whole way through. Apparently, there are some folks who seem to react with sneezes at unexpected stimuli – like while eating mint. Throw something like this at me, and I had to try. I popped some mint into my mouth to see whether I would sneeze more, but as it turns out, I belong to the category who does not sneeze at mints. In fact, I seemed to belong to the category that stifled sneezes with mint. I laughed – a deep, villainous laugh at my system. I scoffed at the sneezes that I paralyzed within me using the simple method of having couple of mints, and boarded my train.

Usually mints are supposed to keep you fresh and awake. But the sudden stoppage in the sneezing, meant my body saw this as perfect opp. to catch a snooze and before I knew it, I was dozing with a minty freshness that little things like railway announcements could not tap me out of. I slept clean past my station, and spent the fresh morning hours grumpily waiting on an alien platform, waiting for a train to chug in – in the opposite direction. When something like this happens, the world suddenly seems to set itself in slow motion. I spent the precious moments musing all the while that if a sneeze out of my system can make it at 40 mph, why can’t I feel like I am getting somewhere at that speed?

The article ends on this enigmatic note
“Want to stifle a sneeze? It’s possible, Meltzer says. Just press hard on the bridge of your nose.”

I just might have my nose in a bandage when you see me next, but you know why.

Privacy & Security

Facebook has a method of making even the initiatives geared towards privacy awkward. I just realised that when you created a group and called it something, it emails folks you added to the group telling them exactly what you did. So, if I have a group of folks who I choose to classify as ‘Casual acquaintances’, they get an email saying “You have been added to ‘Casual acquaintances’ by ‘nourishncherish'”. Sometimes, casual acquaintances don’t have qualms but there are folks there who aren’t casual about slights such as these especially when you spoke so warmly to them every time those 3 times you met them in the last five years.

One automatically cannot have creative groups such as ‘I used to sock them at football’ or ‘Steer clear of’, not that people do, but they may wish to. And that is my point, you can’t tell people that you are adding them to a classification. You have the classifications and you use them, but don’t tell them.

I can’t imagine the number of issues this kind of thing can wreak in the lives of high schoolers for instance. Just imagine what happens when ‘Best friends’ and ‘Close friends’ compare notes at your party?

I don’t know if there already are, but it may just be a good idea to have some sociologists ponder over the technical designs before implementing them.

While we are busy discussing the privacy settings, Facebook Founder, Mark Zuckerberg’s fan page was hacked into yesterday.

http://technolog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/01/25/5916863-mark-zuckerbergs-facebook-fan-page-hacked

I can’t imagine the security team’s pressure now!

Fox shoots man

Fox shoots man : http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE70C5Q620110113

I don’t remember the time the tide turned in my favour, but it was around the time I shot that man. I hadn’t been a particularly obedient cub, and my mother would always discipline me for being lax about security.
“It would never do to nap where people can see you Loxim. What if you are injured?”

I was one of those calm sorts, and ignored everything she said, unless she was particularly hysterical, in which case, I would make my ears droop and the shoulder hunch and sit down with a sorry looking expression on my face. She couldn’t stay angry at me for long, for I never once lost my temper or fought back. She told Papa proudly that I was one to be watched as all my pent-up anger is bound to come leaping out of me in one shot one day.

I would then go straight back to napping on the rocks by the ledge. One had to accept the beauty of my favorite spot – the best sunshine with bright, fat rabbits hopping up and offering themselves up to you. Then one day, this buffoon of a man came and tried to attack me. I wasn’t particularly pugnacious, but you can’t sock me on the skull with a long stick and expect me to keep quiet. He kept hitting me and when I couldn’t take it anymore, I just used up all my concentration, and Mama was right. All my pent up anger came out in one shot  – it was a loud ringing noise, and the man looked agonized.

I was so scared of what I’d done, that I ran away myself and watched from afar. One thing was certain, my pent-up anger had caused the man distress. Maybe I was one of those rare specimens meant to be watched. I was scared, but proud too. I limped to my mother and told her what had happened. If she felt awed then, she did not let on. She just cuddled me, but after that I was the indisputable king. Other foxes tucked their tails behind their legs and fled when they saw me, rabbits froze in my presence.

I have not displayed my super-natural powers ever since, but they all know it is lurking within me, and that is good enough for me!

Crocodile! Crocodile!

Crocodile! Crocodile! May we cross the Golden river?
Crocodile: Yes you may, if you have cyan on you.

I remember this being one of the hottest games of our youth. We roped off a portion of the street and positioned the crocodile in there, while the goal for the remaining was to cross the river. If you did have the colour the crocodile was looking for, you usually donned an unnecessarily supercilious expression and made a big scene about strolling across the river, while the poor crocodile looked more crocodile-like than crocodiles do – wanting to tear and rip you apart, but the rules of the game bound one. The ones who did not have the colour on them ran across while the croc lunged and grabbed. If caught, you were the next crocodile and so on.

When we first started playing this game, we were very much the rainbow kids – not very innovative in our colours. Then slowly, we expanded to yellowish purple and bluish orange. Anything to get all of them to run across. That was when, I quipped, “I have diglish danglie on my underwear” (Or whatever ridiculous colour it was), and stroll across. The modicums of decency allowed one to stroll across wearing a white panty without verification, but just a small pang of guilt. Best to leave the attitude behind on such occasions. But this method was soon vetoed, because one could not possibly have 255 colours, and all their permutations and combinations on a small panty, and some people claimed they did.

I loved playing this game because this is when I started taking an interest in vocabulary. I learnt about ‘Scarlet’ and ‘Turquoise’ and ‘Garnet’ and ‘Fushcia’ just so I could ask for these colours when it was my turn to be a crocodile. I am not even sure I knew the exact colour myself, but so didn’t the others, and I was finally queen of the river.

Imagine my chagrin then when years later, I said ‘Teal’ or ‘Mauve’ matter of factly only to have the husband stare at me like he was oggling through a glass barrier at a very mentally disturbed gorilla. “You mean purple?” he’d ask. I let it pass thinking the poor lad in his youth hadn’t played this enriching game of crocs and must not be penalised.

Then, I read this article about different kinds of color blindness. So, where some see palettes of colours, others don’t. It also gave me a tit-bit that I have suspected all along. Women are less prone to being color blind than men.

http://mikestake.wordpress.com/2011/01/11/im-blind-colorblind-that-is/
I quote:
“Color blindness is an inherited condition(usually anyway) most common in men ( 8-12 percent of Caucasian men, and less than one half of one percent in women).  ”

Not all forms of colour blindness is acute enough to not recognize primary colours – it is subtler than that. While we see the bottle greens and the olive greens, some of them just see green or possibly gray. I’d like to play Crocodile Crocodile with one of these people just to see how interesting it is.

Live like 4 year olds

I’d taken the brother’s family and daughter on that beautiful day to San Diego’s Sea World. I love watching the dolphins and the killer whales frolicking in the waters, and goofing around with their trainers.
On a side note, there is one thing that has always stood out for me at these outdoor parks, be it Disneyland or Sea World. I am never clothed right. Either I’ve seen the forecast, analyzed it from every angle and then come in looking thoroughly unprepared. Dressed like a polar bear, only to find the sun’s rays laughing harder and harder at me, pointing fingers as I struggle through; or I am dressed like  heroines in old Indian movies dancing in the snow with a flimsy saree – under dressed for the occasion I meant – Shivering and refusing to buy a  jacket at the local park stores.(I can be wool headed when I want to, I am afraid).

San Diego saw us prepared this time. We got up in the morning to rain and thunder. The kind of rain that urges you to stay indoors and gulp tea and have pakoras. But, we did none of that, we braved the elements and went looking for adventure. The look of glee that was on my daughter’s face knowing she could splosh around in the rain was infectious. Soon, we washed our faces with the gleeful rays emanating from her and danced and sploshed in the rain too.

I glanced at the killer whales as I entered the show stadium and winked at them. Dared them to soak me this time. You see we’d carefully concealed our beautiful clothes with unwieldy jackets and further added a pillow case like rain hood on top of that. I bravely sat in the soak zone and simply balked at them.

“See? Huh? 4 layers – the only thing you can really get wet is my face. Want to try?”

I should have known by the lazy flick of their fins. I sat there simply imploring them to come and splash on our side, but they refused. It is like they read my thoughts and said, “Think you are smart, do ya? Well…we only soak you when you are warm and dry. Not when you come looking like tarpaulin tents” and ignored our spot of the stadium the whole while.

Nevertheless, sploshing around in the rain was fun. It brought back memories of our childhood and watching a young one prance in the rain made us behave like 4 year olds who have had too much chocolate.

The way this news article asks us to behave, in other words.

http://shine.yahoo.com/event/momentsofmotherhood/want-to-get-healthy-act-like-a-4-year-old-2435873/;_ylt=Ajc0ZFeKu1VENwtlVAgFmyuZb6U5

All for one and one for all

My previous post told us about the sort of cloth headed things one needs to do when the partner is standing in the queue for food. The partner, in the meanwhile, was bored stiff. He took to observing those fellow sufferers in queue with him.

It turns out the family right in front of him had adopted a fundamentally different approach from the one we had adopted. We had decided to go for the divide and rule policy – queues vs scourging for seats. The family in front of us seemed to be staunch believers that everything was an experience to be shared by all. Every time, I circled back to see how the queue inhabitants were doing, I had the All-for-one-and-one-for-all song ringing in my head. Not that there was anything wrong with this approach, but it did seem like the children could have done with some time to sit quietly while the food was ordered. There were two children, and two adults. They did not seem to be complaining to us, but, I couldn’t help noticing the children spilling all over them and crying (1 infant plus one girl). At one point, the infant in their arms attempted a parabolic dive into a location known to her alone from her father’s arms. The older one had a most unpleasant expression on her face. Like Disneyland wasn’t at all the magical place she’d expected. The poor child probably thought that if somebody waved their wands, the food would find their way to them.

Ever the resilient birds, they waited. Nature had taught them that patience is rewarded with a plate of whatever was up there on the menu charts. The line snaked slowly, dully, their aching legs causing them to squat even. Eventually, they reached the counter.

The whole time, we’d been there, the menu was written in large signboards and were flashing in front of us. The husband and brother, who were the queue heroes for the day, had prepared  a magnificent list to recite at the counter, replete with dessert. According to them, if you were standing for this long, it might as well be a grand lunch. Admirable sentiments, if not wholly agreeable to the belly.

Imagine our chagrin therefore, that the all-for-one-family spent a full 10 minutes deciding what it was they planned to eat at the counter. I mean – the dishes were right there! Could they have missed the boards? Not possible, it was the only thing to look at, with hunger gnawing at your insides.

After getting the food, they would have to find seats and then eat. I wonder what they managed to see at the Park that day. We managed a decent list because the husband’s fine-tuned fast pass algorithm saw him rushing from one end to the other and picking up fast passes, so we could get the rides lined up. For the remaining part, we went for the less popular rides and had fun all the same.

Sometimes, divide and rule works.