Writings on the margin

Though on my hard copy books I do not scribble on the margin, I am not at all averse to this idea (link via MR) — simply because, somehow, on the e-copy, I do not feel like a vandal if I mark soemthing up!

The site was born out of co-founder Travis Alber’s desire to talk about books with friends who had moved away. Her solution? A Web site that allows multiple users to write in the margins of an online book.

“You can chat inside any chapter of the book, or you can click on any paragraph and attach a comment to it, and someone else can come past that point in the book later and respond,” she says.

Take a look!

It breaks one’s heart

To see news items like this. This is not the first time nor is it the only kind of damage that is being done to our temples in the name of renovation; the news report itself goes on to add

Over the past several years, similar mural masterpieces have been whitewashed at the Meenakshi temple in Madurai, the Arunachaleswarar temple at Tiruvannamalai, the Vishnu temple at Tiruvellarai near Tiruchi, and Siva temples at Patteeswaram near Kumbakonam, Tiruppulivanam in Kancheepuram district and Vedaranyam, all administered by the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Department of the Tamil Nadu government.

Similar vandalism has been witnessed at other temples in the State, including the Varadarajaswamy temple in Kancheepuram, the Lakshmi Narasimhar temple at Sevilimedu, and the Sanjeeva Rayar temple at Iyengarkulam, both near Kancheepuram.

The latest round of effacement that has been revealed took place about six months ago in the name of renovation, and it is still under way. Sculptures on pillars and inscriptions have also been “cleaned” by sand-blasting: it involves training sand on them at high pressure. This is in violation of a Government Order that bans sand-blasting in temples as it damages sculptures and inscriptions. A sign-board at the temple says Rs. 8,16,000 will be needed for “sand-blasting (chemical wash)” for the renovation.

There are several factors that lead to this kind of scenario; for example, the news report notes that the Executive Officer during whose tenure the murals were whitewashed claims that he never gave permission:

P. Krishnan, during whose tenure as temple Executive Officer the murals were whitewashed, said he never gave permission for such work.

If the EO did not giver permission, who carried out the work and who paid for it?

I remember visiting Sri Villiputtur once and seeing the deities in the Garbagraha painted in garish colours which completely spoilt the visit for me.

I have also lamented elsewhere in this blog about the lack of Bhaskara Thondaiman-ish attitude towards our temples — an attitude of paying as much importance to history and historical information as to sthala puranas; I am not sure anybody who ordered white washing in the Mannarkovil temple had any inkling of what he/she is erasing.

And, of course, the final factor is the culture itself; temples are no longer the vibrant spots of socio-cultural interaction they used to be. Nobody cares about the sculptures or the murals. It is all a business transaction between the gods and the devotees: depending on your current needs, you visit the concerned temple, and make your bargain with the gods and their agents in human form — I remember being disgusted in the Dhanvantri Sannidhi of Sri Rangam temple where an elderly person was making discreet enquiries to all the devotees about their ailments (you see — nobody goes to Dhanvantri sannidhi who is good health is the implicit assumption) and recommending an ayurvedic pharmacy nearby to them all.

As long as our culture treats temples and worshipping another business spot and business transaction respectively, as long as we, as the inheritors of the culture, do not pay enough attention to the details of what we are inheriting, and, as long as the temples are run by EOs appointed by government whose main concern is certainly not maintaining the sanctity and preserving the art forms in the temples, this will not be the last news item of this sort — K T Gandhirajan will keep visiting every nook and corner of Tamilnadu and keep seeing things of this sort to report in the Hindu.

Galleons, pirate and the flying boat

Must-read of the day from Bruce Eckel:

Along comes Google, the pirate. It uses a new kind of ship, swift and agile that can dart among the lumbering Microsoft galleons. The galleons have three and four rows of heavy cannon, but they are too ungainly to turn, and the big guns, so effective when attacking a fixed fortress, can hit nothing (Apple is far over the horizon during all this, in a high-tech racing sailboat. It’s just one boat, but it flies).

There are some really interesting pieces on information in there:

Microsoft could have taken .NET and created a thin layer of glue onto the hardware, and come up with a really good, robust, and revolutionary OS. When I mentioned this in a previous blog, a commenter who apparently worked within Microsoft research said that a project like that had been going on and some pieces of it might eventually appear in Windows. Of course, it could never be put out there as a real OS because it would compete with Windows and someone has too much turf power for that to happen.

Contrast this with Chrome OS. It’s been pointed out that Android is also being used as an OS, so gasp! There are two potentially competing OSes from a single company! Google shrugs and says “yeah, there might be some overlap, but they were designed with different goals in mind so we’ll just see what happens.” Something that would cause major political battles within Microsoft produces indifference within Google.

And, the piece is full of analogies; I will quote the one with which Eckel ends his piece:

I don’t see how Microsoft can change. What you’ve got is one of those nets in the jungle (think “Lost” here) which springs up and traps people into a hanging ball of bodies. Take one of those nets and fill it with Microsoft VPs. The net is constantly pressing them together as they struggle. No one can see that the net itself is an arbitrary constraint, because it presses everyone into a zero-sum game. Google comes wandering through the jungle, whistling, notices for a moment the ball of VPs fighting among themselves, and wanders on.

Unfortunately, the only way to fix the problem is for someone to come along and cut through the net, while everyone inside is screaming “Don’t cut it! We’ll fall!” And of course there would be a fair number of bruises, sprains and some broken bones. (Important note to Microsoft: I now do management consulting, although prepare yourself for truly outrageous fees, payable in advance. I can definitely come in and fix your company).

Take a look!

When reviewing demands expertise that you do not have!

Here is Dr. Free-Ride:

At his lounge, the Lab Lemming poses an excellent hypothetical question about manuscript review:

Suppose you are reviewing a paper. Also assume, that like most papers these days, that it has multiple authors, each of whom applies his expertise to the problem at hand. And finally, assume that you are an expert in some, but not all of the fields used to solve the particular problem being reported in this paper.What do you do if one of the key points in the paper that is not your area of expertise seems fishy. For example, if the paper is on your field area, what if some of the lab results seem fishy. Or if you are an analyst, what if the experimental setup seems odd.

Assuming that you are a successful researcher, you probably have long-time collaborators who are experts in these fields. So, what is the best way of accessing their expertise, given that some sort of confidence generally surrounds papers in review.

Here are her two options:

Here are the alternative options that occur to me:

1. Hit the literature. You could ask your expert friends for recommendations of papers that describe the kind of experimental set up, or data analysis strategy, or whatever, that is bugging you in the manuscript you’re reviewing. From those recommendations, you can use the references to collect more papers. Perusing a reasonable handful of papers that deal with the issue you’re pondering may give you a better sense of whether what’s presented in the manuscript is normal or weird. If it still strikes you as weird, you can flag it as such in your review (listing the articles you’re using as your “baseline” for normal).

2. Note your concerns, and the limits of your expertise. You can communicate your concerns as part of your formal review of the manuscript, or you can do it in an email to the journal editor in advance of your formal review. Either way, it’s not inappropriate to pass on to the journal editor names and email address of the experts you would turn to for advice. The editor can then investigate whether these experts would be appropriate additional reviewers.

…

If and when the manuscript is published, you might shoot an email to the expert friend you were tempted to consult and have a chat about the published paper. Use it as an opportunity for your friend to educate you about the details of his or her expertise as applied to the research described in the paper. If he or she sees a glaring problem in the paper, a letter to the journal editor may be in order.

Take a look!

Blogs might kill books but they do generate book contracts

John Quiggin at CT:

Blogs kill books. At least, that’s what I always thought. Between 1988 and 2000, I wrote four¹ books and edited a couple of volumes. In 2002, I started blogging, and I haven’t done a book since then.

But, in the mysterious way of things, it turns out that blogs generate books, or at least book contracts. In comments here not long ago, Miracle Max wrote

The discredited ideas theme really needs a book, and JQ appears to be the ideal person to write it.
I will even contribute the title: “Dead Ideas from New Economists.” No charge.

Brad DeLong picked it up, and a couple of days later I got an email from Seth Ditchik at Princeton University Press suggesting that it really would be a good idea. Now, we have a contract, and we’re going to use Max’s suggested title.

Take a look!

Brain damage and selective aphasia

Mo at Neurophilosophy points to an interesting paper (which reads like a case study from Oliver Sack’s book):

After the rehabilitation period, a series of linguistic tests was administered to determine the extent of his speech deficits. M.H. exhibited deficits in both languages, but the most severe deficits were seen only in Hebrew. In this language he had a severe difficulty in recalling words and names, so that his speech was non-fluent and interrupted by frequent pauses. He had difficulty understanding others’ spoken Hebrew, and also had great difficulty reading and writing Hebrew. In Arabic, his native language, all of these abilities were affected only mildy. Differences were also seen in the effects of intensive language therapy. Although the therapy led to improvements in both languages, the improvements in Arabic were seen in all linguistic abilities; in Hebrew, by contrast, there was only mild improvement in his spontaneous speech and comprehension, and his ability to name objects remained unchanged.Similarly, his ability to read and write Arabic, but not Hebrew, improved significantly.

Take a look!

Fifty minutes of pure bliss!

Sanjay with Sriram and Dr. Ramanathan — talking about music!

What is special about books?

Fabiorojas points to a piece that explains:

Written by the director of the Princeton University Press, Peter J. Dougherty, the essay makes two powerful points about books:

First, books remain the most effective technology for organizing and presenting sustained arguments at a relatively general level of discourse and in familiar rhetorical forms — narrative, thematic, philosophical, and polemical — thereby helping to enrich and unify otherwise disparate intellectual conversations.

Second, university presses specialize in publishing books containing hard ideas. Hard ideas — whether cliometrics, hermeneutics, deconstruction, or symbolic interactionism — when they are also good ideas, carry powerful residual value in their originality and authority.

There you have it: sustained arguments that tie together otherwise disjoint ideas and resonance in the broader intellectual culture. It’s something that can’t be done in a 35 page article, a blog post, or conference paper. You need an extended literary form – the book – to pull it off.

Dougherty makes a number of excellent points. Here’s a good one:

Hard ideas define a culture — that of serious reading, an institution vital to democracy itself. In a recent article, Stephen L. Carter, Yale law professor and novelist, underscores “the importance of reading books that are difficult. Long books. Hard books. Books with which we have to struggle. The hard work of serious reading mirrors the hard work of serious governing — and, in a democracy, governing is a responsibility all citizens share.” The challenge for university presses is to better turn our penchant for hard ideas to greater purpose.

The broader intellectual culture is enriched and defined by challenging ideas generated by specialists, but expanded for the general educated reader. I like it.

A mistaken plausible line of reasoning

Here is Eric Drexler:

A scientist recently remarked to me that molecular modeling techniques cannot accurately predict the mechanical properties of typical polymers, even one as simple as polyethylene, a hydrocarbon consisting of long chains of –(CH₂)– units. He was, I think, suggesting that molecular modeling may tell us little about molecular technologies based on structures that would be far more complex.

It’s important to understand why this plausible line of reasoning is mistaken.

Take a look!

The weird problem with books

Here is Elizabeth Bachner at the bookslut:

There’s the same weird problem with books. There are good, or even great books that are hard to read or slow-going, and also bad, waste-of-time books that are a slog. There are brilliant books that are unputdownable, but also piece-of-shit, brain-rotting books that are unputdownable. How do we tell which is which? How do we sate our cravings without making ourselves sick? And how do we isolate those key ingredients that enhance flavor, and find them in wholesome forms?

And, the ending of her piece is great too:

Maybe I should quit the sin of complaining when things are not so bad. Unlike Goytisolo’s first readers, I have millions of books to choose from, and hundreds of thousands of them are great. I live in a world of Malls of America and grocery stores that seem to be the size of cities. With aisles and aisles of food, why do I worry about the rare fruit I may never get to taste, the salty young pecorino too fragile to ship, or tomatoes with real tomato flavor? The lost books keep haunting me, though, haunting me enough that I stop being merely self-righteous and start to scare myself by getting downright biblical. “Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and tear you.” Then again, who are the dogs, and who are the swine, and which are the pearls? And what about me, the furious reader, the proud reader, the lustful, greedy, envious, despairing, gluttonous reader? Where do I fit in?

A must-read piece for all bibliophiles!