03 December 2013

What is inflation? Not what you thought it is I bet!

I know we think inflation is understood well. So many government departments banks and what not throw out numbers and tell you how much your money lost value in the last few years or months. Those numbers are just irrelevant. Almost.

Inflation is relative to our spending! How much do things we mostly buy cost us today compared to last year is the real indicator of how much value the money we make lost. Only us and no one else can calculate exactly how much inflation there is. If you don't buy things they use to calculate inflation then those numbers are not relevant. With all the business analytics in place, one day in near future Banks will be able to tell us the exact inflation based on what we spend our money on.

Food, transport and dwelling are our primary expenses. So how much we spend on these will give us a sense of how valuable our money is.

07 October 2013

Yakshagana in USA and Canada 2013 by Kondadakuli and Team

Please visit the link below for Yakshagana schedule in USA and Canada from Sept 18th to Dec 12th 2013

Kolagi Keshav Hegde, Ananth Phatak, Sampa Lakshminarayana and Kondadakuli , Nilkod Shankar Hegde are touring USA and Canada. Do not miss their shows: 




16 August 2013

What are numbers? Part-1

This is not something I have chosen to write to show I think philosophy or 'larger questions of life' etc. I am merely sharing some confusion and discomfort I have with my understanding of numbers. To me, understanding numbers is a scientific problem and is important. I say so with some resolve because I think, numbers as we know today are incomplete. So throwing out my current understanding will follow. You will see how scientific or otherwise, it is.

I will take two practical approaches to understanding numbers. I am not interested in whether the number is a concept or a thing etc. What numbers do, explains a lot more. So the two approaches are:
  1. Enumerate what property numbers help denote.
  2. Assume numbers are incomplete and verify if consequences explain inabilities of numbers as we know today. 
What do numbers help denote?
Numbers help count. What does 0.75 Mango mean then? Numbers help measure size. Note that both counting and measuring are not relative, that is independent of what is being measured or counted (relative to itself). Measuring weight, length etc are relative to how much 1 Kg is or 1 cm is. For example, measuring the weight of a thing is nothing but counting how many 1 Kgs equal weight of that thing. It goes similarly for length etc and other measurements relative to a unit. We then see that count and measure have attributes: they may be excessive(+ve) or lacking (-ve). Let us call it presence. What about 22/7 ? Anything 22 can not be split into 7 equal parts. So these irrational numbers have no independent existence or meaning but there is nothing irrational about them - just a wrong name. These irrational numbers acquire meaning only when there is a possibility of converting them to a rational number eventually. For example, cos(pi/3)  = 0.5 has a meaning. Thus, irrational numbers denote an approximate measure that can be used in the further calculation without loss of precision. For example, 22/7 or pi tells us that, "Look, you can never count in units of  its radius the perimeter of a circle precisely, but you can approximate". Fair enough? 

So far we have the following things numbers can inherently denote:
  1. count
  2. measure
  3. indicate presence
  4. approximate measure
Wait a second, doesn't number denote angles? No, they don't! It is how we define the unit degree that gives 90 a meaning that it is the angle. 90 otherwise is just a count.

That brings us to imaginary and complex numbers. I think mathematicians just misnamed them using their 'imagination' and 'complexity'. These should have been called Rombers (pun)! Multiplying by i actually denotes rotation, where i is a dimension. So far we know numbers are two dimensional. Are we sure? We do not know. Some have proved that there are no three dimensional numbers. But I do think it is correct to think numbers have dimensions, although numbers, to me, inherently denote something independent of our interpretation.

Now, we can think about what else can numbers denote. Are there things numbers denote yet we do not know? I believe so. That we can see in Part-2 when I have some concrete thoughts.

Note on 21 Jan 2014: The explanation of numbers except the imaginary are my own notably the irrational numbers and original as well. Today I realised I am not first to come up with such explanation for real numbers.

09 August 2013

MR

A friend of my grandfather, MR is ones the great artists of Yakshagana taalamaddale in Sagara-Soraba region. I had a chance to visit his place and record this conversation. Please watch and enjoy.


30 July 2013

Multi-Crop Method for Marketable Medicinal Plants

Interview of 

Shri Prakash Manchale 

on his 

Multi-Crop Method 
for
Marketable Medicinal Plants

A Production of 
PMM Trust (R) Kattinakere


25 July 2013

Our Notion of History

I will keep it short and to the point (Indian perspective - my opinion):

  1. History as List of Events:  We do not get a sense of life style and its evolution by reading textbooks. Events, mostly involving powerful people, do not tell us about common people. In my opinion, history should be taught as evolution and life style along with events as things change. 
  2. Ideological Interpretation of History: When there is an accident you dont look at it through a political ideology. Using an ideology to interpret history is misuse of audience for history to further cause of the ideology.
  3. History According to Current Ethics: All historical events should be viewed in the ethical framework of their time. It would then be necessary to agree on what ethical standard was at the time. Although not accurate they would help improve our interpretation and sense of ethics.
  4. History as Fact: There are as many versions as there are people even for an accident that took place minutes ago. How can we be so sure about thousands of years of history? School textbooks preach history as if they are facts. Right degree of confidence or otherwise should be indicated along with "fact" of history. School children must be ware of sources even though they may not fully comprehend quality or authenticity.

10 July 2013

A Meeting on a Mountain - Hosathota Bhagavataru

Interview of 

Shri Manjunatha Bhagavataru Hosathota

on

His Life and Yakshagana Literature

A Production of 
PMM Trust (R) Kattinakere


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