svasan

As soon as I saw "nuclear", I was put off. Not because I have anything against nuclear power (in fact I am fully convinced of its potential), but because of the way people perceive the word nuclear. Whenever "nuclear" is mentioned, people get negatively predisposed.

Case in point - Magnetic Resonance Imaging was initially called Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Imaging. The word nuclear was causing anxiety amongst the patients. The healthcare practitioners dropped nuclear and patients did not mind undergoing the MRI scan.

I think a massive rebranding exercise needs to be undertaken while pitching nuclear technologies. It could be atomic technology, it could be some other words that "click" with people as opposed to scaring them off. Unless the psychological battle is won, I am of the opinion that no amount of tech progress would convince people. Perception greatly matters with humans more than the merits of the product/service/technology/initiative.

edit - Not sure why this was downvoted. I was against the use of word "nuclear". Not anything else.

Thanks, but no thanks to FDA approved or "scientifically" structured and tested and accredited health recommendations for me.

I am willing to put to test the the traditional practices that I am (or become) aware of.

Why would one want to ignore beneficial knowledge received in the form of tradition? To be able to re-invent the wheel?

Any chance of getting access to the diagram you mention?

Is there a way to contact you?

Decoy is unnecessarily pejorative here. This is known as price anchoring. Anchoring is an influence tactic based on human psychological bias.

I am not really sure why ethics would come into this discussion. Do ethics come into picture when you are considering/selecting databases or programming languages?

edit: rephrased.

Just a thought - Why not reverse the phone number string and if there is a match in the first N digits of all the above phone numbers, then classify these as the same phone number? N would vary from country to country, no doubt. The intermediate characters like {,, +, -, .,} could also be stripped out from the phone number string to make the original problem less complex.

And very few people have reason to learn LISP or programming languages, for that matter. (If we are generalizing, we might as well go the full length and include the entire world population)

You seem to be mistaken that folks would learn a language for just the sake of knowing it. Far from it. Language is just a tool for communication of ideas. There have been some brilliant treatises, thoughts, ideas, and philosophies expressed in Sanskrit. Folks are more interested in accessing the thoughts and works in Sanskrit as opposed being infatuated with the technical aspects of the language.

Have you ever tried to understand the rationale behind a religious ritual? Not from your viewpoint - but from the viewpoint of why such a ritual came into existence? Did you equip yourself with the tools to undertake such a study?

For e.g., I perform a religious ritual called Sandhyavandanam [1]. This ritual comprises of many components. I see merit in many components of this daily ritual. Some components, I have not been able to appreciate their rationale. But I trust the seers who would have formulated such rituals. I do not have the time to go into every detail of every ritual and understand the underlying motivation(s) and perform the ritual as is. Same with science. I do not question every theory/law/hypothesis. I just trust the scientists and researchers. If and when "I" perceive an inconsistency in a ritual or a scientific law/theory/hypothesis I question it or try to understand more about it.

[1] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandhyavandanam

Forgive my naivete, but what is the point you are trying to make here? Or is this an attempt at creating some kind of fallacy?

>>> Even the Nobel laureate scientist C.V Raman opposed space explorations in his time, saying that they are meddling with Gods.

Could you provide some citation here? As far as CV Raman's religious inclinations were concerned, my understanding is that he was an agnostic [1].

Being a scientist himself, I don't think it would have been in his nature to stifle the spirit of scientific inquiry in the name of religion.

[1] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._V._Raman

The dollar equivalent of the value the companies get in return would be an order of magnitude more than what Kaggle charges the companies/clients that sponsor the contests.

Kaggle is an interesting site. But the cynic in me says these contests/competitions are just a cheap way of effort harvesting. For a pittance, the companies sponsoring these contests are getting tremendous value in return. If you are a statistician/analytics person, there is no reason to let your value and skills get commoditized in this manner.

Very insightful and open. The point that stood out was how selling trumped all other tasks/activities.

The same thing was echoed by PG in the inc.com article that was posted recently [1].

[1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6278293

As mentioned elsewhere here, Modern Money Mechanics booklet published by the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago is a very good read. It explains the concept of "money" at a very fundamental level. The booklet talks about how and where money is "created", who are the players involved, and a working example of how these things happen.

Search for "Modern Money Mechanics" by FRB Chicago.

edit - Sorry, just realized this comment might be off-topic.

And why would you want to bring religion into this discussion?

I belong to a religious group where initiation into meditation happens at about 10-12 years of age for boys. This initiation ceremony is an important ceremony (called thread ceremony) in a male's life. After initiation, every male has to perform a ritual called Sandhya Vandanam [1] thrice every day for the rest of their lives. The ritual has different components. The two important components are Praanaayamaa (breath control exercise) and mantra meditation. A mantra is a Vedic Hymn that is chanted/repeated again and again (for pre-specified # of times). In the Sandhya Vandanam ritual the mantra that is chanted is the famed Gayatri mantra. The mantra is chanted with the following schedule:

Morning at sunrise - Praatah Sandhya - 108 times

Midday - Maadhyanika - 32 times

During evening twilight - Saayum Sandhya - 64 times

The Vedic definition of mantra is "mantaaram traayate iti mantrah". In English this translates to "That which protects the mind is called mantra".

When I was young, I used to perform this ritual regularly. Though I performed the ritual regularly, I used to wonder about the requirement of such a ritual. Over the past few years I have come to know some fascinating things about the ritual and also the Vedas. After gaining the insights, it is ironic that nowadays I do not perform the ritual regularly at all. This article has come at the right time for me to get back into the meditation routine.

[1] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandhyavandanam

Actually, this is not off-topic at all if the "startup" is trying to build a viable business if it is dependent on platforms (Apple/Nokia/Android/etc) that are not under your control. If at all you want to be a mobile app developer, you are better off developing apps for clients who want a mobile presence. The odds of being the Next Big FadApp is decreasing by the minute as app discovery is becoming more of a problem due to the crowding.

I believe this would be the one - https://training.kalzumeus.com/newsletters/archive/saas_pric...

The threats are many. Getting transferred, having false civil/criminal cases foisted against themselves, death threats, violence from goons and henchmen, etc.

Recently, there was the case of Ashok Khemka who spoke out against nepotism and such. He was relieved of his responsibilities (as a Director General/Inspector General in the Revenue Registry) immediately and seconded as a Managing Director elsewhere (a fairly low level position compared to his experience and seniority). There is also a wiki page about him. An honest and upright officer. His qualifications are also excellent (PhD in CS, MBA + IAS).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashok_Khemka

If such hardship can be faced by a very senior government officer, the smaller fish have absolutely no chance but to relent.

While it is not easy to become an expert in any field or pursuit, one should neither overplay the "it is a very hard field / not very easy" argument nor should one underplay the effort involved in becoming good. 10000 hours (equates to roughly 5yrs at 40hrs per week) to expertize seems like a good rule of thumb to keep in mind. Someone said - "The test of a vocation is the love of the drudgery it involves."

For any field, one has to provide positive encouragement (and a good platform/set of tools and techniques) to people seeking to get into that field, while being grounded in reality.