Blogs

1. Pattern Matching and Substitution in bash

   The programs, sed, awk, grep, and perl have been the traditionally used tools for matching and manipulating lines and strings in Linux. But the bash shell [1,2] also embodies powerful pattern-matching and substitution capabilities [3–6], many of which are relatively unknown and unused. This blog gives practical examples for using these powerful, but somewhat understated features, to achieve common tasks efficiently and tersely, directly from within bash itself.

2. The Secret Trapdoor to Success

   The nursery rhyme tells us that life is but a dream. Imagine, however, if someone told you that your dreams could become your life. Would you be inclined to believe that statement? If you are imbued with the scientific spirit, you would at the very least subject that assertion to experimental validation or refutation. If you are of that mind, read this blog carefully, because it could be the single most important secret of success—academic or otherwise—that you might encounter in your entire life.

3. Asking Questions in English

   This blog is devoted to the art of asking questions in English. This seemingly undemanding task often trips up the aspiring learner of English, especially one who is studying it as a second or third language.

4. What Ails Indian Education?

   The QS World University rankings for 2013 have just been released. This is one of several league tables ranking universities according to various criteria of academic performance. Such rankings are symptomatic of the relentless trend to quantify more and more aspects of our lives. May this madness be checked before intangible attributes best left qualitative—like love and loyalty—are also subjected to mindless, simplistic metrology!

5. Image format conversions

   Although digital images are ubiquitous, one image format does not suit all applications. Printed paper, electronic displays, images on the Web, etc., each call for the same image in a different format. In this tutorial, we explore the different format conversion tools that are currently available. The ImageMagick suite, the cairo backend, the poppler utilities, the Inkscape vector graphics editor, and CairoSVG are each identified for their individual strengths, that make them the tools of choice for specific image conversion tasks.

6. Reflections on the Mind of Nikola Tesla

   Nikola Tesla was a complex genius whose prolific mind produced many electrical marvels. In this paper, we focus on only four of his documented mental characteristics: (1) an extremely acute sense of hearing and sight; (2) a visualization so vivid as to mimic reality; (3) eccentricities of habit and behaviour; and (4) making grandiose claims, some of which remain open until today. Each of these is examined in some detail, especially with respect to his creativity, and questions worthy of further investigation are posed. Finally, the hypothesis of mental evolution, as proposed by R M Bucke, is put forward as a possible explanation for Tesla’s prodigious and rare mind.

7. Eigenvalues and Eigenvectors—Why are they important?

   A university academic friend of mine recently remarked that it was not easy to motivate students to study eigenvalues and eigenvectors, let alone appreciate their importance: the subject itself was abstract, and the applications tended to be domain-specific and somewhat arcane.

8. The Making of a Logo

   My friend Solus “Sol” Simkin has a well-earned reputation as a Renaissance man. Among other things, he is a virtuoso of design. He endows his creations with an ethereal air of perfection—where mathematics meets aesthetics—to transmogrify the mundane or banal into unforgettable works of art.

9. A Peacock in Mid Flight

   This morning, I saw a peacock in mid-flight. It was a wondrous and unforgettable sight, the more so because unexpected. I was walking as usual in the neighbourhood, which is known to be home to a large number of peacocks. As I turned to my right, I saw what I thought was an unusually long bird in flight. Only as it approached me did I realize that it was a peacock in mid-flight.

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