Books-Reading or Listening

Do you want to listen instead of read?

On occasion of the TV-turnoff week, it is a good idea to focus on books. Pursue your hobbies: gardening, writing, walking, fiddling within the house hold gadgets, etc. If you have an iPod and tired of listening to music or bored to read a book, try listening to audio version of books. If reading does not interest you, I suggest listening to some good audio books while walking, running, you are not interested in reading With the proliferation of iPods, I think one would benefit much from free audio books. Here is a collection of some useful links listed in the order of my preference.

1. SimplyAudioBooks (Thanks to Lifehacker)
2. AudioBooksForFree (Has well defined categories)
3. TellTaleWeekly
4. Lawrence Lessig (and friends): Free Culture
5. FreeAudio
6. FreeClassicAudioBooks
7. FreeChristianAudioBooks

If you are into reading you can borrow books from your local library. Booksfree.com is an online website for renting books (just like Netflix for movie dvds.) The best thing about booksfree is that it can rent both paperback and audio books.

Understanding Complex Research Papers

Are you afraid of reading large volumes of research papers?

Well, don’t be. Ann McNeal presents a four-step guide for reading a scientific paper: skimming, vocabulary, comprehension-section by section, and reflection and criticism. The above four steps not only improves the understanding of a paper but also increases the reader’s vocabulary and creativity. Before you start reading papers try to choose articles written by well-known authors, who have published frequently in leading journals. A regular reading habit and peek into well-known authors increases one’s critical thinking ability.

According to the guide any research paper basically is divided into four main sections: Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion. The following is an excerpt from the article:

Here are some questions that may be useful in analyzing various kinds of research papers:

Introduction

• What is the overall purpose of the research?
• How does the research fit into the context of its field? Is it, for example, attempting to settle a controversy? show the validity of a new technique? open up a new field of inquiry?
• Do you agree with the author's rationale for studying the question in this way?

Methods

• Were the measurements appropriate for the questions the researcher was approaching?
• Often, researchers need to use "indicators" because they cannot measure something directly--for example, using babies' birthweight to indicate nutritional status. Were the measures in this research clearly related to the variables in which the researchers (or you) were interested?
• If human subjects were studied, do they fairly represent the populations under study?

Results

• What is the one major finding?
• Were enough of the data presented so that you feel you can judge for yourself how the experiment turned out?
• Did you see patterns or trends in the data that the author did not mention? Were there problems that were not addressed?

Discussion

• Do you agree with the conclusions drawn from the data?
• Are these conclusions over-generalized or appropriately careful?
• Are there other factors that could have influenced, or accounted for, the results?
• What further experiments would you think of, to continue the research or to answer remaining questions?

Creating Memorable Lectures

Lecturing a course is important both for an instructor and a student. Here is an article about creating memorable lectures.

Quick and Easy Ideas for Better Lectures

Provide students with a framework for each lecture
o Aim for three to five main points in each lecture.
o Begin the lecture with a high-level question that the upcoming information can answer.
o Prepare a handout of the lecture's main points.
o During lecture, be explicit about what students should focus on.

Don't overload students
o Give students short breaks throughout lecture to review their notes and ask questions.
o Include a formal activity or assignment after every 15-20 minutes of presentation.
o Don't use too many different types of presentation materials at once.
o Don't give students two conflicting things to attend to at the same time.

Students are also more likely to remember information that relates to ideas or experiences they are already familiar with.
o Use examples from student life, current events, or popular culture.
o Ask students to generate their own examples from personal experience.
o Tell students how new information relates to previous lectures in your course.
o Show students how specific skills can be applied to real-world problems.
o Create activities and assignments that ask students to fit new information into the overall themes of the course.

Perspective

Try to look at everything through the eyes of a child.
— Ruth Draper

Source: Paperquote

Equip thyself before thy meets someone

I am not talking about war. I am talking about a fruitful meeting that happens when you know some facts about a person beforehand.

How many times have we googled a person? Be it to know about a renowned scientist, potential date, recruiter, or plain simple self. But, the problem is that we encounter a lot of websites with the same last name.

Pipl [via Digital Inspiration] is a collaboration of plain vanilla search and geographical location. The results are structured based on quick facts, contact details, profiles, publications, websites etc. Below an excerpt from their website:

Unlike a typical search-engine, Pipl is designed to retrieve information in real-time from the deep web, our robots are set to interact with searchable databases and extract facts, contact details and other relevant information from personal profiles, member directories, scientific publications, court records and numerous other deep-web sources.

Go ahead and try it. I know you are eager to pipl your name. ;)

Medicine

The bitter cup we strive to remove from us holds the medicine we are most in need of.
— Gaelic proverb

Batman Begins

Quotes from Batman Begins

If you make yourself more than just a man, if you devote yourself to an ideal, you become something else entirely. You must become more than just a man in the mind of your opponent.

why do we fall? So we can learn to pick ourselves up.

To manipulate fears of others, you must first master your own.

The training is nothing! The will is everything!

Men fear most what they cannot see.

Theatricality and deception are powerful agents.

Counterfeit or Genuine

Last week, the entertainment industry, especially the movie (Hollywood and Bollywood) and music, was affected by two different aspects. It was wriggled by two sides.

On one side is the American administration that has a dual but paradoxical goal of curbing piracy yet increasing the awareness of American products in China.

… for the Bush administration to file two separate complaints. One addresses what American companies say is China's reluctance to use criminal laws for people caught selling DVDs with pirated material on them.

A second complaint would be about expanding "market access" for American products in China.

On the other side is the aggregation of radical clerics who want to enact Islamic law and shut the video stores in Pakistan.

On Friday evening, dozens of students gathered in front of the mosque around a smoldering heap of Pakistani, Indian and English CDs and DVDs. "These are all dirty movies," one said, claiming that they had been handed over to the students voluntarily by a local video store owner.

These two different sentiments achieve one common goal: reduction in the sales of movie DVDs and music CDs, whether counterfeit or genuine.

NMT License Plate

Finally NMT License plates are available. The NMT logo on the backdrop of the M-mountain makes it the most colorful and alluring license plate than any other collegiate name plate in New Mexico.

Bill Richardson for President

Will an able Governor get a chance to become an able President?

Many Americans tend to brush aside this simple, articulate, humble, passionate and witty Governor from New Mexico. I am talking about Bill Richardson, a person who exudes confidence with a lot of achievements by his stride. He is a popular political persona and commands respect from everyone. Residents of New Mexico love him, his opponents regard him, and the international community adores him.

Bill Richardson is not only a household name in New Mexico, but also has his presence felt in cyberspace. He is in myspace, facebook, youtube, flickr, zanby, and partybuilder. These aforementioned links convey volumes of his achievements.

Mr. Richardson is a natural leader. Recently, he was listed in the Top 25 doers, dreamers, & drivers for the year 2006. Chad Vander Veen names the governor among top space voyagers.

Yuri Gagarin, John Glenn and Neil Armstrong. Voyager, Apollo and the Space Shuttle....Bill Richardson may soon find his name listed alongside the pioneers of human space travel.

He recognizes his position as an underdog. Elections are an expensive affair in terms of the money. He is looking for funds. With candidates like Hillary Rodham Clinton raising record funds ($26 million) during the first 3 months Bill Richardson seems really underfunded.

... he had raised $6 million in primary campaign money and had more than $5 million cash in hand at the end of the three-month period...

I have been living in New Mexico for the past 5 years and everyone regards "Bill Richardson" as their own family member. He has an immaculate record and is passionate in his job. He was voted into the governor’s office again with ease.

I firmly believe that Bill Richardson has everything, except the affluent wealth (read funds), that takes to become the president of USA. Give him a chance to enter the white house and you will never regret it!

Refer to America for Richardson, a comprehensive portal/blog, for more information.

April Fool's Day 2007

It is traditional to play a prank on someone and fool them today. But, media and large corporations take it a little too far too often. Last year, Ajay introduced me to hoaxes that are created by Google. Today, I noticed two hoaxes from Google.

Google's hoaxes on today is funny. I wonder if people are really gullible to fall for Google's TiSP.

Google TiSP (BETA) is a fully functional, end-to-end system that provides in-home wireless access by connecting your commode-based TiSP wireless router to one of thousands of TiSP Access Nodes via fiber-optic cable strung through your local municipal sewage lines.

More about this can be found at How TiSP works?

I encountered a second hoax from Google when checking mail on Gmail, Google's email service. The Gmail paper that can send you printouts to your home and made it more realistic with a bunch of testimonials about their beta product.

All part of the deal. Photo attachments are printed on high-quality, glossy photo paper, and secured to your Gmail Paper with a paper clip. MP3 and WAV files will not be printed. We recommend maintaining copies of your non-paper Gmail in these cases.