lagrangians for dummies

Keep it coming! New mixes every month on DJE!

2009-12-11T09:33:47Z

Myndurzen December 09 Podcast: tr.im/HiMG

You can get more from dojoelectronica.com/

Even More New Mixes on DoJoElectronica!

2009-09-28T02:46:01Z

Myndurzen October 2009 Podcast

Kailash Amruthur's (Another) September '09 Mix - Sonic Hodgepodge

Enjoy and leave comments!

More New Mixes on DoJoElectronica!

2009-09-10T13:24:55Z

Myndurzen September 2009 Podcast

Kailash Amruthur - September 2009 Mix - Flashback, Fast Forward

Enjoy and leave comments!!

New Mixes on DoJoElectronica!

2009-08-20T17:20:58Z

Myndurzen (Mid) August 2009 Podcast

Kailash Amruthur - August '09 Mix - Dim Mak

Enjoy and don't forget to leave comments!

DestroyTwitter

2009-07-04T07:28:33Z

This is most awesome app I have seen in a while. A lot of people prefer TweetDeck, but I find that rather bloated with features.

Here's a good SAT analogy:

TweetDeck : Azureus :: DestroyTwitter : Transmission

It's lightweight, not obtrusive and does the job. I'm really starting to like the AIR platform. These are really neat apps!

More Info

Kailash Amruthur's Mix 007 and Myndurzen June Podcast

2009-06-14T02:38:39Z

Get the 2 brand mixes for June only at DoJoElectronica:

Kailash Amruthur's Mix 007

Myndurzen's June 2009 Podcast

While you're there, check out the facebook and twitter pages. If you enjoyed the mixes, please make you digg them. Thanks!

The Sun has Set

2009-04-21T01:04:45Z

I'm glad to hear Sun finally found a suitor, but it would been nice if IBM bought them. In any case, this will test Oracle's commitment to open source and I certainly do hope MySQL is here to stay because it's such a great product. Even if Oracle was to close the code on MySQL and eventually dismantle it in favor of Oracle DB, numerous releases have already forked out of old MySQL code in response to Sun's modification to the code. It would be nice if there was some kind of code merger because I know Oracle DB has a lot to offer.

Staroffice will also belong to Oracle now. Oracle previously did not have a major office suite and can now guide openoffice's development to combat MS Office and Lotus. I don't think Oracle cares all too much about Java. It'll be there, but won't be a weapon. The major weapon here I see is MySQL if it can be cultivated properly. Perhaps creating some kind of relationship been MySQL and Oracle DB that resembles Openoffice and Staroffice.

Today is an important day. It has restructured the IT landscape making Microsoft evermore susceptible to failure, which is what I want to see :)

April Podcast Now Available

2009-04-21T00:37:37Z

My April Podcast, under the moniker Myndurzen, is now available at http://ayernet.homelinux.org (Virginia) and http://livroresistente.homelinux.org (California)

Enjoy

March Podcast Now Available

2009-03-15T00:50:56Z

My March Podcast, under the moniker Myndurzen, is now available at http://ayernet.homelinux.org (Virginia) and http://livroresistente.homelinux.org (California)

Enjoy

ayernet, livroresistente maintainence

2009-03-11T18:36:18Z

My two personal websites: ayernet.homelinux.org and livroresistente.homelinux.org are undergoing some major changes. This account will still be updated with stuff as the blog on those websites are just electronic-music related. Cheers.

The Need For an Ableton Live Open Source Clone

2009-03-03T05:07:57Z

I DJ. I do it on Linux and haven't had second thoughts of switching to OS X. Well, the thing is I don't have money to buy OS X and all those fancy applications used for DJing like Traktor or Ableton. Maybe one day, when I turn out to be like Sasha, I'll think about it. But for now, my bread-n-butter is mixxx. Mixxx is sort of like the firefox of DJing applications. It's sleek, sexy, not bloated, and fast. Did I mention free? 100% gratis. Great application and it'll only continue to improve.

But what Linux doesn't have is an Ableton and this has been bothering me. I just saw a video today showing how you can connect Traktor (The IE of DJing) with Ableton. Actually, I respect Traktor much more than I respect IE. The video showed how you can hook up Traktor as a channel in Ableton, while doing other stuff in Ableton. This is a very cool feature to have. Too bad Linux doesn't. Linux does have JACK, which allows you to hook up mixxx to a bunch of other applications, including Ardour, fluidsynth, etc. Ardour is like Pro Tools, but I'd wish it were more like Ableton. You see, live performances are well supported in linux yet. Ableton Live is such a great application, but it's not made for Linux unfortunately (even in Wine, it sucks).

So I request someone out there to start a project to create an Ableton Live open source clone, much like the way Mixxx was created to meet the demands of Traktor users. If no one starts it, then maybe I will.

Podcast Up at AYERNET

2009-02-21T19:04:18Z

To all who read this,

Head over to my personal website, where I have a couple of DJ mixes posted. The link is http://ayernet.homelinux.org/ and you can go into the mixes folder and download stuff. If you don't feel like downloading it, but rather want to stream the mixes, visit http://ayernet.homelinux.org:8888/.

I'd describe this music as a hybrid of deep and progressive house with a hint of trance. Personally, I'd call it "Zen House." I really don't know why. But enjoy!

Overcoming the Tyranny of the Left Brain

2009-02-01T05:59:43Z

We are born with a brain, but what happens over time as we develop? Language and logic begin to dominate daily routines. As a result, the left hemisphere in our brains gets task priority. Broca's area, the seat of our language skills, is located in the left hemisphere. Logic and our other analytical skills also use up areas in the left hemisphere.

Task priority means while your brain in general requires oxygen to function, the oxygen will go to the places where more firing occurs, naturally. This means the creativity gets neglected over time and our right brains literally become dormant, nearly not stimulated as much as our left brain.

But what makes savants and geniuses? Savants have some injury to their left hemisphere resulting in the right hemisphere having to compensate. This results in more creativity than usual, but comes at a price for showing low language development. Geniuses end up using both hemispheres successfully and end up relying a lot on their right hemisphere. The right hemisphere is also the seat of intuition, important for math, physics, chess, etc.

Wikipedia has a nice article on the lateralization of brain function. Also see the article about Allan Snyder, who uses the Transcranial magnetic stimulation to turn off regular individuals left brain to make them a temporary genius.

I hope this inspires people to stop their usual routine of being "left-brained" and "ordinary." There's a genius hiding in all of us!

Songbird + Junk Web Browsing = Productivity

2008-12-22T07:52:24Z

After upgrading my laptop to Fedora 10, I decided to try something a little different. I would typically import all my music into Rhythmbox, the default player in Fedora and life would go on. Rhythmbox has a last.fm plugin, radio station & podcast support. What more could you ask for?

Lots more. Rhythmbox has kind of become like Windows Media Player in that it serves a basic role and accomplishes that task fairly well. But when you're an audiophile, you do notice a void.

Well, Songbird takes care of that. With a simple visit to their website, I was able to find an RPM for Fedora 10. Voila!

The most distinguishing feature Songbird has to offer is its hybridization of web browsing and audio playback. Now player to date has seamlessly accomplished. Songbird clearly accomplishes this, having been built on Firefox, and makes you wish Firefox was kind of like Songbird.

Now, I'm into the whole Zen philosophy of using something to accomplish only one thing. Having a web browser and music player in one program is going against my philosophy. However, at the same time, it makes me focus elsewhere. What do I mean? Well, in GNU desktop environments/window managers, you have this thing called workspaces, which lets you segregate programs, definitely a "zen"-ful concept so you can focus and avoid clutter.

Songbird lets me browse the web, invalidating my efforts to use firefox, right? Actually, I run firefox and songbird with the help of workspaces. Currently, I have it set that "leisure/junk" web browsing will be handled by Songbird and I do all my useful browsing (work-related) in firefox. The idea didn't hit me until I visited last.fm on firefox, while Songbird was playing music. last.fm is music website, so why can't I just do all that on songbird?

So what's been happening recently is I visit less and less "leisure/junk" on firefox and defer that task to songbird. It has proven extremely successful. Before I would usually have the problem of loading leisure/junk tabs right next to work tabs, which would lead me to surfing leisure/junk websites more and more decreasing my productivity because it was right there while I was working.

So while you have a zen idea that one program should do one task, productivity in the presence of many one-task programs running tends to decrease. Segregating junk from work using spaces has always been done, but the difference between junk and work vanishes when using a conventional web browser like firefox.

I've already quit using Rhythmbox, but'll use it if Songbird starts getting buggy. One thing I wish Songbird had was a crossfader effect between songs that I've come to love so much in Rhythmbox.

BOTTOM LINE: If you listen to music while "working" and you feel a lul in productivity, you should strongly consider using Songbird. It's cross-platform and comes with many plugins and would make a good companion with your conventional browser (used for "productivity").

Strange Bedfellows

2008-12-13T04:15:23Z

This is far weirder than Dell + Ubuntu. Actually Dell + Ubuntu is not that weird at all. Well, let's hope Sun and Toshiba make the best out of it. Perhaps this will shut the Jim Zemlin up for a while.

Aiko

2008-12-11T09:24:17Z

This is absolutely amazing! Please go to this website and be wowed. Aiko certainly isn't in the Uncanny Valley, yet.

From Mumbai To Dawkins

2008-12-01T19:48:58Z

Now would be a good time for people to check out The God Delusion. As a 'Zen'-cular Humanist, I would say this is the book that enlightened me about religion and the violence that hides behind it. Not to say that all religious people are violent; it's just that why should we be tempted about these violent ideas in the first place? As a former Hindu, I would say the Mumbai attacks are rather shocking in today's India, but things like this have been occurring for ages. The difference here was the magnitude of the attacks that got the international spotlight.

If you're thinking about "converting" to atheism, but think that's too cold and harsh for you, I strongly recommend:

Zen
Secular Humanism

*BSD is not a backwater that plays catchup with Apple

2008-11-20T05:18:16Z

In response to this post, I must ask why are you praising Apple after you just paid them something on the order of thousands of dollars to say that some free software organization owes them big?

I've used FreeBSD a couple of times. I used to use it during the 4.* era and after realizing the crappiness that 5.* was, I switched to DragonFly, the natural continuation of 4.*

I must admit that I like OS X more so than Windows, but that's about it. I also realize that FreeBSD 7 is good, good enough for me to burn a CD. But you know something? I've been burning every OpenBSD release since 3.6. We're now at 4.4. I love the OS to death. It runs on my firewalls and even web servers. Granted that FreeBSD/apache may be slightly better, I don't care. It does the job. With that, OpenBSD keeps spirits up by releasing music, which is awesome. No other OS in the market I know does this.

I haven't used NetBSD too much, but I'm working on the port to get it into my Playstation 2. Why? Well, let me start by saying that the hardware/software world is an ecosystem. You have the CEOs and you have the garbage collectors. Now, one day, suppose the garbage man didn't come to collect the trash the CEO left out. What would happen to the trash?

My intention is to not put NetBSD in the wrong light. I have just as much respect for them as I do for OpenBSD. My point is, old hardware gets neglected in this world, and where does it go? Fortunately, NetBSD is nice enough to allow room for everyone who wants to come. That's why it's the OS that supports the most platforms. That's a pretty amazing achievement.

So, might I say that these two OS's are not idiosyncratic and lethargic technological backwaters, but rather a continually developing set of OS's that learn to evolve with the times. Evolution demands this trait. It's the big ones that fall hard (hint: MS and Apple). "Technological" natural selection, if I may call it that, insists that an OS must evolve with the times. Linux is doing a great job right now acting like how the our mammalian ancestors did right before the dinosaurs perished. Maybe *BSD is something smaller than Linux, but these OS's can survive and will. Whether it's FreeBSD getting help from Apple, or whether it's OpenBSD borrowing technologies like pkgsrc from NetBSD, these organizations will find a way to thrive in the most dire situations.

Windows and Linux are EAL 4 certified, but I know that OpenBSD is better than that. It is the most secure production OS on the planet.

NetBSD does support more platforms than any other OS. And now, FreeBSD is more robust than ever, thanks to Apple, but no thanks.

Bottom line: There's no need to owe Apple. These OS's can take care of themselves. FreeBSD would be where it is today even if Apple hadn't donated Darwin code. I have respect for Darwin as well, but I guess some people just get carried by that darn Aqua interface and get carried away into making these claims, just like how LF's Zemlin declares Solaris dead. Oh, it's time to buy more DRM'd-songs from iTunes and then sync it to my iPhone!! (sarcasm)

EOR

Not Yet

2008-11-06T01:32:24Z

Under Virginia law, apparently recounts are mandatory if the margin is less than 1 percentage point. So, I'll just have to keep biting my teeth.

Read more here: http://raisingkaine.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=17104

"Goode"-bye

2008-11-05T09:36:02Z

Ahhhh...change. There's nothing like the smell of it. It's the feeling you get when you open your dryer and see that old, dirty clothes have now been transformed into warm and clean ones, ones you just can't wait to wear, kind of like that episode in Seinfeld, when Kramer wears clothes fresh out of the dryer.

I'm trying to make a point here. Virgil Goode has been in office, representing Dems, himself, or the GOP in that order, for 12 years. It's time for a fresh, new perspective, courtesy of Tom Perriello.

Now, apparently, the 5th district has 100% precinct reporting (Fluvanna took forever), giving Perriello 50.2% and Goode 49.8%. However, Periello hasn't been declared the winner yet probably because of the miniscule margin between the two contenders, a difference of only 1157 votes. This race was far more interesting than the presidential one!

Prelude to "Why are our minds need a pf ruleset"

2008-10-26T22:44:34Z

So as I set up my OpenBSD firewalls, I started wondering what it taught us about ourselves. A pf ruleset is something that pf, also known as Packet Filter, reads to know what kind of network traffic through. This is how we can build firewalls without relying on vendor-provided ones. Anyways, I will go more into depth later about why our minds need a similar ruleset in this age of information to prevent our minds from getting "hacked" or even "infected".

The Progressive Flemish in a Non-Progressive Land

2008-10-08T17:54:39Z

You grow up learning your country's native tongue and hate taking foreign languages in high school. However, in the Netherlands and Flanders, by the time you reach high school, you're already a polyglot, speaking English, French, German; essentially the language of your neighbors. The Dutch love foreigners coming to Amsterdam because it gives them an opportunity to practice. Now, I'm not saying you're more progressive because your Broca's area is more developed. Having the general love for languages is prevalent in these areas. Extending that love out over the world will only connect us more to each other. I'm currently learning Turkish.

But there are those who don't want to change. They like to keep things as they are. They like living in the French republic that included Belgium for ~100 years. Belgium consists of two primary regions: Flanders and Walloonia, speaking Dutch and French, respectively. Now, I must say that I don't hate the francophone community (in reference to another criticism in the previous article), but see yourself in Flemish shoes, or even better, American shoes. Why? Well, there is a growing hispanic community in the US and we're fighting the battle against illegal immigration that brings with it the inability to speak English. Many hispanics in this country don't make an effort to speak English, which I find not fair, especially since it's mandatory for students in Florida to learn Spanish. Why can't the inverse occur? This same problem has been occurring in the Belgium since independence in 1830.

The current problems lies at the fact that the francophone community is immigrating to Flanders (namely suburbs of Brussels) in massive hoards. With the comfort of having 3 official languages (Dutch, French, and German), francophones don't make the effort to learn Dutch in Flanders. And this agitates the Flemish, who will speak to them in French. Why are these francophones so lazy to learn another language? At least, they can make an effort.

The perspective of the typical francophone in Belgium is unity. Many francophones don't associate with Walloonia, but rather Belgium as a whole. This gives them free reign to settle anywhere and disturb the linguistic equilibrium. However, the Flemish view Flanders and Walloonia as separate entities, almost like "cantons" or "autonomous communities" with their own languages. This model does a better job preserving both cultures. When they visit Walloonia, they speak French.

Belgium needs a better framework for its government because right now, Walloonia see Belgium, whereas Flanders sees Flanders and Walloonia. Switzerland is probably the best model they can follow allowing the establishment of cantons, heavily decentralizing the central government.

I like this quote (from BBC):

Sven Mels, 35, welder, from Kraainem (Flemish)

"I have many French-speaking childhood friends. I speak their language but they never make the effort to speak Flemish.

Why should it always be up to Dutch-speakers to adjust?

This is Flanders and it must remain Dutch-speaking. Our ancestors fought for that."

See this article for more info: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7655692.stm

Solaris is far from dead

2008-09-26T05:39:25Z

In response to this and this, I must say this is not in the spirit of free enterprise. I would replace the "demise of solaris" with "reincarnation of solaris." Why?

Well, you see, there's this product called openoffice. Openoffice is the product of another less-known office suite, Staroffice. Nowadays, no one speaks of Staroffice, since it's all but dead, but look at Openoffice. A few years ago, it was really crappy back in version 1.*'s. But once OO 2.0 took off, I haven't looked back since. Today, MS office is afraid of OO's gain in market share.

Same applies to operating systems. Sure, the open source enthusiasts default to Linux/BSD, but that's the beauty of open source. The idea of free software lives even beyond these two operating systems. I'm taking about opensolaris, the new kid on the block.

Perhaps, the best avatars of opensolaris are Nexenta and BeleniX. These two operating systems will continue to evolve just as linux/BSD is evolving today. In due time, Sun will realize that GPL is probably the best licensing for opensolaris and this will get even better. Sure, ZFS and Dtrace can be ported to linux/BSD quite easily and opensolaris will get features from linux/BSD. It's like an ecosystem. In the GNU ecosystem, there's strength in diversity.

In conclusion, I'd recommend they change "demise of solaris" into "reincarnation of solaris"

Reconciliation with Classical Physics

2008-09-10T01:30:53Z

Recently, I've come to terms that physics is not really about the buzzwords "quantum", "string", or "E8". While quantum mechanics has very much integrated into a daily part of research. Rather, we seem to forget classical physics in the midst of all this exciting research. The LHC will be operational tomorrow and Brian Greene has put out the guess that electrons may infact be miniature black holes.

I can how physics draws people with a curiosity. But my curiosity has recently shifted to classical physics, namely mechanics and thermodynamics. If you feel like you need to contemplate about physics and meaning of life, then you would probably jump straight to cosmology and infinite universes and all that cool stuff, but many people don't realize the implications that thermodynamics imposes. One such thing is Loschmidt's paradox also known as the reversibility paradox is something I stumbled upon very recently. You can wikipedia it. Essentially, it says that entropy is kind of like a clock that "tells time" which direction to go.

Another good classical thing to think about is Noether's theorem, which essentially says the laws of motions don't change under certain transformations. You know, things like Energy, z component of angular momentum, etc. Granted that this is Lagrangian mechanics, but nevertheless is used in the classical realm.

In classical E&M, there are still some interesting subtleties like notion of a point charge and while this is later illustrated out in quantum field theory and "new" physics, the basis for the discussion starts at classical E&M and good study of Jackson's Classical Electrodynamics. (Warning: Can give you nightmares)

I must say that I hated Thermo when I was studying chemistry. Chemistry tends to remove all the philosophy of something and just keep the practicalities, which is fine, but can become as dry as london dry gin. Classical mechanics and E&M, I would say is also pretty boring before Lagrangian stuff. But like I said before, you don't need to study feynman diagrams or tensors to get drawn into physics.

Catalan is the other Spanish & Occitan is the other French

2008-08-06T20:23:25Z

The title is supposed to advocate the fact that Spanish & French are merely labels to increase nationalism in their respective countries. Outside of Spain and France, people hardly know that other sizeable languages exist. Namely, this includes Catalan & Occitan, residing in Spain and France respectively.

While Catalan thrives in the Catalonia and elsewhere, Occitan has had many confrontations with its big cousin French. I can see why "Spanish" currently does not suppress Catalan as it has already done its deed in spreading Castillian, the real name that we call Spanish, all around the world. Spanish doesn't really care if an eighth of Iberia speaks Catalan. Spanish has a wide influence in the world. In fact, I believe Spain promotes Catalan as an official language nowadays. They have realized that language preservation is more important than nationalistic tendencies.

Meanwhile, French is busy imposing itself everywhere saying that is in danger of extinction because of English. Hey, it lost the naval battles fair and square. Big deal. Well, it has virtually become extinct in its largest former colony Indonesia, which says something, maybe French has become too imposing that people don't care to speak it anymore. It is after all thriving in Quebec. Let's look at the natural alternative: Occitan.

Yes Occitan, Lenga d'oc as they call it, is spoken primarily in southern France, Monaco, and Catalonia in Spain. Making a language official does preserve to some extent. The interesting thing here is that Occitan is not official in its native region, but in Catalonia. I told you the Spanish loved all languages.

I'm not sure if French has a native name. I believe the closest would be "Langue d'oïl," but then I would be saying Walloon is not a language anymore, but a dialect of French. Belgians would not agree with the classification.

I call "French" the big cousin of Occitan and "Spanish" the big cousin of Catalan. But in reality, Occitan and Catalan are siblings. This suggests a kind of transition from "French" to "Spanish" via Occitan, then Catalan. If you know Catalan, you can more or less understand Occitan. Some linguists suggest the Occitano-Romance group to encompass Catalan and Occitan, but that's hard to do because I would say French has largely influenced the development of Occitan and Spanish on Catalan. In a twisted way, it's kind of like separating two brothers at birth and now each brother is getting seduced into sleeping with a third cousin.

So first of all, I would suggest that Spanish and French should be discontinued as names because they suggest political tendencies and larger regions of land. In India, there's no language that people refer to as Indian. Spain has a similar model, where it doesn't make sense to say Espanol while in Spain. Instead, you say Euskadi, Castellano, or Catala. English is ok because in England, there is no minority language of the magnitude of Catalan or Occitan. But in France, it's required that you say Francais, which is total BS. Francais, or call it Langue d'oil, originated in Northern France and thus has no jurisdiction in southern France. Secondly, teaching of these languages should be advocated around the world alongside "Spanish" and "French".

If Walloon permits it, we should call "French," Oïlish (pronounced "wee"-lish) [no relation to Welsh, of course]. I don't know. Be creative. I mean the Dutch in South Africa thought of "Afrikaans," so it certainly can't be hard to think of alternative names. I can make a similar argument against Italian, but Italy is more complicated. To wrap it up, you now have the languages Oïlish, Occitan, Catalan, and Castellano. Everyone outside of Spain and France should get familiar with these four words in hope of preserving every language in this age of information.

I also got this straight off of wikipedia:

"On the UMP website [24], Nicolas Sarkozy denies any mistreatment of regional languages. In a pre-electoral speech in Besançon on March 13, 2007 he claimed:

If I'm elected, I won't be in favour of the European Charter for Regional Languages. I don't want that tomorrow a judge with a historical experience of the issue of minorities different from ours, decides that a regional language must be considered as a language of the Republic just like French. Because, beyond the text itself, there is a dynamic of interpretations and jurisprudence that can go very far. I am convinced that in France, the land of the free, no minority is discriminated against and consequently it is not necessary to grant European judges the right to give their opinion on a matter that is consubstantial with our national identity and has absolutely nothing to do with the construction of Europe.

His Socialist rival, Ségolène Royal, on the contrary, declares herself ready to sign the Charter in a March 2007 speech [25] in Iparralde for the sake of cultural variety in France:

Regional identities represent a tremendous asset for the future and I believe that understanding the link between the fundamental values that make the deep-rooted identity between France and the French nation in its diversity, in its authenticity, in its authentic traditions [...] makes the State work well.

If I had known before, I actually would cared about the elections in France. Just as race or gender discrimination is not tolerated today, the same should apply to languages."

See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vergonha