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Entries from Raj Shekhar

  • June, 2008

  • making yogurt in Bangalore

    For the past few days, I have been making yogurt at my home. I love having curd and flattened rice (chudaa or poha) in the mornings. However, buying yogurt from the market was getting a bit troublesome, so I decided to make the curd at home itself.

    I had 3 failed experiments before I finally got the process perfected (thanks to my mother for the tips). According to my mother, the cool weather at Bangalore is not conducive for the preparation of yogurt.

    Here are the steps

    • You will need milk and 2 spoonfuls of yogurt
    • Boil the milk on a stove
    • Remove the milk from the stove and let it cool down. However, you do not have to let it cool down to room temperature. The temperature should be such that when you put your finger in the milk you do not get burnt, but at the same time it is uncomfortable for you to leave the finger in the milk.
    • add the 2 spoonfuls of yogurt into the milk
    • Take the milk vessel and surround it on the sides with a piece of cloth.
    • Put the milk vessel (togeter with the cloth) into another larger vessel (probably a hotcase or casserole) to keep the milk warm for as long as possible

    In a few hours, you will have fresh, tasty yogurt. I usually put the yogurt into the milk at night and I have yogurt by next morning. Remember to put the yogurt into the refrigerator once it is set.

    3 Comments

  • Mon, 23 Jun 2008 07:00:52

    Today was a funky sort day. On the work front, I did not accomplish much. I had been following the GTD methodology, but I have become tacky in doing my reviews and followups. I will fix that.

    In my personal life, I am going through a rough patch. Not much to talk about there, but let us just say that I am living through interesting times, I am sure I will be a better person after passing through this patch in life.

    Let us see what else is happening around the world.

    The old iphones seem to be more valuable than the newer and cheaper iphones (half the price at $199), as the older iphones are easier to crack.

    In her blog titles "Readin', Ritin', and Rithmetic, by Rote" , Vicki mentions that rote memorization is useless. I am not sure if memorization can be dismissed easily. I think having the raw data in your memory helps in solving a problem at hand faster.

    I came across this small story by Douglas Adams today - The Private Life of Genghis Khan.

    Here are some interesting fractions I came across today.

    • express 1/81 as a repeating decimal, you are in for a surprise! the surprise is that we get an answer as .012345679.
    • express 1000/998999 as a repeating decimal. You will get 0.001 001 002 003 005 008 013 021 034 055 089 ... (fibonacci series, if you failed to spot it)

    If you work on a Unix system, you can use bc to check this out

    rshekhar|~$ bc
bc 1.06
scale=40
1/81
.0123456790123456790123456790123456790123
1000/998999
.0010010020030050080130210340550891442333
    1 Comment

  • 10 Lessons of an MIT Education

    I came across 10 Lessons of an MIT Education, an interesting document on scribd. Some good parts

    • Four courses in science and engineering each term is a heavy workload for anyone; very few students fail to learn, first and foremost, the discipline of intensive and constant work.
    • Lesson Three: By and large, "knowing how" matters more than "knowing what." Half a century ago, the philosopher Gilbert Ryle discussed the difference between "knowing how" courses are those in mathematics, the exact sciences, engineering, playing a musical instrument, even sports. "Knowing what" courses are those in the social sciences, the creative arts, the humanities, and those aspects of a discipline that are described as having social value.
    • Lesson seven: The world and your career are unpredictable, so you are better off learning subjects of permanent value.
    • Lesson Ten: Mathematics is still the queen of the sciences. Alumni who return to visit invariably complain of not having taken enough math courses while they were undergraduates. It is a fact, confirmed by the history of science since Galileo and Newton, that the more theoretical and removed from immediate applications a scientific topic appears to be, the more likely it is to eventually find the most striking practical applications.

    Links

    No comments
  • May, 2008

  • surreal news headlines

    "Mr Beeblebrox, sir," said the insect in awed wonder, "you're so weird you should be in movies."

    "Yeah," said Zaphod patting the thing on a glittering pink wing,"and you, baby, should be in real life."

    These 2 headlines are so strange, they should be in the movies. Exercise caution when clicking on the links if you are surrounded by weird people

    No comments

  • DeGeneres, de Rossi engaged after California ruling

    A few days back, the California Supreme Court overturned a ban on same-sex marriage. Just a few moments ago, I saw the news that Ellen DeGeneres and longtime girlfriend Portia de Rossi are jumping at the chance to get married. However, none of these things are important. The important thing is the comments for the story on DeGeneres and de Rossi getting married. If you are too lazy to click, I will list some of them

    • The only comment I have is to READ the BIBLE and get your instruction from there. God tells you what HE thinks of same sex marriage or relationships.
    • You know... it would not be such big deal ..but it just goes against the way the Human Race was meant to be!! ONE MAN and ONE WOMAN is the way this planet run. It is a HUGE MISTAKE to let Gay Marriage be legal. It is a precedent that makes me sick. Have the life style you want but you DON'T get to be MARRIED under the law.. NO FRICKIN' WAY!!
    • That would be nice if it were actually marriage. Marriage is between a man and a woman, always has been, always should be.
    • oh well to %@!*#s getting ready to get marriied go help this country when they allow queers to marry.
    • It does my heart good to see that a lot of these posts agree - gay marriage is wrong. And for those of you who think Christians are "haters" and "bigots" you are so wrong. I am a PROUD Christian and I love and forgive people for their sins. However, I do hate their sins and I do KNOW right from wrong. The only union that is blessed by God, is the union betw
    • the witch!!! gay %@!*#ot from hell. i hate gay people!!! crazy whore.
    • Wow. Scientists have done studies that show that your sexual orientation is determined by the way the chemicals in your brain are wired. IT IS NOT A CHOICE. Narrow-minded people need to realize this, and get over it.
    • ONE MAN + ONE WOMAN = MARRIAGE. PERIOD!!!!!! tHE COURT SHOULD NEVER HAVE ALLOWED THIS OVERTURN.
    • Oh my gosh.. words can't even describe the disgust I feel right now. The fact that America is making gay marriage legal state by state shows me just how morally screwed up this nation is.

    Now, on to the good ones (there are only a few of those)

    • I am so happy for Portia and Ellen! I wish nothing but the best for them and any other couple that plans to Marry when the law is favoring them. It is about time that everyone is aloud to marry the person they love no matter what their sex is. I respect Ellen for taking a stand and showing the world that it is ok to be a lesbian and in love.
    • de rossi lucky you...Ellen is just fun to be with and you will laugh all thru your life uhmmmmmm..
    • Aww. Congrats Ellen & Portia.
    • Thank you Ellen for having the courage to marry another woman.You were so brave for announcing your lesbianism on television.It was equally courageous that you rid yourself of that traitor, pseudo-gay, Anne Heche.Hopefully, you'll be as happy as Rosie O'Donnell, and have the same maternal instincts when you and your husband..er..wife..ah, whatever you feel comfortable being called
    • I WISH YOU BOTH GOOD LUCK IN YOUR MARRIEGE TAKE GOOD CARE OF YOURSELFS
    • Good for them and for Gay and Lesbians everywhere that will have an opportunity to have the same rights as us. God some of them have been together then most heterosexuals. We shouldn't be judging them, who cares what they do in their bedroom!!! If they love each other, take care of one another and are not doing harm to anyone ...they should have this right!!!

    What can you do

    1 Comment

  • instant feedback for faster leaning

    Insightful comment by Google's Marissa Mayer

    Instant feedback enables a faster learning curve. She mentioned digital photography and Wikipedia as examples of how instant gratification helps drive people to become expert users faster. "If you have each transaction take less time, you have expert users more satisfied. You want lots of small and fast interactions if speed is important," she added.

    Links:

    No comments

  • Why MySQL rocks for Web 2.0 startups

    I have posted a small article on my website about how a startup can scale up with MySQL. This article is derived from an impromptu talk that I did in BarCamp Bangalore 5.

    Hopefully you will find it useful.

    1 Comment

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