embrace diversity, end discrimination!

embrace diversity, end discrimination

Human Rights Day, 2009



On Human Rights Day, 10 December 2009, UN Human Rights chief, Navi Pillay promotes a world of equal treatment for all. Lets embrace our diversity and put an end to discrimination, Pillay says.

International Day of Climate Action

Following text is from www.350.org,

On 24 October, people in 181 countries came together for the most widespread day of environmental action in the planet's history. At over 5200 events around the world, people gathered to call for strong action and bold leadership on the climate crisis.

What does the number 350 mean?

350 is the most important number in the world--it's what scientists say is the safe upper limit for carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Two years ago, after leading climatologists observed rapid ice melt in the Arctic and other frightening signs of climate change, they issued a series of studies showing that the planet faced both human and natural disaster if atmospheric concentrations of CO2 remained above 350 parts per million.

Everyone from Al Gore to the U.N.’s top climate scientist has now embraced this goal as necessary for stabilizing the planet and preventing complete disaster. Now the trick is getting our leaders to pay attention and craft policies that will put the world on track to get to 350.

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For more information, please visit http://www.350.org/

A silly post!

Even by my standards this post is really silly! I have absolutely no argument to justify its utter silliness...

What is silly?

If anyone of you have ever worn a helmet and crouched down very close to the batsman just because you are the junior most member of the team, you will know what silly means... I myself remember doing this just once. As far as I can recollect, it was in 97 or 98 and by no means I was the junior most player on the team and I think I fielded there just for one ball because the bowler had just taken two wickets in two balls and was on a hat-trick.

There was no bat-pad or anything, the bowler didn't get the wicket and I went back to usual position of fielding, mid-off...

Well, coming back to silliness, I was just on the roof and man was it hot, it was hotter than what I can recall, I think the heat got to me, and now that I'm back inside and the air conditioning is on, I am regaining my senses...

This post was silly, silly even by my own standards - this post is really silly! I have absolutely no argument to justify its utter silliness...

Continuous or Discrete?

Discrete: not to be confused with Discreet...

It has been a while since my last post... anyway, I'm back here...

I am a student of Physics and at a later stage, computing... I remember my old physics classes - that many things which we took for being continuous were infact discrete, take sunlight for example we think it is always coming to us in a straight line continuously, however it is not so - it is the photons of light which is coming and they are coming one after another, like an army of ants marching after the one in front and in perfect order!

The same goes for electricity, we think that the current is always flowing but here too the case is different, be it electrons which is carrying the charge or the alternating current in the household electric supply, its always on - off - on - off and so on... 50 times a second (for those of us here),but here too lies an order... a harmony in motion...

But what about nature, are the elements of nature continuous or discrete...

Read what I write here and then visualize it with your eyes closed... you are standing on a hill, a breeze is flowing, blowing through your hair, slowly... slowly, a puff of air... then another, not a gale force wind which is continuously hitting at you... but more serene, one gust now... stop... another gust now...

Feel it, is it continuous or discrete?

I will give you one more exercise, again read and think... visualize...

You are standing on a beach... a wave of water comes and flows over your feet... then recedes back... then comes another and goes back again...

Think...

Continuous or discrete?



All for now folks... till next time!


Oh! By the way, here is how the dictionary defines "discrete",

discrete |disˈkrēt|
adjective
individually separate and distinct : speech sounds are produced as a continuous sound signal rather than discrete units.

DERIVATIVES
discretely |dəˈskritli| adverb
discreteness |dəˈskritn1s| noun

ORIGIN late Middle English : from Latin discretus ‘separate’ ; compare with discreet .

USAGE On the difference between discrete and discreet, see usage at discreet .

Ergonomics at the workplace

Wikipedia defines the term ergonomics as: Ergonomics is the scientific discipline concerned with designing according to human needs, and the profession that applies theory, principles, data and methods to design in order to optimize human well-being and overall system performance. The field is also called human engineering, and human factors. [link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ergonomics]

We see ergonomics everywhere these days, one of the places we see it the most is in the chairs and seats we use, be it car seats... and myself being a bike rider, how can I forget the utterly comfortable seat of Bullet motorcycles, the shape and the design of the set is simply wonderful... *Ahem* this entry is about workplace, so bikes for a later day...

Anyway, getting to the point, we spend a lot of time at the office, in front of the computer screen, small things like the lighting of the room, the way our hands are positioned on the keyboard etc. play an important part in our comfort and when this goes goes down adds to the stress and strain... reducing productivity and efficiency...

So here are a few tips to optimize the ergonomics at the work place. Just one thing to point out, ergonomics encompass a lot of aspects, this one is related to the monitor and lighting.

1. Distance between eyes and the screen: 2 feet - roughly an arms length.
   
   There are a lot of theories regarding this, but in my opinion the ideal distance should be around 2 feet or more... roughly at the distance of an arm's length...
   
   Try a simple experiment to see the strain on your eyes while concentrating at something very close to you. Hold out your arm and look at the fingers, now just move the arm towards you, concentrating on the finger, you'll see how the strain affects your eyes.
   
   
2. Positioning the screen: such a way that you look down at the screen.
   
   This actually serves two purposes - 1. eyes are most comfortable while viewing objects at an angle - between 15 degrees to 40 degrees below the horizontal, and 2. it is easier on the neck.
   
   Thus try to position the screen in such a way that you are not looking straight at the screen but at an angle below your eyes.
   
   
3. Tilt of the screen: top of the screen slightly farther than the bottom.
   
   Tilt the screen such that the top of the screen is slightly farther than than the bottom, this would been that when you are reading on the screen, your eyes are moving down in an arc thereby keeping the distance from the eyes more or less the same.
   
   
4. Office lighting: indirect lighting, reduce glare and reflection.
   
   In the office, have lighting that is indirect, and as far as possible, try to avoid direct light. And one very important point - do not have any source of light which creates a reflection from the screen of the computer.
   
   
5. Choosing screen colours: dark letters on lighter background.
   
   While we do a lot of reading, we often find it easier to read text which is darker in colour on a lighter background, than a text and background of similar colour, the reason is contrast, also with a lighter background, the difference in contrast between the screen and the reflection off it is reduced.

All for now, I hope to put some images regarding these as well as more ergonomics at the workplace... Till next time...

Save paper - Save the environment!

Saving paper at the office - we all can do a small bit for the environment, believe me - it is not all that difficult... It just take a conscious effort, saving paper at the office is not like quitting smoking or drinking, and you can do it without much effort too!!!

Right now I do not write as a preacher, I write here with a message and a few tips and ask you to look into your inner self when you press Command P or Control P for the printing that document, do you really need it?

Here are a few tips which might help you in saving some paper sheets the next time you print:

1. Do you really need to print? Just think it over, is printing really required? Often the answer may be "no".
2. Use that extra margin, by default most softwares set a very wide margin, often it is 1.5 inches, often you do not need to have such wide margins, by editing the margins you can get more on a sheet of paper thereby saving paper - also as you are getting more in a sheet of paper, it is easier to read as one wouldn't have to flip pages.
3. 12 point or 11 point? I will ask you a question - in the picture, which block is more readable? The one on the left is a text block of 12 point, the right one is 11 point, often for reading there isn't much difference - but the difference lies in the lines per page you can accommodate - saving more paper.
4. Use "Print Preview", this is especially useful when you are printing off web-pages, due to their formatting, they end up taking many more sheets of paper when printing, with the "useful print" only on a few sheets. Do a print preview, and see how many pages are useful and which ones aren't, then while giving the print command, instead of all pages - print only the ones you need.
5. Print PDF rather than paper, often if you want to print documents for later reference, printing them out as PDf is also a great idea - these are in the digital format, can be easily carried around in flash drives or mailed to yourself, you can get numerous free pdf writers, also on Mac OS X, it is there by default!
6. Print both sides of the paper, these days many printers are duplex which means they can print on both sides of the paper automatically rather than you having to manually flip the pages printed, simply see the advanced printing settings to set the "Print both sides option".

Often it happens that we do need to print a document - don't feel guilty, print it out! If you read this blog and if it had an impact on you or simply provoked a thought - you're excused, don't lose sleep over it...

But keep this in your mind... Save Paper!

(still no subject)

Someone had once said, or someone had not once said this - when don't have a canvas, let the world be your canvas... when you don't have a palette, or brushes or paint... use the wind... and paint... create a masterpiece!

I am pretty much sure that no one has said this - if I am wrong, my humblest of apologies...

Right now, as I am writing this - I can't find a subject... but it hasn't held me back... I write anyway... No comments today... No philosophies today... No pearls of wisdom... just a few bullets... as I sit down... no electricity - its the load shedding, but as I said, no comments today - just my piece of art...

Oh what is it that I hear - my good friend Jack calling me... so long folks...

(still no subject)... so this will be the subject - (still no subject)...