23 May
2020
23 May
2020
Trying out another new thing
I was talking to Harsh on his birthday a few days back and he asked me about the not cross posting to Facebook bit. (I stopped a month back). We were discussing his favorite way of knowing about updates – you know, like RSS feed (if you use a news reader), simply email notification etc etc. Harsh felt that , personally, for him, it would be good to have an option of getting email updates.
I promised him that I will set it up. So, in spite of originally being against the idea (I am just worried of too many emails in others’ boxes), last night I have set it up. I am still playing with it – and you might find some changes here and there as I refine it.
But if you want to get weekly updates on the blogs from prior week, sometime between Friday evening and Saturday morning, depending on where you live in the world, you will get a blog digest. You should be able to read the first paragraph of each blog from the week and if it piques your interest, simply click on it – for the full content and picture.
By making it weekly, I am hoping to strike the right balance between too many emails in your inbox and freshness of the topics that I write on.
If you wish to subscribe, you can go to the website www.rajibroy.com and notice the subscription option on the right below the yellow box of “Topics”. Put in your name and email id. You will get a confirmation email that you need to confirm with.
Ishita and Ram, I know you were trying other methods. In case this helps, I am bringing this to your attention.
22 May
2020
Relaxing on a Friday evening with a Rabindrasangeet
“Bhalobesey sakhi nibhritey jotoney
Aamar naam-ti likho, tomar monero mondir-e
Amaro poran-e je gaan baajhichhe
Tahar taal-ti sikho, tomar chorono monjeer-e”
“Out of old affection, gently and quietly
Do inscribe my name in the temple of your soul
Of that song that invariably sways my heart
Do teach your anklets how to dance to the rhythm”
19 May
2020
Answer to yesterday’s puzzle
18 May
2020
This week’s puzzle
This week is another area problem. Take a rectangle ABCD (as shown here). Draw two lines from the adjacent vertices A and D to two random points E and F on the opposite side such that they intersect within the rectangle. See picture below. Nothing is drawn to scale. The area of the two triangles are 4 and 16. One of the quadrilaterals has an area of 10. What is the area of the other quadrilateral?
Again, this is geometry from elementary school with a twist to it.
Note that the original version of the problem that I had posted had the quadrilateral area as 1 instead of 10. Harmindar Matharu successfully proved that such a diagram is not possible. I should have been more careful while picking some values for those areas…
17 May
2020
From the bartenders’s corner – Blue Grass Cocktail
I am not sure of the origin of the name. One can safely guess the Kentucky connection of Bourbon whiskey has to do at least something with it. I remember flying into Lexington, KY for work in my previous life and the airport was called Blue Glass airport!
Bourbon, lemon juice, maraschino liqueur and pineapple juice it is!!!
17 May
2020
Memorable 150 mile ride
Woke up after the party last night a little tired. In fact, I was wondering whether to go out for a ride at all. I am glad I decided to soldier it on. “PoshGoonda” Rakesh Rao had planned a great route to a great destination. We landed up having lunch sitting by the river watching folks canoe and raft by on the Big Creek in a very small town in the Blue Ridge Mountains called Aska.
Avi was the steady sweep behind all the time to make sure nobody was left behind. Which in this case, means really me – since it was three of us who hit the mountain trails today.
I am most glad that I was able to do all those left and right turns in the mountains without making a single mistake.
All that said, the butts are really really sore 🙁
17 May
2020
Scientists can be a boring bunch
They find water and ice in Mars and the first thing that crosses their mind is “Let’s grow salad?”. Did they ever think of much better things that go with water and ice – say, scotch, for example?
🙂
17 May
2020
Couple of interesting poems from Tao Te Ching
Now reading Taoism in that book Religions of Man. I had very little understanding of Taoism before this. One of the key learnings I had was Taoism’s focus on “creative quietude” (wu wei). In chapter 78 in the book Tao Te Ching (by founder Lao Tzu), is a great poem comparing the virtues of water – infinitely supple yet incomparably strong – to wu wei. (in the context of water eroding away rocks)
“What is more fluid, more yielding than water?
Yet back it comes again, wearing down the tough strength
Which cannot move to withstand it.
So it is that the strong yield to the weak,
The haughty, to the humble.
This we know.
But never learn.”
There is another poem in Chapter 17, that I had read before but never realized that the source is the original book of Taoism.
“A leader is best
When people barely know that he exists
… Of a good leader, who talks little
When is work is done, his aim fulfilled,
They will all say, ‘We did this ourselves’ ”
17 May
2020
