Code auto completion in emacs

I have been looking around for a tool in Emacs which does autocompletion, shows function declaration. I came across a package called CEDET, which promised all these things. It also comes by default in the CVS version of emacs. However, I found the documentation to be piss-poor, worser than most open source projects. There is a "gentle introduction" to CEDET, but I found it useless. Most things like
(require `semantic-ia)
did not work because it was not found. I am now looking for other options.

Mathematical Formalism and learning

This blog entry results from my successive attempts to learn mathematics. Without going much into philosophical discussions on what constitutes "learning", I will merely mention the obstacles and my comments. My basic degree is in engineering from a Regional College of Engineering, electrical to be specific "EE" as it is fondly known. 

Anyways, what has always bothered me and perhaps hampered my learning is the sudden jump in formalism from the undergraduate mathematics which is taught in most colleges in India, never mind their claims to be "premier institutes" to the graduate level mathematics needed for decent research work. Worse, there are very few courses for spanning this bridge. The engineering professors teach the subject from application point of view while the mathematics people look down upon "applications". This is another pet peeve of mine. When mathematicians get hoity-toity about their "abstractness" and sneer down upon applications, I think they should be made to attend a compulsory course on history of their branch of maths. It will be seen that immediately some practical application has stimulated their field. This is not to say that theorists should not be encouraged but acting hoity-toity is not going to help. Most great mathematicians have helped, in form of books/notes/lectures to bring understanding to, if not actually thrill the engineering audience. Point is, maths guys should run some "pep up" course in India and people who cannot make such course should perhaps look reconsider their PhD aspirations.

Let us come back to the point on the gap between mathematical formalism in graduate level and the lack of rigour in undergraduate levels. From personal experience, I think some amount of rigour is needed to build one's confidence, especially if it has taken a beating in the morass of UG maths. The newer approach to learning mathematics should revive interest in mathematics and help in the newer and more mature perspective in mathematics. The crucial point here is the emphasis on formalism. In my humble opinion, mathematical formalism has come to dominate the proceedings to badly that an ordinary engineer is rattled by the formalism which has come to dominate simply things. Talking to most people in mathematics, it gives the impression that they revel in formalism. I do not for one moment doubt the necessity and importance of formalism. To some, building formalism may also be interesting and their life-goal. However, one cannot expect an engineering background student to build his theory, from his point of view to make it ("the theory") useful for his dealings with the practical world. Any recourse to some commonsensical explanations are now classified as "classical" and mumbo-jumbo formalism, almost like legalese is used for proofs.  I was and still am hesitant to air these views in a general audience. However, I recently found another person who also has similar views.  He has made his displeasure known in trigonometry. I quote "Set notation and set language have pervaded all discussion, with the result that a relatively simple subject became obscured in meaningless formalism." He attributes this to the sarcastically titled(in my humble opinion), "New Maths" which was imposed on America by Americans in response to the Soviet launch of satellite to space.

Now, I do not know much nor care about USA. They seem to be doing great, New Maths or otherwise. We in India need to look into our system, at least for the graduate level if we are to produce people of any intrinsic value to themselves and society. For this, a major reform is needed in the teaching and presentation of mathematics at a graduate level. This is the summary of the blog entry!

ITK Appls compilation on Windows XP

Steps for compiling ITK-Applications using VS 2008
1. Build ITK using "Release" mode as well as "Debug" mode.
2. Build FLTK. I used 1.9. Things to worry about building FLTK:
a) go to the VC 2005 directory and double click on fltk.sln. it will
want to convert the 2005 files to VS 2008. let it do it for all the
files.
b) Choose the "Release|Win32" option for building. Choosing the
"Debug" build gives errors like "fltkd.lib" not found. i experienced
it on fltk-1.10rc3. Also, remember to make the entire folder
writable.  while unzipping i found that the folder where fltk was
extracted was only readable and led to some time waste before
figuiring this out.
3. Using the usual CMake route used for building itk core, configure
itkapps. check the "use fltk" box abd immediate a whole list of fltk
dependencies will pop up as "not found". in the fltk core library
path, put the path/lib/fltk.lib, where path is the base path for fltk.
fill in the other fields as per common sense, you will find the
libraries in the lib directory. One thing you need to be careful is
that for the FLTK include parh, put the base directory where you
saved the FLTK. Do NOT put the subdirectory "FL" as it will lead to
"global namespace" errors while building ITK Apps.

A tale of two murderers in contemporary india

Here is a short tale, real-life of two murderers in India. There are both recent and their crimes were not too far apart, considering the general scheme of things. Both the crimes were heinous as I will outline shortly.
Murderer D was a watchman who raped and murdered a girl. She resided in the apartments where he was employed. Hue and cry was raised and after a court trial and due procedure; he was hanged to death. Justice served? Perhaps, yes.
Murderer M was drunk and wanted more. The female serving drinks at the bar refused him and was shot dead for her impertinence etc. Hue and cry was raised; court case was long drawn. I am not even sue about the quantum of punishment, if at all, given to the bastard. Anyways, I was frustrated enough to write this entry because the above mentioned murderer was let out on parole and was having a nightout with company. As things happen in Delhi, people love power and using it just for the sake of it. This statement comes into play because Mr.M got into a tiff with some Mr.X who turned out to be the progeny of a police official. Enter policemen and so on. Result: parole cancelled or perhaps discretion was the better part of valour. After things have quietned down again, he will come out no doubt. So, the Chief Minister says that it was routine and she signed on the paper. Which makes me wonder if she is in the habit of signing papers put to her without reading or thinking over it?
Please find the stories here and here. I think that the death penalty should be abolished if it can only hang the poor people. For that matter, why have the law? Let us revert back to "each man for him, god for all" ASAP, remove the courts, reduce taxes and hire private muscle for settling disputes.

Why I love The Register

See here

Orkut revamp?

Here is the link to one of the many articles floating around on the supposed revamp of the Orkut site. Apparently, what prompted this was the high migration of users from Orkut to Facebook. Admittedly, Facebook is "snazzier" but personally I find it too much "in your face". I do not want barely known acquaintances updating me about the number of camels on their farm and neither am I interested in the doings, musing and pondering of people with whom I have a mere passing acquaintance. That way Orkut is better! Moreover, some sites say that the new interface is "invitation only". Nobody knows how to titillate the user better than Google.
However, it will be more interesting to see how Google moves against FB. I simply love the way Google moves in and introduces new services; let us see how it hits back at Facebook. Keeping in mind that Orkut is more popular in India & other developing countries, it should be interesting to see how long or sustained Google's fight back lasts. I would not be too surprised to see Google burying or making Orkut moribund after sometime.
Now Google Voice is something to watch out for.. It is for sure that Google would have added something extra to the voice services as well. Google's innovations are always interesting, to me at least!

Music Links

This seems to be a nice website for Carnatic music "scene"!
Also, All India Radio is selling CDs and tapes from their archives. Information about the collection is here.