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A Universal Basic Income and Work Incentives. Part 2: Evidence
In Part 1 of this series, I outlined some basic economic theory regarding a universal basic income (UBI) and work incentives. By a UBI, I mean an income support policy that provides a set monthly benefit to every citizen. A UBI, as I define it, would to everyone, regardless of income, wealth, or employment status. In that respect it differs from means-tested income support policies (MTIS), such as current US welfare system programs or a negative income tax (NIT), which reduce benefits as the recipient's income increases.
The fear that a UBI would undermine work incentives is among the most important sources of resistance to the idea. In Part 1, I argued, on theoretical grounds, that replacing the existing welfare system with a UBI would tend to increase average work effort. This part will look at several sources of evidence that support the theory, beginning with the famous income maintenance experiments (IMEs) of the 1970s and 1980s.
What we can learn from the IMEs and what we can't learn
The income maintenance experiments in question followed a method known as randomized field trials. Each of the experiments enrolled from several hundred to several thousand households and divided them into two groups. They assigned one group to an experimental income support policy while a control group continued to be covered by existing welfare programs, including Aid for Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), food stamps, and others. IMEs testing various policies took place in New Jersey, Iowa, North Carolina, Indiana, Colorado, and Washington. They covered both urban and rural areas; both single parent and two-parent households; and various ethnic groups.
UBI critics have pointed to the IMEs as a key source of evidence about the work incentive effects of a UBI. As Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry puts it:
Science, properly understood, is the testing of hypotheses through rigorous experimentation. This is not what most published social science studies do. . . There is, however, one way to gain relatively reliable social-scientific evidence: randomized field trials. . . The UBI is one of the very few, if not the only, domains of social science policy where we have exactly that: extensive, long-term, repeated RFTs, which are the gold standard of evidence in social science.
It is important, then, to understand exactly what these experiments can and can't tell us. Let's begin with a key negative: We can learn nothing directly from the IMEs about the effects of a UBI because they did not test such a policy.
Instead, the IMEs tested several variants of a negative income tax. An NIT and a UBI are not the same thing. As explained in Part 1, an NIT is means-tested. All versions of the NITs tested in the IMEs incorporated substantial benefit reduction rates, ranging from 30 to 80 percent. In contrast, a UBI has no benefit reductions. It would be fair to say, then, that the IMEs offer no direct evidence about the effects of a UBI, any more than a clinical trial of the effects of vitamin C on heart attacks would offer evidence about the protective effects of aspirin.
The confusion between a UBI and an NIT is partly a matter of terminology. In a recent essay for Cato Unbound, Matt Zwolinski employs another term, Basic Income Guarantee (BIG), to refer to a broader family of income support programs that have the common feature of guaranteeing a minimum level of income to everyone. A UBI, as I have defined it, is the most "universal" member of the BIG family in the sense that everyone gets the full payment regardless of income, wealth, or work status with no benefit reductions. In addition, BIGs, as Zwolinski defines them, also include NIT policies such as Milton Friedman's early version, the NIT variants tested in the IMEs, and related programs like a plan advanced by Charles Murray . All of these policies include provisions that reduce the basic benefit by a fraction of a dollar for each dollar earned, beyond some defined amount.
Critics have not always been careful to distinguish between a UBI and an NIT, nor have they consistently recognized that the two have different incentive effects. For example, Manzi, in responding to Zwolinski's arguments for a BIG, simply recycles a set of arguments that he used in an earlier National Review article about a negative income tax. In doing so, he claims that the IMEs of the 1970s and 1980s showed "every tested variant of a BIG to have pernicious effects" on work incentives. That contention is literally true, inasmuch as all the "tested variants" were one or another formulation of a negative income tax. What Manzi fails to note is that none of the IMEs tested a true UBI.
Let's turn now to the positives—to what we can hope to learn from the IMEs. The first thing would be something about the incentive effects of a negative income tax.
As Gobry, Manzi, and other critics point out, the raw data from the IMEs show that almost all experimental groups reduced their average work efforts compared to their controls. Gary Burtless of the Brookings Institution summarizes the data in Table 2 of a paper that he prepared for a 1986 conference sponsored by the Boston Fed. The table shows that husbands reduced their work by an average of 119 hours per year, wives by an average of 93 hours, and single female heads of households by an average of 133 hours per year. Only two subgroups, black husbands in New Jersey and black wives in Gary, Indiana, increased their work compared to their control groups.
Those results concerning the effects of an NIT should come as no surprise to anyone who has read Part 1 of this series. In Figure 2 of Part 1, we saw that "sweetening" an existing means-tested welfare scheme by increasing the minimum income guarantee and reducing the benefit reduction rate would produce ambiguous results. Some participants would increase their work efforts and others would cut back. The greater the increase in the minimum income guarantee, the more likely a reduction in average work effort, because of the income effect. The greater the decrease in the benefit reduction rate, the more likely an increase in work effort, because of the substitution effect. Also, an increase in either parameter would increase the number of people eligible for the program, thereby potentially reducing the work effort of people who previously had incomes just above the new cutoff level.
Interpretation of the raw data on work responses is complicated by fact that the NIT plans faced by the experimental groups included variations in both the minimum income guarantee and the benefit reduction rate. Furthermore, the tested NITs were not always "sweeter" in both respects compared to the welfare policies available to their respective control groups. Some experimental groups received minimum income guarantees of as much as 135 percent of the poverty level, well above what they would have received from AFDC and food stamps, while others received as little as 50 percent of the poverty level. Some experimental groups faced benefit reduction rates of up to 80 percent, which would have been higher than the benefit reduction rates faced by at least some households in the control groups. Other experimental groups faced benefit reduction rates of as little as 30 percent, which would have been lower than those faced by the control groups. Still, according to analysis of the data presented in Burtless' Table 4, the effects of changes in each parameter, taken separately, appear to be broadly consistent with the theoretical model presented in Part 1 of this series:
- For both intact families and single heads of household, groups facing a 75 percent benefit reduction rate under the NIT exhibited greater average labor withdrawal than those facing a 50 percent rate.
- For both intact families and single heads of households, groups with higher guaranteed minimums had a greater reduction in work hours.
- Husband-wife families showed a greater reduction in work than single parent families, which is what we would be expect if the control groups of the single parent families were more likely to be on welfare plans with high benefit reduction rates.
Unfortunately, these findings are clouded by methodological flaws in the IMEs. An overview of the findings of the Boston Fed conference points to numerous problems with design, execution and analysis, including inadequate theoretical models, poor formulation of objectives, and unsatisfactory management and administration. These methodological problems cast doubt on whether evidence from the IMEs really meets the "gold standard" characterization.
The most important problem was apparently widespread underreporting of work effort by participants in the experimental groups. To quote Burtless,
Several analysts have found evidence that at least part of the employment and earnings reduction reported in the experiments was spurious. Recipients of negative income tax payments had a clear incentive to underreport their employment and earnings, because to do so permitted them to receive a larger payment than the one to which they were legally entitled. Wage earners enrolled in the control group did not face this kind of misreporting incentive.
Burtless goes on discuss studies that use other data sources, including IRS records, to correct the reporting bias. In the Gary experiment, underreporting appears to have accounted for all of the negative work response. In the Seattle-Denver experiment, underreporting did not greatly change the work response of heads of households, but the reported reduction in hours disappeared for secondary workers.
In an invited response to Burtless' paper, Orley Ashenfelter of Princeton University notes that a failure to address the problem of underreporting in advance represented a serious design flaw of the IMEs:
Only an experiment fully informed at the design stage about the possibility for income underreporting, and that tested for its effect, would shed any light on this critical issue. Sadly, the design of none of these experiments was so informed.
By ignoring the evidence of underreporting, critics like Manzi and Gobry overstate the case not only against a UBI, but also against an NIT. As if that were not enough, they compound the overstatement by implying that the observed work reductions represented withdrawals from the labor force. For example, Gobry maintains that as a result of a BIG in any form,
millions of people who could work won't, just listing away in socially destructive idleness, with the consequences of this lost productivity reverberating throughout the society in lower growth and, probably, lower employment, in a UBI-enabled vicious cycle.
Instead, according to research cited by Dylan Matthews in a recent post on Vox, even among participants in the IMEs who reduced their hours worked, full withdrawal from the labor force was a relative rarity. Instead, the reduction in hours worked more often took the form of longer periods of job search between spells of employment. For some that might mean loafing, but for others, it could well mean a more thorough search process resulting in a better job match. In the case of young secondary workers in families receiving NIT benefits, reduction in work often meant more time spent in school. As one participant in the Boston Fed conference reported, the probability of graduation from high school was 25 to 30 percent higher in families receiving the NIT than in the control group.
Structural evidence
So far, we have discussed evidence in the form of direct observation of labor force participation and hours worked. Another approach is to use so-called structural models to estimate elasticities of work effort in response to changes in income and net wages, that is, wages after benefit reductions and taxes. The income elasticity of work supplied tells us the percentage by which hours worked change in response to a one percent change in income, assuming that the net wage does not change. The substitution elasticity tells us the percentage by which hours worked change in response to a one percent change in wages.
Elasticities are important because, as we pointed out in Part 1, theoretical conclusions about work effort are subject to the caveat that, other things being equal, the effects of a change in the minimum income guarantee or benefit reduction rate of a policy would depend on the strength of the income and substitution effects.
The IMEs themselves are one source of data for making structural estimates of elasticities. Burtless summarizes several such estimates in Table 3 of his paper. Estimates of the income elasticity of work effort for women in IMEs ranged from -.07 to -.15, averaging about -.12. The range of substitution elasticities for women was from .11 to .24, averaging .17. For men, the income elasticities ranged from -.075 to -.11, averaging about -.09, and the substitution elasticities were tightly grouped around .085.
There is also a large literature estimating work responses based on nonexperimental wage and income data drawn from surveys of work behavior, tax records, and other sources. A recent working paper by Robert McLellan and Shannon Mok of the Congressional Budget Office summarizes the findings. Generally, the income and substitution elasticities are of the same order of magnitude as those estimated from IME data. For men and unmarried women, substitution elasticities tend to fall into a range from 0.1 to 0.3 and income elasticities from 0 to –0.1. For unmarried women, the substitution elasticity ranges from 0.2 to 0.4 and the income elasticity from 0 to -0.1.
Some studies also estimate an elasticity of participation, that is, the change in the percentage of a given population that would participate in the labor force in response to a change in the net wage. The CBO working paper considers a participation elasticity of 0.25 to be typical. That would mean that we could expect the participation rate to increase by about 2.5 percent for each 10 percent increase in the wage. For example, changing from welfare with a benefit reduction rate of 50 percent to an UBI with no benefit reduction would increase the net wage by 100 percent. If the elasticity of participation were .25, we would expect a 25 percent increase in the participation rate. For example, if 60 percent of welfare recipients worked before, we would expect 75 percent to work after introduction of the UBI.
Other studies estimated elasticities for upper and lower income groups. One study found that the participation elasticity for the bottom 10 percent of the income distribution was twice as high as that for the middle of the distribution. Another study found that the participation elasticity for single mothers was 0.4, higher than the estimation of .25 for the whole population. Still another study found that for low-income groups, the elasticity of labor supply with respect to unearned income (which would include UBI benefits) was only -.04 for women and -.01 for men.
One final type of type of study is worth mentioning: Some economists have taken advantage of "natural experiments" to investigate how people react to large increases in windfall income. For example, a study of Massachusetts lottery winners found that people did not typically retire to a life of idleness even after receiving very large prizes. On average, each $1,000 of prize money caused people to reduce their earnings by only about $110. Another study estimated the effects of inheritances on the work effort of Michigan residents. By and large, inheritance caused only small changes in work effort. Neither of these studies lends any support to the notion that a UBI grant of a few thousand dollars a year would cause massive defections from the labor force.
For readers who are not be used to thinking in terms of elasticities, it may be helpful translate the estimates we have cited into some hypothetial examples. The examples assume that we start with a welfare sysem that guarantees $10,000 for a family of two that has no earned income, and has a benefit reduction rate of 50 percent. We then replace that with a UBI that has a basic benefit of $4,000 per family member and no benefit reduction. For simplicity, all of the examples assume that there are no other income or payroll taxes, and all use elasticities at the midpoint of the ranges reported in the CBO working paper.
- Jane is a single mother, on welfare, with one child. She initially works 1,000 hours per year at a wage of $8 per hour. Her $10,000 maximum benefit is subject to a reduction of $4,000 because of her earnings, so her disposable income consists of $8,000 of earned income plus $6,000 of benefits, net of reductions, or $14,000 in total. Another way to look at it would be to say that her net wage is $4.00 per hour, after benefit reductions. Under the UBI, her benefit would be $8,000, not subject to reduction. If she worked the same number of hours, her disposable income would be $16,000 ($8,000 UBI benefit + $8,000 earnings)—a 14 percent increase. With an income elasticity of work effort of -.05, a 14 percent increase in income would cause a .7 percent decrease in desired hours worked, or 7 hours per year. At the same time, by eliminating the 50 percent benefit reduction, the UBI would increase Jane's net wage from $4.00 per hour to $8 per hour—a 100 percent increase. With an elasticity of substitution of .3, the UBI would induce a 30 percent increase in desired hours worked, or 300 hours per year. Taking the two effects together, total work hours would rise by 293 hours. On balance, then, replacing the current welfare system with a UBI would increase Jane's net income from $14,000 to $18,344 ($8000 (UBI) + $8 X 1293 hours). Her total income and hours worked would both increase.
- David, a middle-class professional in a traditional marriage to a nonworking spouse, no children, earns $60,000 per year after taxes, a little above the median household income. He works 2,000 hours per year. The UBI does not change his net wage, so it has is no substitution effect, but it raises his disposable income by 13 percent, to $68,000 per year, or 13 percent. Applying an income elasticity of -.05 means that he would reduce his desired hours of work by about .65 percent, or 13 hours per year. However, if, as I have suggested elsewhere, the UBI is financed in part by eliminating middle-class tax loopholes (without changing marginal tax rates), Dave's income would increase by less than the full $8,000 and he would reduce his annual work by less than 13 hours.
- Bruce, a single 20-something, is not eligible for any welfare programs. He lives on an old boat, gets by without health insurance, and makes enough to meet his basic needs by working 800 hours a year doing odd jobs at $10 per hour. He spends his spare time watching birds and playing the guitar with friends. With the UBI, his income would jump to $16,000 per year, a 100 percent increase. Applying a typical income elasticity of -.05, we would expect him to cut his work back 40 hours per year. However, the -.05 is just an average. Maybe Bruce is not typical. Maybe he would be prefer to continue his $8,000 a year lifestyle, not working at all, and spend 800 more hours a year on birds and music. The UBI would allow him to do so if he chose.
These are hypothetical examples, but they illustrate a key point: The income effect of a UBI, which discourages work, is weak, whereas the substitution effect, which encourages work, is strong. One reason for the relative weakness of the income effect is the simple fact that the absolute value of the income elasticity is less than that of the substitution elasticity—a finding common to nearly every statistical study of work behavior. The other reason is that for most people, a UBI of the kind I have described causes a relatively small percentage increase in income, when we take prior earnings and welfare benefits into account.
Given a weak income effect and a strong substitution effect, there is only one case in which a UBI can cause a large decrease in work effort, let alone complete withdrawal from the labor market. That is to posit a person like Bruce, who initially receives no income support benefits at all, who is not just able to live on a very low income but enjoys doing so, and who has an income elasticity that is far greater that the population average.
Most people can probably think of at least one person they know, or have heard of, who fits the "Bruce" profile. Anecdotal evidence is powerful, and people are quick to extrapolate from a couple of guitar players spotted in their local park to millions of Bruces "listing away in socially destructive idleness." However, bear in mind that actual data from the IMEs, from econometric studies of labor market behavior, and from "natural experiments" like lotteries and inheritance uniformly indicate that, when it comes to population averages, there just aren't enough Bruces to outweigh the effects of the tens of millions of Janes and Daves.
The bottom line
In the two parts of this series, if have argued that standard economic theory and available empirical evidence support the idea that a well-designed and properly financed UBI, introduced as a replacement for our current welfare system, would be more likely to increase than to decrease average work effort for the population as a whole.
I have also questioned the conclusions some critics have drawn from the income maintenance experiments of the 1970s and 1980s. In doing so, however, I don't intend any blanket criticism of the experimental approach. On the contrary, I think that a randomized field trial of a true UBI, conducted along the lines of the IMEs of earlier years, could help resolve some of the outstanding issues. A recent Republican proposal, Expanding Opportunity in America, calls for using some funds now allocated to federal welfare programs to fund state-level experiments with new ideas. The initial draft of the proposal specifically barred experiments with a UBI or any other policy that did not include a work requirement, but we can hope that is not the last word.
Meanwhile, the theoretical analysis and indirect evidence that we do have remains largely supportive of the proposition that a UBI would have a favorable impact on work incentives.
16 Responses to "A Universal Basic Income and Work Incentives. Part 2: Evidence"
2noame • August 25th, 2014 at 1:09 pm
Well done on the completion of another solid series in support of a UBI. I especially like the examples you've provided, to help illustrate the effects of UBI on different people.
I add here for others to read that Ed's conclusion that a UBI would increase overall earnings and hours worked goes right along with the experimental evidence from basic income experiments elsewhere, like in India, and from observations made by the charity GiveDirectly in their unconditional cash charity programs in Kenya and Uganda.
Although not done in the U.S., there appears to be a strong effect for increased entrepreneurship across all of these experiments, where people are newly able to purchase the capital necessary to start their own businesses, and thereby gain the ability to spend more time working for themselves and earn more money as a result. The creativity involved here is actually quite impressive, with people using their free cash to go into businesses as tree cutters, delivery people, drivers, cell phone chargers, bakers, etc.
I would also like to add that even assuming a 13 hour per year work reduction by "Dave", because of what we also know from experiments in productivity, it is not altogether unlikely that we would see a boost in productivity from Dave, therefore accomplishing even more work than Dave would have otherwise accomplished in that original time absent of UBI. There is a lot of evidential support for the idea that we are currently working too much, especially here in the U.S., and that productivity is suffering as a result.
Ignoring what we know of productivity enhancements, and assuming that 13 hours less work is getting done per year that needs to get done, there is also the potential in such a labor market as ours with so many people looking for work, (3 people per 1 job) that this work not done by Dave as a result of UBI would instead be done by others, reducing the overall unemployment rate through the creation of new jobs.
All of these points only add to the support for a UBI as a policy that just makes sense, using what we know from real observations we have made of actual human behavior.
EdDolan • August 25th, 2014 at 2:09 pm
Thanks for your contributions. Could you post some links to the trials in India, Africa, etc?
pgdolan • October 22nd, 2014 at 9:21 am
Ed´s cautiously optimistic analysis of this form of economic model, i.e. UBI, is popular in Germany and is propagated here by an entrepreneur – billionare, who founded a discount chain, called "DM".
His name is Goetz Werner. I will bring Ed´s two articles on UBI to Werner´s attention.
ThomasGrennes • August 25th, 2014 at 2:27 pm
Casey Mulligan has done work on disincentives to work resulting from several government programs. Do you interpret his work as supporting the case for a properly designed UBI?
EdDolan • August 25th, 2014 at 5:51 pm
In a post on part-time work, I did discuss some of Mulligan's ideas about the effects of the ABA on incentives for part-time work. ( http://www.economonitor.com/dolanecon/2014/01/15/… ) I did not agree with him on the details of what he said about the ABA, but I do agree with him on the broader point that government programs often contain changes in implicit tax rates that affect labor market behavior. Other than the ABA material, do you have some specific items in mind that he has written?
ThomasGrennes • August 25th, 2014 at 7:12 pm
For example, Mulligan wrote in a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed (http://online.wsj.com/articles/casey-mulligan-a-recovery-stymied-by-redistribution-1404075655) about work disincentive effects of extending the period of eligibility of unemployment insurance and liberalizing eligibility for food stamps by not requiring
recipients to seek work or demonstrate their lack of wealth.
EdDolan • August 25th, 2014 at 7:52 pm
OK, I did see that piece. Some comments:
(1) Do we really care about the work disincentive of extending unemployment benefits? On the face of it, the answer would be yes, but any negative effects are mitigated by two factors.
The more important of these is that although extended benefits lengthen the average duration of unemployment, they do little to decrease the number at work because most people drop out of the labor market when they exhaust their benefits. For details, see this research from the Boston Fed: http://www.bostonfed.org/economic/wp/wp2014/wp140…
In addition, the negative effect of benefits on time spent unemployed is also mitigated by better job matching.
In my view, introducing a UBI would further mitigate the negative effects of unemployment insurance (extended or regular), *provided* it is introduced in a way that does not permit double dipping. By that, I mean an unemployed person should be able to draw UBI benefits, or unemployment benefits, whichever are larger, but not both. It is easy to see that such a reform would preserve the benign incentive to prolong job search in pursuit of a better job match, but it would weaken the perverse incentive to prolong job search purely to draw benefits.
(2) The issue of whether income support programs should carry a work requirement is a complex one that will require a full post to answer. The short answer is that yes, work requirements do increase the incentive to work. The question is whether maximizing the number of people working is the correct objective of public policy. For example, under current welfare policies, many welfare recipients (especially secondary workers in poor families) stay out of the labor market because their net income, after benefits and tax deductions, is less than work related costs such as childcare and transportation. Forcing them to work to get their benefits would be welfare-reducing and also would not add anything meaningful to the economic activity as a whole. Work requirements would speed the recovery only in the artificial sense that activities like childcare are not counted as GDP when performed at home but do contribute when they move to the market. The same goes not just for childcare, but for any valuable use of time spent out of employment–education, community service, whatever. Casey's argument works only if we are sure that leisure time has zero or negative utility both to the unemployed person and to the economy as a whole–a highly questionable assumption, in my view.
In short, I do not think that the particular disincentives that Mulligan mentions in the WSJ post meaningfully slow the recovery, but they do illustrate the broader principle that government policies do have significant incentive effects.
godenich • September 1st, 2014 at 7:14 am
Sounds good! I would only suggest factoring in some type of GDP::DEBT indexing for an enduring community of interest to popularly support the proposition, keep it alive until it reaches maturity and sustain it, thereafter. I do like thinking of it as a liquidity complement for the economy that benefits everyday consumers, everyday businesses and good, efficient government. The idea of improving the standard of living now and for the future is delightful.
strawmandown • September 3rd, 2014 at 3:45 am
Great posts. I was led back to your Jan posts on how to pay for a UBI. I think it would make sense for a UBI be partly funded via some form of money creation – perhaps a redirection of QE. To me the elephant in the headlights is automation which is creating long term structural unemployment and structural deflation. New money seems to the the simplest way to balance the deflation, and a UBI seems to be the ideal pathway to introduce it. And of course a UBI helps spread fewer jobs further.
Any thought on this?
EdDolan • September 3rd, 2014 at 7:58 am
My thought is that it is best to separate micro and macro policy. I know that UBI has some appeal to people who worry about long-term structural unemployment caused by automation. However, I think that a UBI should be funded in a way that is macro-neutral as far as monetary and fiscal policy goes, and that monetary and fiscal stability should be addressed as a separate problem.
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Five Star Yacht • January 2nd, 2019 at 12:08 am
Thank you for a thoughtful article. Though your main observation is correct, your conclusion seems biased. Yes, someone may opt for a lower-paying, more comfy job, but, instead of viewing it as a perversion of the demand of the market, perhaps is not the market that is currently perverted into getting away with paying much less for a what should be a higher-paying job? It has always been an employer's market. Basic Income turns the market into an employee's market. To me, the market will finally have to start paying what uncomfortable jobs should really be paying for them, the extreme example being prostitution. Another example of the current perversion is all the unpaid labor (e.g., stay-at-home parents), who would finally get paid. Until people no longer have to work to survive, society cannot be truly civilized, since the right to life will invariably justify lack of civility under duress.
naseya10 • June 18th, 2019 at 2:26 pm
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Tomorrow I'l be running the "Race Away Stigma" 5K Walk & Fun Run at HVCC. The race seeks to promote tolerance, understanding, and awareness of mental health issues. More info is HERE.
My expectations are pretty low…the last few weeks have been kind of crappy for training, and I actually didn't run this week at all. I might not even set a goal for myself, but it should at least be a good way for me to kick off training for the Troy Turkey Trot in November.
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on the new dvd of andrei tar- kovsky's science fiction "classic," Solaris, there's a half-hour interview with veteran actor and director Natalya Bondarchuk, who notes that Tarkovsky had trouble with the cultural apparatchiks because the film's about eternity, and the former Soviet Union did not acknowledge eternity.Imagine a Hollywood movie getting in trouble with its Motion Pictures Association of America rating over something like that. I mean, we live in a world where a minor controversy centres on a couple of fleeting shots of George Clooney's butt in Steven Soderbergh's new adaptation of Solaris.
Watching both versions (OK, trying to watch both versions) of Solaris (the original isn't just about eternity, but feels like eternity -- almost three hours in the hands of a director whose style is intense but leisurely), I was struck by the difference between the two. Soderbergh is a very audience-friendly director. His most demanding films are The Limey and Out Of Sight, which have scrambled timelines. Tarkovsky, on the other hand, asks things of audiences that they may not be prepared to give.
He looked at Solaris and saw a story that poses enormous questions about space and death. Of course, Tarkovsky could look at moss and see enormous questions. A mystic with an attachment to the Russian earth and the concept of time returning, he preferred questions to answers.
I quite like Tarkovsky, particularly Stalker, Ivan's Childhood and Nostalghia. But I've never developed the necessary patience for Solaris -- even in a transfer as beautiful as the one Criterion has managed for the forthcoming DVD and with the assistance of some excellent supplemental material, including interviews with Bondarchuk and cinematographer Vadim Yusov.
Soderbergh looks at Solaris and sees a love story, which is fair enough, but why go halfway across the galaxy to tell it? People jumping from Tarkovsky to Soderbergh will note that the latter is more than an hour shorter and starts at about the 45-minute mark of the Russian film. Soderbergh is closer to the novel, which has no scenes on Earth and is set entirely on a space station orbiting the planet Solaris. Solaris has the ability to get inside its visitors' heads and provide them with what they've lost. Including suicidal wives.
Soderbergh is an intensely practical filmmaker -- he's a "how" director. But Solaris is a "why" story. Despite the excellent technical work of the crew and a very good George Clooney performance, the movie seems to be missing the point of the tale it's adapting.
On a higher plane of cinematic achievement, there are the films of Chris Marker at the Cinematheque. Marker has a reputation as a difficult director but isn't if you're willing to keep your brain engaged at all times.
Interested in everything, he produces documentaries, notebook films, cultural studies, political history. He's probably best known for the short La Jete (Monday, December 2, 6:30 pm, later adapted by Terry Gilliam as 12 Monkeys) and for Sans Soleil (Saturday, November 30, 6:30 pm; Sunday, December 1, 4:30 pm; Tuesday, December 3, 6:30 pm). The best film of the last 20 years or so, Sans Soleil is on one level an intellectual travel film about Japan, on another a meditation on living in a world where contradictory concepts of time coexist, which sounds more forbidding than fun, but isn't.
Marker is fascinated by things Russian, and the series screens his intriguing documentary on Tarkovsky, One Day In The Life Of Andrei Arsenevich (Tuesday, December 3, 8:30 pm), which includes scenes of Tarkovsky directing The Sacrifice. The Last Bolshevik (December 5, 8:45 pm), an epistolary film to Alexander Medvedkin, the director of Happiness (December 5, 6:30 pm) mourns the failure of Communism and celebrates the little-known (in the West) director of one of the loopiest comedies ever made in a totalitarian state.
Marker's fascination with Tarkovsky, who's also referenced in Sans Soleil, is one of the most interesting critical alliances in cinema. There are no two directors less alike: the mystic and the intellectual. For all Soderbergh's qualities as an entertainer, it's hard to imagine another director developing the intellectual interest in his films that Marker, and others, have in Tarkovsky's.
REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS TO COME: WORKS BY CHRIS MARKER at Cinematheque Ontario, Jackman Hall, Art Gallery of Ontario (317 Dundas West), from Friday (November 29) to December 5. $5.25-$9.60. For schedule, see Rep Cinemas, page 112. Rating: NNNNN
SOLARIS written and directed by Steven Soderbergh from the novel by Stanislaw Lem, produced by James Cameron, Rae Sanchini and Jon Landau, with George Clooney, Natascha McElhone and Jeremy Davies. 96 minutes. A Lightstorm production. A 20th Century Fox release. For venues and times, see First-Run Movies, page 102. Rating: NN
SOLARIS directed by Andrei Tarkovsky, written by Tarkovsky and Fridrikh Gorenshtein from the novel by Stanislaw Lem, with Natalya Bondarchuk, Donatas Banionis and Jüri Järvet. 167 minutes. A Mosfilm production. Criterion Collection DVD, release date November 26. $60. Rating: NNN


text:
I was going to put this with the rest of the techniques, but I feel it is more important than that. Not many people
believe that levitation is possible. Most of them have never even tried this technique for over 2 months, and that is when
you start to get results.
Not many sites tell you levitation techniques, but I will.
This technique is rated as a advanced technique, so you should complete all of the intermediate, beginner and starter
techniques first.
Step 1
Stand with your feet shoulder width apart.
Step 2
Visualize a gigantic ball of Ki in your tan tien.
Step 3
Flatten this Ki ball into a disc with visualization and will power.
Step 4
Bring it down to your feet and just outside your body, but below your feet, like the floor.
Step 5
Visualize this Ki disc turning solid into a plate or a piece of wood.
Step 6
Visualize it lifting up and lifting you up with it.
This technique takes a lot of time to master. It may even take more than a year, so please be patient. The more you practice,
the higher you will go.
To get down, just visualize the plate/wood lowering slowly down again.
Warning: Do not go too high, as you might fall off and serverely injure yourself. I'm telling you this for your own good.
If you have any problems with Ki, please email me.


text:
Hawaiian Host Whole Macadamia White Chocolate Crunch
Makes one 8x8 pan
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Add the chocolate ingredients of this recipe to your cart.
Hawaiian Host Whole Macadamia White Chocolates - 7 oz. box
- 7 oz. (18 pieces) Hawaiian Host Whole Macadamia White Chocolates
- 1 cup Rice Krispies®
- 1 cup mini marshmallows
- 1/4 cup creamy peanut butter
- Melt Hawaiian Host White Chocolate in microwave oven in 4 quart casserole at 70 percent power for 3 to 4 minutes, stirring periodically, until melted.
- Stir in creamy peanut butter.
- Add both Rice Krispies and mini marshmallows, and stir.
- Pour into buttered 8 x 8 square pan or dish.
- When firm, cut into squares.


text:
joi, 24 martie 2011
Guitar Neck "Head Shapes"
The photo shows from left to right the CBS style, Standard Strat and San Dimas Headstocks. They appear similar, but each has some distinctions. The San Dimas has a larger overall headstock and it has a deeper and more broader cutaway at the base of the ball across from the 2nd B string tuner.
Publicat de Alberto Bolocan la 05:20
Etichete: Guitar Neck
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Wednesday, November 23, 2016
Thursday, August 25, 2016
Confusing history with myth: Why ICHR should stick to history
Scholars have written copiously on the foolishness of discounting the role that myths play in understanding life and society, and the value of fiction, stories and tales passed on.
Written by Seema Chishti | New Delhi | Updated: August 18, 2016 8:38 pm
In legendary historian DD Kosambi's excellent work on ancient India titled 'Myth and Reality' (1962), he writes about his essays, almost as if for 2016 India; "they are based upon the collation of field-work with literary evidence. Indian critics, whose patriotism outstrips their grasp of reality are sure to express annoyance or derision at the misplaced emphasis.."
Broadly defined as a story of the past, history has come to mean much more. In a society which is so diverse, it has often come to mean very different things to different people. History is a story that needs to be told cautiously sometimes but nevertheless must be told, taught and studied.
The bid of the Indian Council for Historical Research (ICHR) to announce that it is now going down the route of collecting detailed "folklore", "custom" and "only documenting what is heard", about the very distant past, appears fraught with monumental issues.
Scholars have written copiously on the foolishness of discounting the role that myths play in understanding life and society, and the value of fiction, stories and tales passed on. To be unmindful of prevalent legends would leave us the poorer in comprehending much harder material truths. But problems begin, when legends, myths and history are all sought to be confused.
The function of recording, teaching or studying History, is surely to learn lessons from the past, to be familiar with compatriots, to learn and unlearn about other lives, or at least that is the purpose we hope history serves for us, when taught in schools and beyond.
Historiography is serious and contested terrain but ground rules about what constitutes evidence and what hearsay suggests that it is very important that the difference be maintained.
There is no harm therefore in knowing about myths and legends, but to be able to tell clearly what a piece of pottery, jewellery, a grave or a monument or cooking utensils tell you about people long gone before us should be a priority in a vast and old civilisation like ours.
History is more important, when governments are involved in writing (and rewriting) textbooks. Textbooks being among the most useful ammunition to control young minds. The1980s phase in our neighbouring state of Pakistan survives uptil today in dangerously altered textbooks, or how history is studied in middle-schools. A recent project by two Pakistani scholars, Qasim Aslam and Ayyaz Ahmed, studies how differently Indian and Pakistani textbooks, learn about exactly the same facts. Not that India has got it all right, but the necessity of feeding myths to Pakistan was such a dominant idea there, that History was firmly pushed out of the frame.
Myths, being privileged over history writing, have been known to serve a useful political purpose. The myth of Aryan supremacy would have been a useful account to spin support for the Nazi view of the world in its time. When the 'superiority' of White-skinned plunderers in Africa had to be established, myths and legends, hearsay and anecdotes over years would have been a useful tool to establish why it was the way things should be. Which of us has not heard a story whispered at a monument which says the exact opposite of what we have known to be a recorded fact about the monument/area/people?
If only to avoid history from repeating itself, either as tragedy or a farce, it may be well worth the while of institutions like ICHR, tasked with serious historical research to do exactly that. Myths have a place, but for India to have a functional present and future, they must not be confused with history.
Thursday, July 7, 2016
'Kosambi memory' today
Source: The Hindu
The Centre for Gandhian and Peace Studies, Manipal University, in association with Centre for Vedic and Linguistic Inquiry will organise a seminar titled 'Kosambi memory' here on July 2 in memory of the late D.D. Kosambi, historian, mathematician, numismatist, and statistician.
A press release here on Thursday said that the seminar was being organised on the occasion of Prof. Kosambi's 50th death anniversary.
The speakers will include K.P. Rao, founder-director, Centre for Vedic and Linguistic Inquiry, Manipal, Surendra Rao, retired professor of History, Mangalore University, and Varadesh Hiregange, Director, Centre for Gandhian and Peace Studies.
The seminar will begin at 10.30 a.m. at LH 1, first floor, Old TAPMI building.
Kosambi was not an 'official Marxist', says historian
Kosambi was not an 'official Marxist', says historian
K.P. Rao, software expert and Director of Centre for Vedic and Linguistic Inquiry, speaking at a seminar on D.D. Kosambi in Manipal.
B. Surendra Rao, retired Professor of History, Mangalore University, has said that though the late D.D. Kosambi used Marxist notions of history, he was not a reductionist.
He was speaking on 'D.D. Kosambi's contribution to history', a seminar organised by the Centre for Gandhian and Peace Studies, a constituent of Manipal University, and the Centre for Vedic and Linguistic Inquiry, here on Saturday.
According to a press release issued here on Sunday, Prof. Surendra Rao said that Kosambi considered himself a Marxist, but "official Marxists" did not consider him as a Marxist. In this context, the differences between Kosambi and S.A. Dange were worth noting, he said.
A historian was one who looked at the present rooted in the past. Myth was a different order of reality. Socialism would not be redundant so long as there was socio-economic injustice.
In his 'Exasperating Essays' and 'Myth and Reality', Kosambi was precisely trying to make use of this perspective. Eminent historians such as Romila Thapar and Irfan Habib had profusely acknowledged Kosambi's contribution to history, Prof. Rao added.
K.P. Rao, software expert and Director of Centre for Vedic and Linguistic Inquiry, said that about five decades ago, Kosambi argued in favour of solar energy against atomic energy even while working with nuclear scientist Homi J. Bhabha.
Recalling his memories and association with both Kosambi and Bhabha, Prof. K.P. Rao said that Kosambi was then itself quite concerned about the "rise in temperature" of the world. It was Kosambi's hope that sun being the "natural source of energy" was the way forward. On this point, he parted ways with Bhabha in Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, he said. Responding to the view that Kosambi was a Marxist, Prof. K.P. Rao said, "If this is Marxism, then Marxists are welcome."
Varadesh Hiregange, Director of Gandhian and Peace Studies, who delivered a lecture on Prabhaker Acharya's essay on Kosambi's thesis with regard to 'Urvasi myth of Rigveda', said Kosambi's approach to Rigveda was anthropological.
Wednesday, May 18, 2016
Make hay while the sun shines!
Source: The Hindu 13th May 2016
D.D. Kosambi's essays aptly titled "Adventures into the Unknown" reveal how the scientist pushed for solar power more than half-a-century ago when the world was busy playing with atoms
Believe it or not, India has set an ambitious target of adding 100 gigawatts of solar power by 2022. Before the Paris Climate Summit, it had pledged that by 2032, it would increase its share of non-fossil fuels to 40 per cent of the total power generation capacity. These decisions have come many years after India under the leadership of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had signed the controversial civil nuclear agreement with the United States with a view to meet its energy requirements. So, clearly, solar energy is the flavour of the season.
This reminds me that there was a time in the 1950s and early 1960s when those who advocated solar energy could be pitted against the scientific and technological establishment of the country and viewed with suspicion. D. D. Kosambi, a polymath genius who made seminal contributions in pure mathematics, quantitative numismatics, Sanskrit studies and the study of ancient Indian history and culture, was one such individual who came in direct conflict with the Department of Atomic Energy because of his strong views against the use of nuclear energy as he favoured solar energy in its place. He also had to cross swords with Homi Jehangir Bhabha, widely recognised as the father of the Indian atomic energy programme.
It was Bhabha who had invited Kosambi in 1945 to join the recently established Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) and help set up the School of Mathematics. In the initial years their relations were very cordial (as it is clear from Kosambi's scribble on the newspaper cartoon that he forwarded to Bhabha) but soon differences cropped up as Kosambi emphasised that a country like India that received sunshine in abundance must place greater reliance on solar energy. That he was a die-hard Marxist, who was very active in the international peace movement, did not help matters.
In the 1950s, the Department of Atomic Energy had started funding TIFR and Kosambi's continuance there became untenable. Moreover, the fact that he had also emerged as a major historian who had brought about a paradigmatic shift in the study of ancient Indian society also made his fellow scientists view him with suspicion as his non-scientific interests were not considered compatible with his senior position in TIFR.
Recently, Three Essays Collective brought out a collection of Kosambi's essays titled "Adventures into the Unknown". Ram Ramaswamy, Professor of Physics at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, has edited this volume that contains hitherto unpublished material. In his preface, Ramaswamy informs that in 1960 Kosambi gave a talk to the Rotary Club of Poona and the text has been published here as "Atomic Energy for India". In this essay, he underlines the need for research and development in the field of solar energy, a need to which our government seems to have woken up only recently. "Solar energy," Kosambi says, "is not something that any villager can convert for use with his own unaided efforts, at a negligible personal expenditure, charkha style. It means good science and first-rate technology whose results must be made available to the individual user." Nuclear disasters like Chernobyl and Fukushima have proved visionaries like Kosambi right.
In 2013, Prof. Meera Kosambi, the sociologist daughter of D. D. Kosambi, edited a book that contained writings of her as well as on her father. Titled "Unsettling the Past", it was published by Permanent Black. It also contains two other essays of Kosambi on the question of solar energy that were written between 1957 and 1964. In "Sun or Atom?", Kosambi draws our attention to the fact that scientific and technological research in the developed world is inextricably tied to the military-industrial complex and therefore solar energy was being ignored.
He says, "The research is of no use for war purposes. That is why it attracts some of us, but does not attract those who control the funds." In another essay "Solar Energy for Underdeveloped Areas", Kosambi cites another reason why significant technological advances were not being made to solve the problem of storage of solar energy: "The lands where technology is most advanced are just those which have very little sunlight as compared to India and Africa and where conventional forms of energy are highly developed." However, he was quite confident that ultimately solar energy would become affordable and gave the example of aluminium. "But extracting this metal was a most costly process and aluminium was, a century ago, costlier than gold. Technology has made the metal cheap…"
As India finally turns to solar energy, it is very refreshing to read these essays that were written more than half-a-century ago.
The writer is a senior literary critic
Wednesday, April 27, 2016
Government revises D D Kosambi Research Fellowship scheme
TNN | Apr 26, 2016, 10.46 AM IST
Panaji: The state government has revised the D D Kosambi Research Fellowship scheme. The objective of the scheme is to encourage Goan scholars to undertake research in the field of Goan history, culture, arts, social studies and related areas. Three fellowships, under the scheme, will be awarded every year by the state - at the junior level, at the senior level and at the post-doctoral level.
"Only topics that are closely connected to Goa will be accepted. However, authentic topics pertaining to Goa may also be considered for the fellowship depending upon the decision taken by the expert committee," the revised scheme document reads.
An individual who has completed post-graduation and is 35 and younger will be eligible to undertake research in the junior category. For the senior category an individual who has completed post-graduation and is above the age of 35 will be eligible. And for eligibility at the post-doctoral level, the individual will have to have completed PhD. There is no age bar for the third category.
"In case of exceptionally talented scholars of proven record with authentic work to their credit, the rules regarding educational qualifications may be relaxed, if recommended by the selection committee. The fellowship shall be awarded to any scholar only once in his lifetime under each category," the scheme states.
Eligible scholars for junior category will be awarded a fellowship up to Rs 10,000 per month for a maximum period of two years, on case-to-case basis. Scholars in the senior and post-doctoral category will be awarded a fellowship of Rs 20,000 per month for a maximum period of two years, again on case-to-case basis.
Every year, the department of art and culture will release an advertisement inviting applications for the "D D Kosambi Research Fellowship" for scholars and a selection committee constituted by the government will select scholars for the fellowship.
The project report in the form of two hard copies and a soft copy will have to be submitted within a period of 30 days after the completion of two years of the fellowship. The project submitted will be exclusively the property of department of art and culture, as per the scheme guidelines.
Sunday, April 3, 2016
Reality and Myth
Reproduced from: And Then, a blog by Ram Ramaswamy
by Ram Ramaswamy
Some years ago, a friend of mine at JNU proudly told me about a book that he had picked up from the library "sale", a book that had once belonged to D D Kosambi (DDK). Apparently it had not been checked out for years, and was therefore deemed unworthy of staying on in the library, as if finding a place on the library shelf was just some sort of evolutionary game, a survival of the fittest and no more…
The JNU had, at some point in time, acquired Kosambi's personal collection of books, that was, according to Mr R P Nene (DDK's friend and assistant, in an interview in June 1985) "sold by his family after his death to the JNU at the cost of Rs. 75, 000." Details of how this happened are not too clear- Kosambi died in 1966, the JNU was founded in 1969, and the initial seed of the JNU library was that of the "prestigious Indian School of International Studies which was later merged with Jawaharlal Nehru University." Our website goes on to say that the "JNU Library is a depository of all Govt. publications and publications of some important International Organisations like WHO, European Union, United Nations and its allied agencies etc. The Central Library is knowledge hub of Jawaharlal Nehru University, It provides comprehensive access to books, journals, theses and dissertations, reports, surveys covering diverse disciplines."
The amount paid suggests that the books were viewed as very valuable: Rs 75K in the late 1960's was a huge sum of money. And given that, it was quite amazing that the collection had not been kept as one, but the books had apparently been shelved by subject (!) and were then like any other books, and so subject to the periodic culling that most libraries undertake to clear shelves and make space for new books. (In some sense I was not too surprised, having myself bought a book that had been owned by AnandaKentish Coomaraswamy and that had somehow made its way to Princeton. The initials AKC were pencilled in on the first page, but apart from the bookplate, there was little else to show that it had been his. Unfortunately that book is no longer with me, and in hindsight, I think that when libraries acquire collections from scholars of note, they should make some attempt to keep the collections intact. Mercifully the JNU has done that now with more recent acquisitions..).
Nevertheless, a chance conversation shortly thereafter on the vagaries of libraries and the nature of intellectual inheritances started me off on my exploration of Kosambi and his mathematics. The idea was, on the face of, a simple one. What was the extent of Kosambi's mathematical contributions compared to, say, his contributions to history or numismatics. How would the math stack up? Having been in TIFR before I came to JNU, I had also heard of how he travelled from Pune to Bombay every day on the Deccan Queen, how he was fired from TIFR, etc. etc. But I also found out that precious little was known of DDK's other life by the historians. That the mathematics was too different and far too difficult is all too true, but still.
To start with, I thought it would be good to put together his life mathematical, namely all his math and stats papers. Much of that was on the web, except that it was in bits and pieces, and all over the place. No single bibliography was accurate, and no matter where I looked, there were gaps. Many of the Indian journals where he published were not (and still are not) digitized. Some of the names that were given in the existing lists were incomplete or incorrect, many papers were missing. The Rendiconti della Reale Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei or the Sitzungsberichten der Preussische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Physikalisch-mathematische klassewere both uncommon journals that were impossible to locate anywhere in India, for instance. I went to the Ramanujan Institute in Chennai in late 2009, looking for copies of the Journal of the Indian Mathematical Society and Mathematics Student where DDK had published a lot of his work in the 1930's and 1940's. It's too depressing to recount that visit… Nothing could be located, and I left empty-handed after a wasted morning.
In 2010, though, I was visiting professor at the University of Tokyo for a month, and luckily, the Komaba campus where I was located, housed the mathematics department and more importantly, its library. It took a few hours spread out over several days, but before long, I not only had the bulk of DDK's papers in photocopy or in digital form, but I also discovered, via MathSciNet, of DDK's nom de plume S. Ducray, under which name he had written four papers. I also had access to the reviews of many of his mathematical papers by others, and could see many very famous names among the reviewers. As an aside, I should add that the library of Tokyo University is one of the few that have the complete sets of Journal of the Indian Mathematical Society and Mathematics Student, including the volumes published during the World War II years, when Japan and India were on different sides…
Wednesday, February 10, 2016
'Classroom is the worst place to teach science'
A news report from Panaji where the ongoing DD Kosambi Festival of Ideas. Arvind Gupta has been an inspiration and a big time contributor in keeping DD Kosambi's writings available on the internet, including via this blog.
TNN | Feb 3, 2016, 10.23 AM IST
Panaji: Play is very serious business. If there is no play, there is no learning taking place, said IITian Arvind Gupta, well-known for his movement to popularise science among children by making toys from everyday waste. He also said that like Finland, India, too, should give its teachers a status equivalent to IAS officers, to turn its faulty education system around.
Gupta, who was the guest speaker on day two of the D D Kosambi Festival of Ideas being held at Kala Academy.
In his lecture on Tuesday Gupta awed the audience with demonstrations of some science experiments for which he used every day and inexpensive objects. "Barbies, He-Mans and such toys are very sexist and very expensive. Hopefully, they will become extinct like the dinosaurs," said the 'toy-inventor' who maintained that the Goa science centre and 36 similar centres established by the central government across states are unimaginative in their displays. "These science centres do nothing besides occupying five acres of state land," Gupta said.
Gupta also criticised the government's Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan mission and the NCERT syllabus, calling them ineffective.
"The classroom is the worst place to teach children science as all the science is outside the classroom. If children see the science that exists in real life, they will be hooked," he said. Gupta said that adding achieving learning through experiments is possible in a state like Goa, where the target size is small. He said that each private school in the country needs to lend its teachers for a few days to a government school to trigger a big movement in experimental learning.
Paying tribute to the genius of D D Kosambi, Gupta said, "He was spared the Indian childhood because his father, the great acharya Kosambi, had left for Harvard in the 1920s. Had he been sent to one of our schools he would not have excelled." He said that Kosambi was not given due recognition for his work during his lifetime after he wrote a critique of Jawaharlal Nehru's book 'The Discovery of India' and "exposed Nehru's lack of knowledge of Indian history."The Goa government, Gupta said, could consider making a comic strip on the lines of the Amar Chitra Katha series on the life of Dr Kosambi to inform young generations about his genius.
Responding to an audience question, Gupta said that he did not want students to make joining IITs their top priority, rather they should follow their passion, no matter what it was.
Wednesday, January 13, 2016
A confluence of ideas
A confluence of ideas
The 9th D D Kosambi Festival of Ideas will be held from February 1 to February 5 at Kala Academy, Campal, Panaji. This year, Sudha Murthy (author), Arvind Kumar Gupta (toy maker), George Papandreou (former prime minister of Greece), Poonam Khetrapal Singh (regional director of WHO South-East Asia Region), Richard Schechner (theatre director, author), will share their thoughts and Ideas with the people of Goa
The 9th D D Kosambi Festival of Ideas will be held from February 1 to February 5 at Kala Academy, Campal, Panaji. It is truly a platform of sharing thoughts and mutual interaction. Young students, along with people from various social strata participate in this festival.
This year, Sudha Murthy(chairperson of the Infosys Foundation in India and trusty of the Infosys Foundation USA, a prolific writer in Kannada and English), Arvind Kumar Gupta (toy maker), George Papandreou (former prime minister of Greece), Poonam Khetrapal Singh (regional director of WHO South-East Asia Region), Richard Schechner (theater director, author, editor of TDR, and University Professor at the Tisch School of the Arts, New York University), will share their thoughts and Ideas with the people of Goa.
The inaugural address is by Sudha Murty who will speak on 'The Circle of Life'; on February 2 Arvind Kumar Gupta will speak on 'Nurturing Scientific Spirit in Children', on February 3 George Papandreou will speak on 'Intercultural Dialogue for Humanising Globalisation', on February 4 Poonam Khetrapal Singh will speak on 'Sustainable Development Goals, the Challenges and Opportunities for Health'. The concluding lecture will be held on February 5 where Richard Schechner will speak on the topic- How to perform the 21st century.
All these lectures will be held at 5 p.m. at Dinanath Mangueshkar Kala Mandir, Kala Academy, Panaji
The Directorate of Art and Culture had initiated the D D Kosambi Festival of Ideas to commemorate the birth Centenary of the legendary Damodar Dharmanand Kosambi the Indian mathematician, statistician, historian, and polymath who contributed to genetics by introducing Kosambi's map function. He is well-known for his work in numismatics and for compiling critical editions of ancient Sanskrit texts. D D Kosambi was also a Marxist historian specialising in ancient India who employed the historical materialist approach in his work. He is described as the patriarch of the Marxist school of Indian historiography. He was an enthusiast of the Chinese revolution and its ideals, and, in addition, a leading activist in the World Peace Movement.
About the speakers
Sudha Murthy: Sudha Murthy was born in 1950 in North Karnataka. She started her career as an engineer with TELCO (now Tata Motors) and is now the chairperson of Infosys Foundation. A prolific writer in English and Kannada, her books have been translated into all major Indian languages and have sold over four lakh copies around the country. She is a columnist for English and Kannada dailies with 25 books and 156 titles to her credit – including novels, non-fiction, travelogues, technical books, and memoirs.
Arvind Kumar Gupta: Arvind Gupta graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur (1975) with a degree in Electrical Engineering. He has written 24 books on science activities, translated 175 books into Hindi and presented 125 films on science activities on Doordarshan. His first book 'Matchstick Models & Other Science Experiments' was translated into 12 Indian languages and sold over half a million copies. He has received several honors, including the inaugural National Award for Science Popularization among Children (1988). For 11-years he worked in a Children's Science Center located at the Inter-University Center for Astronomy & Astrophysics, Pune. He shares his passion for books and toys through his popular website www.arvindguptatoys.com
Saturday, January 9, 2016
A Scholar in his time: The contemporary views of Kosambi the mathematician
Thanks to Arvind Gupta for sending this paper.
University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad, TS 500 034
"Kosambi introduced a new method into historical scholarship, essentially by application of modern mathematics." J. D. Bernal [1], who shared some of his interests and much of his politics, summarized the unique talents of DDK [2] in an obituary that appeared in the journal Nature, adding, "Indians were not themselves historians: they left few documents and never gave dates. One thing the Indians of all periods did leave behind, however, were hoards of coins. [...] By statistical study of the weights of the coins, Kosambi was able to establish the amount of time that had elapsed while they were in circulation . . . "
The facts of DDK's academic life, in brief are as follows. He attended high–school in the US, in Cambridge, MA, and undergraduate college at Harvard, graduating in 1929. Returning to India, he then worked as a mathematician at Banaras Hindu University (1930-31), Aligarh Muslim University (1931-33), Fergusson College, Pune (1933-45), and the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (1945-62), after which he held an emeritus fellowship of the CSIR until his death at the age of 59, in 1966.
Today the significance of D. D. Kosambi's mathematical contributions [3–71] tends to be underplayed, given the impact of his scholarship as historian, and Indologist. His work in the latter areas has been collected in several volumes [72] and critical commentaries have appeared over the years [73, 74], but his work in mathematics has not been compiled and reviewed to the same extent [75, 76, 77, 78]. Indeed, a complete bibliography is not available in the public domain so far [79]. This asymmetry is unfortunate since, as commented elsewhere [75], an understanding of Kosambi the historian can only be enhanced by an appreciation of Kosambi the mathematician [80].
DDK is known for several contributions, some of which like the Kosambi-Cartan-Chern (KCC) theory [81], carry his name, and some like the Karhunen–Loève expansion [37, 39, 82], that do not. The Kosambi mapping function in genetics [40] continues to be used to this day [83], but the path geometry that he studied for much of his life [84] has not found further application. DDK's final years were mired in controversies, both personal and professional. His papers on the Riemann hypothesis (RH) [65, 66] brought him a great deal of criticism and not a little ridicule, while his personal politics put him in direct conflict with Homi Bhabha and the Department of Atomic Energy. This contributed to his eventual and somewhat ignominious ouster from employment at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research. His early and passionate advocacy of solar energy was practical and based on sound scientific common sense. In some of his arguments, he seems even somewhat Gandhian, and although this was a contrary position to hold in the TIFR at that time, the essential validity of his argument remains to this day [85].
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Am I a bad person because my first thought after hearing about the latest terrorist attempt to take down an airplane was, "oh great, now we'll be banned from bringing any powders on board." Not that I can think of any powders I would want to carry on the plane, but you know it'll be coming. Along with who knows what other security theater measures TSA comes up with after conducting the thorough review President Obama is asking for now.
The answer is, of course, yes, I am a bad person. Those thoughts should have been of gratitude that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was caught in time, that no harm came to anyone on that flight, that the friends and loved ones greeting that plane could do so with joy instead of horror. And I am thankful for that, of course. But I think this article hits the nail on the head: "Despite the billions spent since 2001 on intelligence and counterterrorism programs, sophisticated airport scanners and elaborate watch lists, it was something simpler that averted disaster on a Christmas Day flight to Detroit: alert and courageous passengers and crew members."
For those courageous passengers and crew members who stopped a terrorist in his tracks on Flight 253 last week, and for the unbearably courageous passengers and crew members on United Flight 93 who saved countless lives with their actions even as their own were lost, I am filled with gratitude. I'd like to think I could be so courageous under similar circumstances, but I don't know. I hope no one ever again has to find out. Somehow, I doubt that banning baby powder will get us any closer to that goal.
For a lighter take on terrorism (and yes, there is one), check out The Borowitz Report's Department of Homeland Security Issues Terrorist ID Cards


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ODL Search Service Documentation
The DDS Open Digital Library (ODL) Search Service is an API that extends the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH) to allow for textual searching of the DDS content. This service is similar, but not equivalent, to the Open Digital Library (ODL) search specification (odlsearch1).
Note that the DDS ODL Search Service is offered here for compatibility with existing applications that use the API, however developers should consider using the DDS Search Web Service (DDSWS), which offers additional features, for new application development.
The service allows clients to use the OAI-PMH to perform keyword and fielded Information Retrieval (IR) search queries over the metadata repository. Because ODL search (and OAI in general) leverages existing Internet technologies such as HTTP, it may be defined as a REpresentational State Transfer (REST) style web service. After issuing a search request, clients receive raw metadata back as an ordered set of results within the standard ListRecords or ListIdentifiers response containers. Results are ordered by relevance, which is determined by relative term frequency and proximity. The metadata may then be used to render custom interfaces or be embedded in remote clients on the fly.
Search query syntax
To perform a search, clients must provide a search query in the set argument of either a ListRecords or ListIdentifiers request. The set argument must conform to the following syntax: dleseodlsearch/[query string]/[set]/[offset]/[length] where "dleseodlsearch" is the exact string dleseodlsearch, "query string" indicates a list of keywords upon which to search, "set" indicates the set over which to search, "offset" indicates the offset into the results list to begin the results, and "length" indicates the total number of results to return. To search over all sets, clients must supply the string "null" in the set field. Clients must escape all spaces in queries with a plus (+) symbol. The default boolean logic is AND. To request a query using boolean OR, clients must supply the exact string "OR" between each term in the query string.
"BASE_URL?verb=ListRecords&metadataPrefix=oai_dc&set=dleseodlsearch/ocean/null/0/10" - Performs a text search for the term "ocean" across all sets in the repository, returning matching results numbers 0 through 10.
"BASE_URL?verb=ListRecords&metadataPrefix=oai_dc&set=dleseodlsearch/ocean/null/10/10" - Performs a text search for the word "ocean" across all sets in the repository, returning matching results numbers 10 through 20.
"BASE_URL?verb=ListRecords&metadataPrefix=oai_dc&set=dleseodlsearch/ocean+weather/dcc/0/10" - Performs a text search for the terms "ocean" AND "weather" across the set dcc, returning matching results numbers 0 through 10.
"BASE_URL?verb=ListRecords&metadataPrefix=oai_dc&set=dleseodlsearch/ocean+OR+weather/dcc/0/10" - Performs a text search for the terms "ocean" OR "weather" across the set dcc, returning matching results numbers 0 through 10.
Tip: See the ODL Search Service Explorer to issue requests and view the XML response in your web browser.
Flow control
All state is embedded in the search query string, giving clients control over response flow. Clients can "page through" a set of results by issuing the same request in succession and incrementing the offset parameter by the desired quanta. For example, a client wishing to iterate through three pages of results for a search on the term ocean, retrieving ten records per page, would issue the following three queries:
At the end of each response an empty resumptionToken element is provided for the client that contains the attributes completeListSize and cursor. The completeListSize attribute shows the total number of records in the repository that match the given query. The cursor reflects the offset into the result set where the current response container begins.


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Sketches from 1998 – A.K.A. The Black Book.
This is a collection of sketches from my very first black book that I picked up at the MATC university store. The book itself is long since destroyed as the binding was destroyed %80 of the way through of the sketch book. But the individual pages have been scanned and shown here for archival reasons. Beyond that there is no significant purpose behind the black sketch book.
Thank you for checking out my book and I hope you enjoy.


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Production Operative
Worksop, Nottinghamshire
Job type:
shift allowance + benefits
Anne Oxton
Contact email:
Job ref:
about 1 year ago
Expiry date:
Start date:
Job Title: Production Operator - Loading
Salary: Competitive; dependant upon experience, with a shift allowance and leading benefits package
Location: Worksop; UK
Cargill provides food, agriculture, financial and industrial products and services to the world. Together with farmers, customers, governments and communities, we help people thrive by applying our insights and over 150 years of experience. We have 150,000 employees in 70 countries who are committed to feeding the world in a responsible way, reducing environmental impact and improving the communities where we live and work.
Position purpose
Cargill's plant in Worksop is a production facility at the hub of the UK confectionary industry. As part of Cargill's cocoa and chocolate business, we produce (in bulk liquid form) a full range of milk and plain chocolate for various applications for customers in the confectionery, biscuit, bakery and dairy industries.
The successful candidate will work as part of a manufacturing team to ensure all transport is loaded in accordance with company policy. This includes working a shift pattern that includes day shifts (8am to 4pm) and weekend shifts (7am to 7pm) on a rotating basis.
Main Tasks:
- To ensure the correct loading of final products for customer delivery
- To ensure the correct off-loading of cocoa butter, cocoa liquor, vegetable fat and sugar
- To ensure all loading paperwork is filled in correctly and accurately
- Carry out and record process checks
- Ensure good manufacturing practices and safe working practice
- Ensure daily cleaning tasks are carried out and operate 'clean as you go' policy
- Comply with Environment, Health & Safety (EHS), hygiene, food safety and allergen rules & processes
- Report health hygiene maintenance and quality issues to the appropriate person as per procedure.
Skills/Knowledge/Experience required:
- Basic Mathematics and English (GCSE Grade C or equivalent or higher)
- Experience of working in a production role within a food environment
- Effective communication skills
- Able to work a shift pattern including weekends and evenings
- Self-motivated
- Proactive
- Flexible
- Able to problem solve
- PC literate
Our Offer
In return for your expertise and commitment, we will provide a fast paced stimulating environment, which will stretch your abilities and channel your talents. We also offer competitive salary and benefits combined with outstanding career development opportunities in one of the largest private companies in the world.
Interested? Then please send us your CV and cover letter today. Anne Oxton is the Consultant managing this role, and can be reached on 0161 707 1516 or email
The recruitment process and your data
This role is managed by Cargill's recruitment partner, Morson International. By submitting your CV for this role you are providing your consent to your CV and application details being sent to Morson International for the purposes of managing the recruitment process. If you have any questions about how Morson International will use your data for this application process please contact Anne Oxton via 0161 707 1516. If you have any questions about how Cargill will use your data for this application process please contact


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Free Chat Room List
(See all chat rooms)
Welcome to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania free chat rooms.
Free Chat Message Board - Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
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The Golden Light Wellness Center is OPEN BY APPOINTMENT ONLY and is located in the heart of Oxford, PA at 350 Lincoln Street. Oxford is located in Southern Chester County, and is easily accessible from many areas in Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland.
If you are traveling on Route 1, take the Route 1 exit and proceed south on Route 10 into Oxford. At the first traffic light, turn left on to Market Street and make an immediate left onto Lincoln Street. The Golden Light Wellness Center is the first house on the left. Parking is available nearby. Entrance is located in the front of the building only.


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A simple hand crafted blue sapphire baguette band - a perfect blend of modern simplicity in a dainty design! Just enough sparkle to catch the eye, this baguette band features 4 natural tapered diamond baguettes and is extremely comfortable to wear. Can be worn as an engagement ring, wedding band, or a standalone right hand ring!
The design is formed by .06 carats of natural tapered diamond baguettes
Eco Friendly and Sustainable: This ring is eco friendly and made from sustainable sources because the gold used is recycled and from non-mined sources. Recycled gold is the same color and molecular composition as non recycled gold.Fabrication and Shipping Time:This ring is currently a size 7. Any other size please allow 2-4 weeks for resizing.
The ring will be shipped with priority mail for domestic orders which has a delivery time of 2-3 days and includes tracking and insurance. International orders allow 3-5 business days for delivery.


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NUFORC Home Page
Web Report Indexes : by Event Date | by Location | by Shape | by Posting Date
|Sighting Report
|Occurred : 4/19/2014 21:34 (Entered as : 4/19/2014 21:30)
Reported: 4/19/2014 7:46:02 PM 19:46
Posted: 4/24/2014
Location: Holly, MI
Shape: Sphere
Duration:2 seconds
|My wife and I were driving back home from a day of shopping at the Sommerset Mall in Troy, MI, when we were driving on 75 N bound at 934 pm, about a mile before the next exit E holly rd.
We saw a RED ball of light that blinked a faw times and moved so fast across the expressway that it couldn't of been a plane or helicopter and it was right above the tree line not high in the sky at all. It happened so fast we both looked at each other and couldn't believe what we saw.
We are creeped out right now, and we have never been a believer until now, I know it couldnt of been anything normal. This was out of this world.
I called it in to the MI state police and he sounded like it wasn't the first time he heard this story. I looked it up online and noticed more people are seeing the same thing.


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Mininova la there is a healthy torrent get itOriginally Posted by ajithfederer
Mininova la there is a healthy torrent get itOriginally Posted by ajithfederer
Thanks LM and sid . Have you guys seen that movie?. Any words of wisdom for lesser mortals!
Started watching it. But the subtitles didn't work Adhanala porumaiya pakkalam-nu irukken.
Kim Ki DukOriginally Posted by ajithfederer
The movie is mostly open and surreal. Though many seem to interpret it the same way, it is mostly ambiguous. Surprisingly, the movie is all about Buddhist ideals and Zen concepts but is directed by a Christian!
Visually the movie is spectacular - Must watch just for the visual impact of the movie.
Originally Posted by Vivasaayi
Locations.. Set... Figure :P
The movie is almost devoid of dialogue. It might all sum up for only a page of spoken words in the whole movie.
Yeah but i wud recommend 3 iron from the same dir.. imo that was better than spring summer...
Thanks, you fellas
Did you feel 'Oru Kallooriyin Kadhai' is loosely inspired from this?


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So you're planning to remodel all or part of your home. You want to be "green" but you don't know where to start or are confused by all the green product hype.
First, remodeling – almost by its very definition – is "green". You're taking a resource with tremendous embedded energy costs and you're re-using it. For most of my clients who live in Washington DC or it's very close-in suburbs, this is especially true because of the proximity to services and transportation. For example, I can easily walk to the grocery store, drug store and Metro (mass transit). But you can make your remodel remarkable un-green unless you follow the following 5 steps:
1. RE-USE AND RECYCLE: Keep as much as possible out of the dumpster!
– Donate or Sell reusable components: Community Forklift (in my area) or the Habitat for Humanity Re-stores (around the Country & the world) will take all cabinets, countertops, and major appliances that are in good condition for resale – and you can take the value off your taxes as a charitable contribution. If you want to earn a little money, use Craig's List instead to sell the same components.
– Sort construction debris into recycle streams such as concrete, metal, wood, cardboard and plastic and use a Roll-off Company that recycles. I'm aware of 2 in our area: Nova
and EAI. There may be additional waste companies that actively recycle construction waste streams.
– Re- Use your own or others components. You'll be surprised at the quality of materials you can find at Community Forklift and the Habitat for Humanity Stores – including cabinets, countertops, plumbing fixtures, doors, windows, radiators and anything else you need to buy for your remodel. They might not be the right style for the homeowner who donated them but they might be just right for you – or just right with some sanding and a coat of paint.
2. STAY WITHIN THE EXISTING FOOTPRINT or limit your expansion to a small bump-out or limited addition. The less room you use, the less you need to heat and cool, the less material you need, and you limit the impact on the root zone of existing trees and shrubs. In my opinion, when you turn a 2000 sf home into a 5000 sf home for 2 people, there is no number of solar collectors or other interventions that can make the remodel "green". Even if you achieve net zero energy usage and don't need to spend money to heat the space that you rarely use, you have still wasted an extraordinary amount of energy and water to build the rarely used space.
3. TAKE ADVANTAGE OF OPPORTUNITIES TO SEAL AND INSULATE: If you're removing the interior plaster or drywall or the exterior siding or stucco, take the time to insulate the cavity. I'm a huge proponent of spray foam insulation but trust your building contractor about what's right in your circumstances. If you're not removing the interior or exterior wall cladding, but you're still having going to have to repair and repaint walls, take the opportunity to blow in insulation through holes drilled in each wall cavity. Also take the opportunity of having workers onsite to seal all drafts and places where air leaks into and out of your home. They are the biggest winners, while conversely if you don't take care of them they'll undo the effectiveness of any other improvements. Many of the biggest ones are hidden; for instance, the vertical chase of each "wet wall" (space for pipes behind your tubs and showers) is usually open to the attic.
– Major Mechanical Systems – Don't throw away major systems that are working and working efficiently. But if you're replacing your furnace, look at the possibility of a geothermal system. If that's not feasible, definitely buy as efficient a system as you can afford. If you need to replace your hot water heater, consider a hybrid system, a solar system, or a tankless system. Factor in energy tax credits and incentives when you calculate the costs.
– Water Conservation – When you're specifying the kitchen and bath plumbing fixtures, don't forget to think about water savings features like a foot control for the faucets and low flow fixtures. You should absolutely factor rainwater collection into the design or your roof and drainage systems.
– Energy Conservation – Think LED and Fluorescent lighting – only. Don't even consider incandescent fixtures and lamps. Always buy energy star appliances and components.
The opportunities for energy and water savings systems are tremendous today and getting better with each passing day.
5. REDUCE MAINTENANCE AND MONTHLY OPERATING EXPENSES: Actively consider the operating and maintenance costs of the materials you specify. For example, the lower maintenance costs – in just a few years – of integrally colored fiber cement siding far exceeds the increase in initial installation.
6. USE LOCAL RESOURCES: Recycled content in countertops is all the rage today. But using a local craftsman to hand-craft a concrete countertop is far more environmentally friendly than having that countertop using recycled materials shipped across the country and especially shipped from overseas!.
Only after you incorporate these 6 concepts into your remodel should you consider the "green" provenance of specific materials such as countertops, flooring, and other components.
For additional information, both the cities of Seattle and Portland have produced invaluable guides about green remodeling.
Seattle's Green Remodeling Guides
Portland Green Remodeling Guide


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For Pete's Sake
Support for K-State football coach Bill Snyder comes from around the country
In addition to authoring the greatest turnaround in college football history, Kansas State coach Bill Snyder is also known for authoring uplifting letters to athletes.
This may explain why there has been such an outpouring of support for Snyder, who on Monday made public his battle with throat cancer.
Players, teams and coaches all made their support known on Twitter. Here is a sample of what people were saying about Snyder.
Our thoughts and prayers are with Coach Snyder for a speedy recovery from throat cancer. #EMAW pic.twitter.com/RTGjVCu9cy— Kansas City Chiefs (@Chiefs) February 13, 2017
Get well, Coach. https://t.co/2MXqpHq82z— Cyclone Football (@CycloneFB) February 13, 2017
Hate to hear this. Prayers for a speedy recovery... Kansas State coach Snyder has throat cancer https://t.co/kaX3OC5neZ— Mark Schlabach (@Mark_Schlabach) February 13, 2017
So many prayers for someone I admire greatly. @KStateFB Bill Snyder announced he has been undergoing treatment for throat cancer.— Holly Rowe (@sportsiren) February 13, 2017
Thoughts and Prayers for one of the best coaches ever. Hope you have a full and speedy recovery my friend! https://t.co/ADzEQtKGlV— Mack Brown (@ESPN_CoachMack) February 13, 2017
Praying for a swift & full recovery for my good friend @CoachBillSnyder. You can beat this like so many other opponents. #SnyderStrong #EMAW pic.twitter.com/hsArKZtykQ— Pat Roberts (@SenPatRoberts) February 13, 2017
Get well soon @CoachBillSnyder! We will see you this fall in Manhattan. pic.twitter.com/u8UlhAJi8L— WVU Football (@WVUfootball) February 13, 2017
Thinking about our brothers at @KStateFB and hoping for a speedy recovery for Coach Snyder. https://t.co/l0tqz9b6LH— NC State Football (@PackFootball) February 13, 2017
Best wishes to the legend Coach Snyder for a safe and quick recovery https://t.co/QCUjJZx2WB— Illinois State FB (@RedbirdFB) February 13, 2017
@CoachBillSnyder— KState Marching Band (@KStatePride) February 13, 2017
No. 5 Be Tough. Mentally and physically.
No. 10 Never Give Up. Never. Never. Never. pic.twitter.com/bZHN1MppWa
Big love and strength to #KStateFB #CoachSnyder as he battles throats cancer. They caught it early. . Send him good vibes. #cancersucks pic.twitter.com/d1qXv2KlyW— Johnny's Tavern (@JohnnysTaverns) February 13, 2017
my thoughts and prayers are with kstate football coach bill snyder who has been receiving treatment for throat cancer.— karen kornacki (@karenkornacki) February 13, 2017
No doubt my friend @CoachBillSnyder will beat this thing, just like he's beaten so many worthy opponents over the years at @KStateFB. pic.twitter.com/U9s5ZD4sWl— Gil Brandt (@Gil_Brandt) February 13, 2017
On behalf of #Hokies everywhere, we wish Coach Snyder a complete & speedy recovery from throat cancer. https://t.co/SfSpowrpvP— VT Football (@VT_Football) February 13, 2017
You've got this coach! "@KStateFB @CoachBillSnyder diagnosed with cancer, to continue coaching https://t.co/bFCJzrjlSC via @FOXSports pic.twitter.com/eueap6skZ5— LIVESTRONG (@livestrong) February 13, 2017
Prayers up to coach Snyder and the K-state football team— Charles Omenihu (@charless_94) February 13, 2017
Thoughts and prayers to Coach Bill Snyder !!! Fighting throat cancer !!!— Pat Jones (@CoachPatJones) February 13, 2017
The absolute BEST !!! P.J.
Just saw the report about Coach Snyder. Prayers definitely going up for him, his family and KState!— Tyrone Swoopes (@tswoopes18) February 13, 2017
Will be rooting like crazy for K-State coach Bill Snyder and his recovery from cancer. He deserves chance to go out his way - and on top.— Travis Haney (@travhaney) February 13, 2017
You have been an underdog kicking butt for decades. #BeatCancer , Coach Snyder. The Cyclone Nation is in your corner. pic.twitter.com/KAeJl85CyO— CycloneFanatic.com (@cyclonefanatic) February 13, 2017
Pete Grathoff: 816-234-4330, @pgrathoff