Srikumar

@sriku

Math, music (@patantara.com), human and computer languages, small data and natural intelligence, visiting prof of computer science at Krea University. Blog - . Does the dog have Turing nature?

285 Siguiendo337 Seguidores2483 Publicaciones

Bluesky

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Srikumar@sriku· 19d

Sent by a friend - protest banner saying "Agla PM shaadi shuda hona chahiye ta ki wo man ki baat biwi se kare aur kaam ki baat janta se" tx: "The next PM should be married so he talks his mind with his wife and his work with the people." Point made, despite the sexist expression.

Srikumar@sriku· 23d

what's up with Ennore (in #TamilNadu). There is a nasty unmissable chemical stench in the area all the time and accuweather gives it an AQI of 42? Typing "ennore" on www.aqi.in also stalls. Like somebody doesnt want the AQI data pf the place to be online.

Srikumar@sriku· 25d

iykyk #tamil

Srikumar@sriku· Jul 9

from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advaita...

Text from wikipedia's page on advaita philosophy (not that it ia authoritative) - "The Advaita vedanta tradition modifies the Samkhya-dualism between Purusha (pure awareness or consciousness) and Prakriti ('nature', which includes matter but also cognition and emotion) as the two equal basic principles of existence. It proposes instead that Atman/Brahman (awareness, purusha) alone is ultimately real and, though unchanging, is the cause and origin of the transient phenomenal world (prakriti). In this view, the jivatman or individual self is a mere reflection or limitation of singular Ātman in a multitude of apparent individual bodies. It regards the material world as an illusory appearance (maya) or "an unreal manifestation (vivarta) of Brahman", the latter as proposed by the 13th-century scholar Prakasatman of the Vivarana school."

Srikumar@sriku· Jul 2

massless.info/images/Popul...

a picture of the setup flame as a loudspeaker with the flame on the left and fhe record. player that controls the flame electrically on the right.

caption text says "From the eerie glow of the flame from an ordinary welding torch comes Beethoven's fifth symphony in full fidelity -- and the electrical flame loudspeaker is born"

Srikumar@sriku· Jun 27

It's rambutan time!

picture of a rambutan fruit held in hand

Srikumar@sriku· Jun 24

"As the great Abebe Birhane wrote in a recent paper, the direct capture of media outlets is a major component in how big tech wields its power" Paper link - arxiv.org/abs/2605.06806

A quote from the linked paper by Dr. Abeba Birhane -
"Moreover, industry insiders were described as 'experts', while civil society representatives were presented as 'sceptics'. Big Tech also exerts its influence over media through ownership, funding of journalism, shaping state media regulation, targeting media (policy) research institutions and universities, and by providing platforms through which the media comes to reach their audiences. In doing so, Big Tech has created an infrastructure in which media and journalists help reproduce, disseminate, and normalize industry narratives, or face exclusion (Robins-Early, 2025)"

Srikumar@sriku· Jun 8

The standard model particles and their interactions. Question: Do we know for sure that the Higgs Boson does not interact with dark matter/energy?

Srikumar@sriku· Jun 6

Srikumar@sriku· Jun 5

Just from job creation perspective alone (and it isn't a good idea to look at it isolated) 1/15th of the data centre investment in offshore wind infra creates 10x the jobs.

The projects covered under the MoU include a Hyperscale and Edge AI data centre in Kancheepuram district with an investment of ₹15,000 crore, which is expected to generate employment for 500 persons; an electronicsi manufacturing hub in Coimbatore with an investment of ₹2,500 crore, which is expected to create employment for 2,000 persons; and offshore wind infrastructure at Kattupalli in Tiruvallur district with an investment of ₹1,100 crore, which is expected to provide employment to 5,700 persons.

Srikumar@sriku· Jun 4

Reminded me of the cover this other awesome book - The Logic of Failure.

The cover of the book The Logic of Failure, by Dietrich Dörner

Srikumar@sriku· May 27

p165 in "quantum sankofa" talks about entropy and the arrow of time problem. Q: Is there an independent explanation of why entropy would increase more slowly for a box half filled with a gas and moving with velocity v relative to an inertial observer? Or is entropy dependent on time's arrow?

A diagram showing a box half-filled with a gas, and the box is moving with a velocity v relative to an inertial observer.

Srikumar@sriku· May 18

Wondering if this has something to do with it. Have been reading elsewhere that EVs are a net benefit even considering their constructions and operation costs. Might need to probe more.

COMPETING INTERESTS

After the submission of this paper, C.S. began a temporary mobility employment assignment with the US government through the Intergovernmental Personnel Act.

Srikumar@sriku· May 17

The page

A picture of a page from THE EDGE OF SPACE-TIME

4

metaphors have the power to govern our thinking. These are the lessons that Natasha Trethewey offers us in her 2020 essay, "You Are Not Safe in Science; You Are Not Safe in History: On Abiding Metaphors and Finding a Calling." In the essay, Trethewey meditates on her upbringing as a child of a white father and Black mother. It is here that I first saw these lines from Robert Frost's essay "Education by Poetry":

What I am pointing out is that unless you are at home in the metaphor, unless you have had your proper poetical education in the metaphor, you are not safe anywhere. Because you are not at ease with figurative values: you don't know the metaphor in its strength and its weakness. You don't know how far you may expect to ride it and when it may break down with you. You are not safe in science; you are not safe in history,

Srikumar@sriku· May 16

Article by "pHequals7" on X - "India's inference needs are a ticking time bomb for our account deficit.." . I've saved a PDF version of this article here for ease of referencing (and to have to avoid going to X) - sriku.org/reference/ph...

screenshot of article by pHequals7 on X.com titled "India's inference needs are a tickng time bomb for our account deficit..."

Srikumar@sriku· May 13

What will they want? Not resources, because that is available in plenty elsewhere if they can reach here.

Calvin and Hobbes comic panel where Hobbes and Calvin are looking at the stump of a felled tree and Calvin says "Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us."

Srikumar@sriku· May 6

A friend predicted this would happen ... and it did ;)

Social media post by "Sindhu Hariharan" ---

Please allow me a corporate take to this elections :)

Vijay's victory is a lesson to managers about the effectiveness of work from home! Don't deny WFH, folks!

While you are here, meet Joseph Vijay, the actor-politician whistling his way towards victory in TN (and the likely next CM of Tamil Nadu)

Srikumar@sriku· May 6

These don't suffice?

Srikumar@sriku· Apr 28

internetfreedom.in/donate/ . Attached an article by Vikram Raj of the IFF today.

A tightening of the fist in India's digital public square by Vikram Raj (extracted using OCR)

magine this. You leave a sharp, satirical comment on social media or under a news article about rising fuel prices, and it gets a few likes. A few hours later, the comment disappears. The platform does not explain. Your account remains, but you notice that posts on similar topics no longer appear publicly. You have not been charged with any offence. No court has issued an order. Yet something has quietly shifted.

This is not a far-fetched scenario. It is a plausible outcome under the draft amendments to India's Information Technology Rules released by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) on March 30, 2026. Presented as technical clarifications, the changes mark a deeper transformation in how speech is governed online and who gets to decide its limits.

Core area of concern

At the centre of concern is a proposed expansion of executive power that risks bypassing Parliament and the courts. One provision, Rule 3(4), would require platforms to comply with a wide array of government-issued instruments, including advisories, directions and standard operating procedures, as a condition for retaining "safe harbour" protection under Section 79 of the IT Act. In plain terms, platforms would be legally safer if they follow government instructions, even when those instructions do not arise from formal law.

This sits uneasily with the Supreme Court of India's landmark ruling in Shreya Singhal vs Union of India (2015), which held that platforms are only required to act on unlawful content when they receive a court order or a government notification grounded in law. By allowing informal directives to trigger compliance obligations, the draft rules appear to dilute that constitutional safeguard.

The likely result is not targeted moderation but broad over-censorship. Faced with uncertain and potentially unpublished directives, platforms will err on the side of …

Srikumar@sriku· Apr 26

Not sure why that particular image featuring solar panels came up - since it is a solar *thermal* plant and the article itself shows the attached image.

Image of solar thermal power plant with light concentrators

Srikumar@sriku· Apr 22

It is becoming a thing.

Srikumar@sriku· Apr 22

A couple more

Lok Sabha Elections 2024, Analysis of criminal background, Financial, Gender and Other Details of MPs. Total MPs analyzed: 543 (out of 543).

With criminal cases 251 (46%)
With serious criminal cases 170 (31%)
Crorepati MPs 504 (93%)
Women MPs 74 (14%)

Rajya Sabha 2024

Analysis of Criminal Background, Financial, Gender and Other Details of MPs

Total MPs analyzed 225 (out of 233)

With criminal cases 75 (33%)
With serious criminal cases 40 (18%)
Billionaire MPs 31 (14%)
Women MPs 36 (16%)

Srikumar@sriku· Apr 22

Shameful and disturbing trend. How do we beat this?

Bar chart titled "Percentage of MPs with declared criminal cases: Lok Sabha 2004, 2009, 2014, 2019 and 2024" showing a rise from 24% to 46% over the years for "MPs with criminal cases" and 11% to 31% rise for "MPs with serious criminal cases".

Srikumar@sriku· Apr 22

Graphic from myneta.info

bar chart listing titled "Party-wise number of sitting MPs/MLAs with cases related to crime against women 2024", from myneta.info

Srikumar@sriku· Apr 22

A screenshot of the mathnet.csail.mit.edu page, in case the displayed problems change -

Screenshot of mathnet.csail.mit.edu page showing an erroneous "Romanian mathematical olympiad 2020" geometry problem.

Srikumar@sriku· Apr 22

mathnet.csail.mit.edu - something weird about the "selection from the dataset" here - The LHS problem is wrong - both statements it asks to prove are invalid. The RHS problem is the correct one. What's going on? Did I miss something subtle on the page that says "these are fake problems"?

A geometry problem from Romanian mathematical olympiad 2020 as stated on MathNet website - reads - "Two congruent swuares ABCD and EFGH have disjoint interiors with C the midpoint of EF and B,F,G collinear. Line BC meets EH at K and line AC meets GH at M. Let L be the midpoint of GH. Prove that K,L,M are collinear and GL is perpendicular to KM".

The actual 2020 Romanian olympiad geometry problem. Reads "Two congruent squares ABCD and EFGH are placed such that they have disjoint interiors, but C is the midpoint of the line segment EF and the point B,F,G are collinear. The line BC intersects EH at K and the line AC intersects GH at M. Let L be the midpoint of GH, and let the parallel through K to GH intersect FG at N. a) Prove that CK = CL = CN b) Prove that LM = 2HK"

Srikumar@sriku· Apr 21

bsky.app/profile/edzi... confusing since the attached page claude.com/product/clau... says it is included

Srikumar@sriku· Apr 18

Road dividers run for long distances forcing pedestrians to walk what looks like at least 1km here before encountering a break. This is not unique to BLR and happens in many places in #Chennai too.

Road dividers preventing pedestrians crossing

Srikumar@sriku· Apr 18

Guarded walkways .. that pedestrians can't get on to because they're blocked for lengths .. forcing walking on the streets. And yes they know about bollards.

Guarded walkways that pedestrians can't get on to for lengths.

Srikumar@sriku· Apr 18

Pedestrians should protest by mass-walking in the middle of roads because vehicles occupy walkways.