Srikumar
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sriku.org
Srikumar
@sriku.org
200 followers 230 following 1.6K posts
Math, music (@patantara.com), human and computer languages, small data and natural intelligence, visiting prof of computer science at Krea University. Blog - https://sriku.org
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It's perhaps about what happens with those who don't want to write want to talk to those who don't want to read.
A two panel newspaper style cartoon. Panel1: Two people are looking at a computer monitor. One sitting and the other standing. The one sitting says "A.1. TURNS THIS SINGLE BULLET POINT INTO A LONG EMAIL I CAN PRETEND I WROTE." Panel2: in the second panel similar two other people are looking at a computer monitor with one sitting and the other standing. The one sitting says "A.I. MAKES A SINGLE BULLET POINT OUT OF THIS LONG EMAIL I CAN PRETEND I READ." TOM FISH BURNE marketoonist.com
October 31, 2025 at 3:14 PM
sriku.org
When I saw these turn up at an #Chennai MRTS station, brain automatically played Also Sprach Zarathustra. But seriously these stones look expensive for their function. Wonder how the choice gets made. At least it is not of the kind that will prevent people from lying down on it if they need to.
A photo of a flat black stone slab for seating at a train station in Chennai, India.
October 31, 2025 at 2:55 AM
sriku.org
😂
Scene of the Mahabharata war - at the Kurukshetra battle ground with Krishna and Trump in the foreground between the two armies. Krishna says to Trump (in Tamil) - "hey Trump why are you here?" Trump: "heard a war was happening and thought I'd mediate".
October 18, 2025 at 11:23 AM
sriku.org
Reposted with alt text
In December 1961, the British fascist, Oswald Mosley, sent Bertrand Russell two of his books. Mosley wrote of 'the two root differences between us' in international politics, and subsequently invited Russell to lunch. On 22 January 1962, Russell declined the invitation in these terms. Dear Sir Oswald, Thank you for your letter and for your enclosures. I have given some thought to our recent correspondence. It is always difficult to decide on how to respond to people whose ethos is so alien and, in fact, repellent to one's own. It is not that I take exception to the general points made by you but that every ounce of my energy has been devoted to an active opposition to cruel bigotry, compulsive violence, and the sadistic persecution which has characterised the philosophy and practice of fascism. I feel obliged to say that the emotional universes we inhabit are so distinct, and in deepest ways opposed, that nothing fruitful or sincere could ever emerge from association between us. I should like you to understand the intensity of this conviction on my part. It is not out of any attempt to be rude that I say this but because of all that I value in human experience and human achievement. Yours sincerely, Bertrand Russell
October 18, 2025 at 3:27 AM
sriku.org
"How a Gaza music teacher created the "drone song" to calm children terrified by the sound of military drones."

God is dead. Even in the hearts of those who claim to believe in God.
world as a chorus of solidarity Healing notes A boy sits in the middle of a bombed street in Gaza, and (right) Ahmed Muin Abu Amsha with his Gaza Birds Singing group. PHOTOS: UNDP/PAPP & SONGSFROMTHERUBBLE Music as a weapon Chitra Swaminathan charx.wansattung@thehindu.com E ven as the world anxiously awaits peace in Gaza, a powerful artistic response to the relentless suffering is echoing across social media-especially as the conflict shows no signs of ending, two years on. Palestinian composer and writer Nahed Elrayes's remix of Gaza-based music teacher Ahmed Muin Abu Amaha's haunting 'Drone Song, released on October 2, has struck a deep chord much like the original. Nahed had earlier explored a similar theme of love, loss and resilience in 'A Lover from Palestine, a Mahmoud Darwish-inspired composition that evolved into a large video project featuring 45 Palestinians and won international acclaim. His remix intensifies the portrayal of the drone sounds that have become a grim part of daily life for children in Gaza. In a region scarred by violence, this song is more than a sonic experience -it's a testament to how art can stand witness, evoke empathy and help heal. The Drone Song' took shape in a classroom in Gaza. Ahmed noticed his students becoming increasingly distressed. They constantly complained of headache and anxiety triggered by the unceasing hum of Israeli military drones, which, according to the teacher, "is the baddest sound in this war". When the children requested that lessons be stopped, Ahmed came up with an alternative. He told them to sing along with the sound. This act of creative defiance-turning the drone's oppressive buzz into a haunting chorus has captured global attention as videos of the performances have been widely shared on social media platforms.
October 10, 2025 at 2:10 AM
sriku.org
Interesting that speaking coherently about a problem didn't correlate with ability to design after the damage. (See alt text)
Goel and Grafman (2000) describe a patient, P.F., who suffered damage to his right anterior prefrontal cortex as the result of a stroke. Like many patients with damage to the prefrontal cortex, P.F. appears normal and even intelligent, scoring appearances of normality, P.F. shows profound intellectual deficits. He had been a in the superior range on an intelligence test. Nonetheless, despite these surface successful architect before his stroke but was forced to retire because he had lost his ability to design; he was then only able to find work as a draftsman. As part of their study, Goel and Grafman gave P.F. a problem that involved redesigning their laboratory space. Although he was able to speak coherently about the problem, he was unable to make any real progress on the solution (a comparably trained archi-tect without brain damage achieved a good solution in a couple of hours). It seems that the stroke affected only P.F's most highly developed intellectual abilities.
October 3, 2025 at 11:26 AM
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en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_U...
Text quote: Despite its name, the organization was not an accredited university or college. It conducted three- and five-day seminars (often called "retreats") and used high-pressure tactics to sell them to its customers.[4] It did not confer college credit, grant degrees, or grade its students.[5] In 2011, the company became the subject of an inquiry by the New York Attorney General's office for illegal business practices, which resulted in a lawsuit filed in August 2013.[6] An article in the National Review called the organization a "massive scam".[7]
September 29, 2025 at 3:16 AM
sriku.org
It seems a bit weird that merely 8 years after the *introduction* of the smartphone this decline happens (want a 2015 phone?). One would expect a longer lag? Is this a consequence of the internet broadly? Or something else? Need alternative hypotheses to be eliminated before concluding this I think.
Text quote: The Monitoring the Future study has been asking 18-year-olds whether they have difficulty thinking, concentrating or learning new things. The share of final year high school students who report difficulties was stable throughout the 1990s and 2000s, but began a rapid upward climb in the mid-2010s.
September 29, 2025 at 12:57 AM
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Contains approaches to negotiate the terrain too, apart from pointing out the risks - From www.etuc.org/en/publicati...
The manual answers the following questions: What is algorithmic management and what are it's key functions and risks? How can trade unions 'negotiate the algorithm'? What role does collective agremeents play? What does the EU Platform Work Directive means for platform workers' algorithmic rights? How can platform workers' make best use of this law? How can workers recover and analyse information on how they are algorithmic managed? What are the best data tools available to help workers do this? How can unions develop their training and infrastructure capacity in data and algorithmic management?
September 28, 2025 at 9:48 AM
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Sunrise at Elliot's beach #Chennai
September 28, 2025 at 8:52 AM
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Shop opened near a friend's place in #Chennai.
Shop sign that says "chaat gpt: chaats and more!"
September 22, 2025 at 12:46 PM
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And yet I don't know why he crippled the freedom of speech provision in our constitution. (From en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom...)
The Debate in the Constituent Assembly The Constituent Assembly of India debated on freedom of speech and expression (Article 19(1) of the Draft Constitution,1948) on 1 December 1948, 2 December 1948 and 17 October 1949. The draft article read: 'Subject to the other provisions of this article, all citizens shall have the right – (a) to freedom of speech and expression; … Proviso: Nothing in sub-clause (a) of clause (1) of this article shall affect the operation of any existing law, or prevent the State from making any law, relating to libel, slander, defamation, sedition or any other matter which offends against decency or morality or undermines the security of, or tends to overthrow, the State.'
September 18, 2025 at 7:19 AM
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In the #India that was - www.ndtv.com/opinion/when...
I am reminded of the time when Jawaharlal Nehru was caricatured by the inimitable R.K. Laxman after the Sino-Indian war in 1962. Instead of being attacked by trolls or hired goons, R.K. Laxman was pleasantly surprised by a phone call from Mr. Nehru. The Prime Minister said to him, "Mr. Laxman, I so enjoyed your cartoon this morning. Can I have a signed enlarged copy to frame?"
September 18, 2025 at 6:58 AM
sriku.org
A panel of text which reads thus: the main reason webviews in apps have such a bad reputation is because you don't notice the webviews that are integrated seamlessly. It stands to reason that Apple wouldn't have developed this feature if they weren't using it. Where? We have no idea. But they must be using it somewhere. The fact that none of us have noticed exactly where suggests that we're interacting with webviews in our daily use of iOS without ever even realising it. Food for thought!
September 17, 2025 at 3:10 AM
sriku.org
... and those wearing the glasses are probably at a severe evolutionary disadvantage?
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has told analysts that people without smart glasses may one day be at a "significant cognitive disadvantage" compared to those who do use the tech https://cnn.it/47L2Y5a
September 16, 2025 at 11:55 AM
sriku.org
Interesting notation ... works since the lambdas are traditional - i.e. are single argument forms.
s = λ[λ[λ[2[3[2][1]]]] where this is equivalent to λ[a,λ[b,λ[c b[a[b][c]]]]] Defining zero as z = λ[λ[1]] or λ[a,λ[b,b]]
September 16, 2025 at 11:16 AM
sriku.org
Based on this anecdote involving Gauss and Abel, I'm taking the stand that Gauss is to be held responsible for pushing school kids away from mathematics.
Referring to Gauss' presentation of the final polished proof without hints of the road up to it, Abel said of him - 'he is like a fox who erases his tracks on the sand by his tail!', to which Gauss replied - 'no self-respecting architect leaves the scaffolding in place after the building is completed!'
September 7, 2025 at 1:47 AM
sriku.org
Needed to make changes to the js code output by pyret which sets some global variables by doing "somevarname = ...". That needed to be changed to "global.somevarname = ...". Then the hello-world arr worked.
September 4, 2025 at 7:56 PM
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September 3, 2025 at 1:42 AM
sriku.org
fwiw ...
pyret --version gives v0.0.64
node --version gives v24.2.0
September 2, 2025 at 4:31 PM
sriku.org
Installed the npm package (on macos). The "ahoy" example in the cmdline docs (`pyret --help`) gives the error in the picture. The VSCode extension works though.
Error: Cannot find module 'resolve' ... with the "ahoy" example shown in `pyret --help`
August 31, 2025 at 12:52 AM
sriku.org
Okay! Here goes my first "protest" tee.
August 30, 2025 at 8:37 AM
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en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impromp...
August 29, 2025 at 2:57 AM
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August 22, 2025 at 4:56 AM
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"Awards or rape and death threats; young women putting my poems on their bedside or book burnings — my writing has exposed me to extreme hate, it has showered me with endless, abundant love. I own the both of them fiercely, protectively. To see a fake machine-generated quote is to lose the sense of myself; to lose my humanity, my vulnerability and my strength; to become something so programmable and predictable that it unsettles me."
August 20, 2025 at 10:05 AM