Estimate The Quotient And Remainder For A New Divisor

Assume there is a number a. Assume a is divided by b - the quotient is q and the reminder is r.

All numbers are positive integers (non zero).

Now you are given a new positive integer c (less than a).

Estimate the quotient and remainder when a is divided by c.

Solution:

The quotient will be b/c * q and the remainder same as before =r. But this is correct only if b/c is an integer.

In case where c is not a factor of b:
New quotient = Rounddown(b/c  * q, 0)
Now because we took only the integer part of the quotient, the decimal part still remains and that will affect the old remainder.

Truncate the value of b/c  * q and take only the decimal part: 

In Microsoft Excel, this will be (b/c  * q) - Rounddown(b/c  * q, 0)

Take the above value and multiple by the new divisor c. Add the product with the old remainder r. That will be the new remainder.

Meaning new remainder nr = [(b/c  * q) - Rounddown(b/c  * q, 0)] *c + r

Note:
If the new remainder is bigger than c, then  divide nr by c. Add the quotient from this division to nq. This sum will be the final quotient. The remainder from this division (nr / c) will be the final remainder.

Goldbach's Conjecture (GC) - Prime Numbers

I had earlier written about prime numbers. Continuing from that post, I got interested in Goldbach's Conjecture.

The strong conjecture (SGC) holds that every even number can be expressed as a sum of two primes. The weak conjecture (WGC) holds that every odd number can be expressed as a sum of three primes - the primes need not be all different. As per the wiki link above, the WGC has been proved in the last few years while the SGC remains unproven even today.

If a and r are even positive numbers and p, q, s are prime numbers then any number a can be expressed as some p+q. (SGC)

And any odd number y can be expressed as the sum of three primes (=p+q+s). (WGC).

If SGC were true then to prove WGC:

We know that any odd number can be expressed as a sum of another smaller prime number and some even number. The latter even number can be expressed as the sum of two prime number (as per SGC). 

So any odd number can be expressed as a sum of three prime numbers.

Coming to the proof of SGC: These are my thoughts. (No proof yet.)
a = p + q : 

Note that p, q are prime numbers. We do not know whether p is bigger than or smaller than or equal to q.

Assume above equation is true for any even number a. Take the next higher even number a+2. We have to prove that there exists some even number r such that,

a+2 = p + q + 2 = (p + r + 2) + (q - r) where (p + r + 2) and (q - r) themselves are both positive and prime numbers. Note that the even number r can be positive or negative. But p+r+2 and q-r should both be positive. The minimum absolute value of r is the lower of (p+1) or (q-1).

Meaning from the values of p and q, there are two prime numbers which are r+2 higher than one number and r less than the other number. This predicts the proximity of a prime number from another prime.

How did we get p+1? The minimum value of p+r+2=1, so r = -p-1. Minimum absolute value of r = p+1. 
This will be continued later.


Searching for prime numbers
I was thinking of the list of prime numbers. When you (a) go 2 to the left of or 4 to the right of any odd number in the number line you will likely get a prime number. If you find composite numbers instead, (b) go 4 to the left of and 2 to the right of the odd number. You will likely find prime numbers.

Example: start from 15. (a) 2 the left of 15 is 13. 4 to the right of 15 is 19. Both 13 and 19 are prime numbers. Using procedure (b) 2 to the right and 4 to the left of 15 are 17 and 11, which are also prime numbers

Start with 67. Procedure (a) 2 to the left of and 4 to the right of 67 are 65, 71, of which 71 is a prime but 65 is not. Procedure (b) 2 to the right and 4 to the left of 67 are 69 and 63 both of which are non primes.

Starting with the primes 5 and 7. Add  6 and multiples of 6 to each of these numbers and leave out the numbers that end in 5. The resultant numbers are likely to be primes (except the occasional multiples of 7, 11, 13 etc). 

Thus 5+6x, 7+6y (where x, y are positive integers) provide better source of prime numbers. Of course, not all of these numbers will be prime as explained above. But, all prime number will definitely be part of one of these two series. When I say better I mean, the probability of a number in that series being prime is higher. The percentage of numbers that are primes in the two series above is about 38% as against about 10% when all positive numbers were considered. The series above are rich in prime numbers. Incidentally while browsing, I realized that 5+6x and 7+6y can be written in a simpler way as 6n+1 and 6n-1. 

I generated the series above as a set of potential prime number candidates. I determined whether each candidate has any divisors. I used the same prime candidates from the series above as divisors. Remember that composite numbers obviously can never be divisors for prime numbers. I do not mean prime numbers will have other prime numbers as divisors. When you have a number a prime number as a potential candidate - where we do not know yet if the number is a prime, we need to only see if the candidate has any primes as divisors.

I found an interesting thing.

Prime numbers were about 23% of all numbers till the first 100 (my first prime number was 5, I left out 2 and 3). The ratio decreased rapidly first and slowly subsequently till it reached 10.3% for numbers up to 50000. 

There is a theorem that states that the prime number % upto the number x = 1/ln(x) as x becomes very large. 

Ln denotes log to the base e where e = 2.71828 approximately. The exact definition formula for e is (1+1/n)^n as n tends to infinity.

Incidentally 1/(log 50000 to the base e)= 9.2%, which kinda matches with the figure of 10.3% that I found.

Estimation of prime numbers through factors is continued in this post: http://vbala99.blogspot.com/2016/05/estimating-fraction-of-numbers-that-are.html

Difference Between Knowledge And Understanding

https://www.bigquestionsonline.com/2014/05/19/what-difference-between-knowledge-understanding/

I guess understanding comes from relating knowledge to what human being normally do - emoting, relating things to their personal life...

What Watson (IBM Computer) did was to relate different sets of data knowledge.. Somewhat like what Google does when you search. It takes the search parameters and searches web pages using the search parameters and then finally ranks the result in an appropriate sequence, with the most relevant on top. Is Google better at searching than most human beings? Probably yes. Does Google understand my emotions when I am searching? Maybe not. 

And that's why think of the term artificial intelligence while thinking of Google or Watson.

The idea of Google or Watson is to be exceptionally good and better than most people in providing answers to questions (or questions to answers in case of Jeopardy). 

Let's take the metaphor to a human level. What kind of a person is like a Google or Watson? It is a person who has exceptionally intelligence but is spending his time on a subject(s) that he is not passionate about. If one were passionate about a subject, it is inconceivable that he would not have understanding.

This is an interesting thesis on education and teachers: http://education.msu.edu/ncrtl/pdfs/ncrtl/issuepapers/ip894.pdf

Quotes from the link (without permission):

A conceptual mastery of subject matter and the capacity to be critical of knowledge itself can empower students to be effective actors in their environment.  

When teachers possess inaccurate information or conceive of knowledge in narrow ways, they may pass on these ideas to their students. They may fail to challenge students' misconceptions; they may use texts uncritically or may alter them inappropriately. Subtly, teachers' conceptions of knowledge shape their practice--the kinds of questions they ask, the ideas they reinforce, the sorts of tasks they assign.  

"Teachers must not only be capable of defining for students the accepted truths in a domain. They must also be able to explain why a particular proposition is deemed warranted, why it is worth knowing, and how it relates to other propositions."

My wish [was] to present mathematics as a subject in which legitimate conclusions are based on reasoning, rather than on acquiescing to teacherly authority.

Teachers' intellectual resources and dispositions largely determine their capacity to engage students' minds and hearts in learning. For instance, Lampert's deep interest in numbers and their patterns is contagious. And her understanding of mathematics as an active domain of human interest and inquiry leads her to orchestrate opportunities for learning that differ from those found in many mathematics classes.

This teacher's engagement with history as a way of making sense of our past is part of what he communicates to his students.

Because of a student's question, a particular textbook activity, or an intense class discussion, teachers often report that, for the first time, they came to really understand an idea, a theme, or a problem that heretofore they had just known as information. 

Only about half the 17-year-olds were successful with problems such as calculating the area of a 6 x 4 cm rectangle or solving a simple algebraic equation. Most high school seniors (94%) were unable to solve multistep problems: "Suppose you have 10 coins and have at least one each of a quarter, a dime, a nickel, and a penny. What is the least amount of money you could have?" 

I asked a friend to ask her daughter who has just graduated to class 1 from Nursery. "My sister has 2 hands, my brother has 2 hands, i have two hands. How many more brothers should i have so that together we have 12 hands?" She was able to solve the first step (that 6 more hands are needed) but she couldn't go to the 2nd step (that 3 more brothers are needed).  But then the daughter is only 6 years old. She will learn the second step in a year or two.

Dossey at al. (1987) argue that many students "are unlikely to be able to match mathematical tools to the demands of various problem situations that permeate life and work". 

This is also true, in India, of disciplines other than Maths. Are engineering majors "able to match their engineering tools to the demands of engineering situations that permeate life and work?" What went wrong with teaching?

As the researchers observed classes, they saw a predominance of so-called discussions that consisted of teachers asking convergent questions that demanded only one-word answers. 

A liberal education, after all, is education not for any specific end but for its own sake. Still, since teachers' work is centrally involved with knowledge and the life of the mind, their own intellectual qualities are critical. Teachers must care about knowing and about inquiry. 

Can the care to know and inquiry be taught?

Write an equation using the variables S and P to represent the following statement:

"There are six times as many students as professors at this university." Use S for the number of students and P for the number of professors. (Maestre and Lochhead, 1983, p. 24)Typically, students who offer an incorrect equation reverse the variables: 6S = P.

Clement and his colleagues (1981) report that over one-third of the engineering students they tested and nearly 6 out of 10 nonscience majors could not offer an appropriate representation. It appears that many students, even when they have mastered the mechanics of the subject, fail to develop an understanding of the underlying meanings.  

In both physics and mathematics, evidence is mounting that all students, not just those intending to be teachers, can meet the expectations for satisfactory work without developing a conceptual understanding of the subject matter--the lack of which, we have argued, seriously inhibits teachers' capacities to help school pupils learn in ways that are meaningful. 

In mathematics, textbooks often foster an algorithmic approach to the subject--e.g., "To divide by a fraction, just multiply by the reciprocal".
Stodolsky's (1988) analysis of elementary math textbooks suggests that concepts and procedures are often inadequately developed, with just one or two examples given, and an emphasis on "hints and reminders" to students about what to do. 

Teachers' subject matter knowledge may also be affected by the attitudes and expectations that their students bring to the classroom. As was discussed above, if teachers face learners who rebel against uncertain or complex intellectual tasks, they may feel pulled to simplify content, to emphasize algorithms and facts over concepts and alternatives.

Wonder how such rebel learners ought to be taught..

While teachers' knowledge about learners, the curriculum, pedagogy, and the context seems to increase from their practice, that they will learn enough about their subject matter from their teaching to shore up inadequate knowledge and understanding is unclear.  

Family and community influences on children's learning are more powerful than the schools' influences.

http://www.columbia.edu/cu/tat/pdfs/psych_learning.pdf: Quotes: 

"Deep learning entails examining facts and ideas critically, relating new and older knowledge, linking ideas together, and constructing novel conceptual structures. It involves the ability to place isolated, unlinked facts into larger conceptual structures. 

Student learning can be enhanced or hindered by the classroom environment. A safe, inclusive, and stimulating environment encourages students to actively participate. Fostering such an environment requires an instructor to be acutely sensitive to individual differences and make sure that students understand the instructor’s expectations and goals, as well as the steps the student must take to meet these objectives. In addition to promoting sensitivity, an inclusive classroom encourages dialogue, a process that might include collaborative inquiry, peer criticism, and intellectual give-and-take. 

Best Practices and New Practices

R-Courses: These are research oriented courses that emphasize “bounded inquiry.” The purpose is to encourage students to think like an anthropologist, biologist, chemist, literary critic, political scientist, sociologist, or statistician. Components typically include reviewing and critiquing journal articles, providing students with data sets, and having students make hypotheses and test them.

Encouraging Student Reflection: Specially-designed assignments encourage various forms of student reflection, leading students to assess their knowledge and reflect critically upon their assumptions and perspectives. These include reflection upon content and concepts, personal reflection (description of reactions, thoughts, and feelings), and metacognitive reflection (monitoring of one’s own thought processes).  

A friend sent me this link: http://infed.org/mobi/what-is-education-a-definition-and-discussion/ 

A friend sent me this excerpt and couple of links (of the three, the Telegraph article seems to make sense:

Richard Leblanc, Ph.D.
York University

Editor’s note: In 1998, professor Leblanc was awarded the Seymous Schulich Award for Teaching Excellence. His top ten requirements for good teaching was originally published in The Teaching Professor, Vol. 12, # 6, 1998.

GOOD TEACHING is as much about passion as it is about reason. It’s about not only motivating students to learn, but teaching them how to learn, and doing so in a manner that is relevant, meaningful, and memorable. It’s about caring for your craft, having a passion for it, and conveying that passion to everyone, most importantly to your students.GOOD TEACHING is about substance and training students as consumers of knowledge. It’s about doing your best to keep on top of your field, reading sources, inside and outside of your areas of expertise, and being at the leading edge as often as possible. But knowledge is not confined to scholarly journals. Good teaching is also about bridging the gap between theory and practice. It’s about leaving the ivory tower and immersing oneself in the field, talking to, consulting with, and assisting practitioners, and liaising with their communities.GOOD TEACHING is about listening, questioning, being responsive, and remembering that each student and class is different. It’s about eliciting responses and developing the oral communication skills of the quiet students. It’s about pushing students to excel; at the same time, it’s about being human, respecting others, and being professional at all times.GOOD TEACHING is about not always having a fixed agenda and being rigid, but being flexible, fluid, experimenting, and having the confidence to react and adjust to changing circumstances. It’s about getting only 10 percent of what you wanted to do in a class done and still feeling good. It’s about deviating from the course syllabus or lecture schedule easily when there is more and better learning elsewhere. Good teaching is about the creative balance between being an authoritarian dictator on the one hand and a pushover on the other. Good teachers migrate between these poles at all times, depending on the circumstances. They know where they need to be and when.GOOD TEACHING is also about style. Should good teaching be entertaining? You bet! Does this mean that it lacks in substance? Not a chance! Effective teaching is not about being locked with both hands glued to a podium or having your eyes fixated on a slide projector while you drone on. Good teachers work the room and every student in it. They realize that they are conductors and the class is their orchestra. All students play different instruments and at varying proficiencies. A teacher’s job is to develop skills and make these instruments come to life as a coherent whole to make music.GOOD TEACHING is about humor. This is very important. It’s about being self-deprecating and not taking yourself too seriously. It’s often about making innocuous jokes, mostly at your own expense, so that the ice breaks and students learn in a more relaxed atmosphere where you, like them, are human with your own share of faults and shortcomings.GOOD TEACHING is about caring, nurturing, and developing minds and talents. It’s about devoting time, often invisible, to every student. It’s also about the thankless hours of grading, designing or redesigning courses, and preparing materials to further enhance instruction.GOOD TEACHING is supported by strong and visionary leadership, and very tangible instructional support resources, personnel, and funds. Good teaching is continually reinforced by an overarching vision that transcends the entire organization from full professors to part-time instructors and is reflected in what is said, but more importantly by what is done.GOOD TEACHING is about mentoring between senior and junior faculty, teamwork, and being recognized and promoted by one’s peers. Effective teaching should also be rewarded, and poor teaching needs to be remediated through training and development programs.AT THE END OF THE DAY, good teaching is about having fun, experiencing pleasure and intrinsic rewards…like locking eyes with a student in the back row and seeing the synapses and neurons connecting, thoughts being formed, the person becoming better, and a smile cracking across a face as learning all of a sudden happens. It’s about the former student who says your course changed her life. It’s about another telling you that your course was the best one he’s ever taken. Good teachers practice their craft not for the money or because they have to, but because they truly enjoy it and because they want to. Good teachers couldn’t imagine doing anything else.

THE CORE
Association for Experiential Education
Schools & Colleges Professional Group Newsletter
Spring 1999, Vol. 2, # 1

Are you truly a bad teacher? https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2014/12/19/are-you-a-truly-bad-teacher-heres-how-to-tell/

What makes a good teacher: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationopinion/11347131/You-dont-need-a-qualification-to-be-a-good-teacher.html 

Microsoft Excel - What Happens To Cell References When You Sort

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7979923/how-do-i-sort-a-table-in-excel-if-it-has-cell-references-in-it

The link has some nice suggestions. 

A problem occurs when you have some data in a sheet that are referred in, say, another sheet 9say, sheet2) and when you sort the data in sheet 1 of a sheet. The cell references do not change when you sort data and hence the data in the other sheet now point to different cells.

I have given a sample example. Click the google spreadsheet. Column A in Sheet2 is set to the values in column A of sheet 1 through formula. Columns A and B in each sheet are pasted again in columns D and E for visual reference only.

N sort the data in cols A and B by selecting these two columns, sort on column A. Go to sheet 2 and see where the values for the fruits were same as before.. Compare with columns D and E in sheet 2.. See?

But if cells or rows or columns were cut and pasted somewhere else (in sheet1), the referring cells (shee2 in this case) retain their integrity. If you sort the values, they don't. 

This isn't intuitive but that's the way it works.

Similarly, let's say we use vlookup (or hlookup) on a set of columns (or rows). Now if we insert a new column (or row) within that set, the formula is likely to go wrong depending on where you inserted the new row (or column). Again not intuitive.

Generosity And Avarice

No amount of generosity is enough to appease the avaricious. Chamberlain tried that with Hitler.

A bunch of little boys were picking mangoes which were strewn around a mango tree that belonged to an elderly lady. The lady asked the boys to go away. The boys took a bunch of mangoes and ran away. A few minutes later they were back trying to pick more mangoes.

Do they do it for fun? Or is it a harbinger of things to come? Are they doing with mangoes today and will graduate to something bigger in the years to come?

It's not just little boys who do it.. I have seen women also pick the mangoes which is obviously not theirs.

Did Human Sacrifice Create Social Stratification Or The Other Way Around

http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2016/0404/Did-human-sacrifice-create-social-stratification: An amazing article that explains why we love sacrificing (others).

I wonder whether any T would believe in stratification. All the people that I know who believe in stratification are F's. I do know a F who doesn't believe in it. Weird, isn't it...

As it was pointed out in the article itself, I wish the study focused on the number of sacrifices instead of only on whether there were sacrifices.

Apparently the people who liked stratification were also the ones who inherited wealth and unlikely to have their status change much in one lifetime. 

Perhaps people who are born into such families (those who believe in stratification especially women) are likely to be insensitive towards the smaller people - the drivers, waiters, maids et al..

And people who are basically soft-natured inside are the ones who do not believe in stratification.

Creativity And Precociousness - Negatively Correlated?

This is one of the most interesting posts I have read of late. It is so surprising (and actually not that surprising) that creativity is linked to great success while precociousness is not. Quotes:

"Consider the nation’s most prestigious award for scientifically gifted high school students, the Westinghouse Science Talent Search, called the Super Bowl of science by one American president. From its inception in 1942 until 1994, the search recognized more than 2000 precocious teenagers as finalists. But just 1 percent ended up making the National Academy of Sciences, and just eight have won Nobel Prizes. "

"Most prodigies never make that leap. They apply their extraordinary abilities by shining in their jobs without making waves. They become doctors who heal their patients without fighting to fix the broken medical system or lawyers who defend clients on unfair charges but do not try to transform the laws themselves.

So what does it take to raise a creative child? One study compared the families of children who were rated among the most creative 5 percent in their school system with those who were not unusually creative. The parents of ordinary children had an average of six rules, like specific schedules for homework and bedtime. Parents of highly creative children had an average of fewer than one rule."

It's unreal, I identify with this so closely.

I am reminded of Peter Keating And Howard Roark - classic example from Fountainhead. One was the first kind, the Roark the creative kind. How Keating topped the class and flunked life while Roark flunked college and topped life. Imagine the number of rules Keating's mom would have laid. And the number of rules Roark's parents would have laid.

One can imagine the kind of early circumstances in the lives of Chatur and Rancho in 3 Idiots as well.

A friend of mine has a son. She has raised him with very few rules to the best of my knowledge. I wonder what he would turn out like in 20 years time.

This is another very interesting link. Quotes from the link (without permission)

"What explains this sort of spectacular success? What makes someone rise to the top in music, games, sports, business, or science? This question is the subject of one of psychology’s oldest debates." 

"Along the same lines, biologist Michael Lombardo and psychologist Robert Deaner examined the biographies of male and female Olympic sprinters such as Jesse Owens, Marion Jones, and Usain Bolt, and found that, in all cases, they were exceptional compared with their competitors from the very start of their sprinting careers—before they had accumulated much more practice than their peers."

"It is therefore crucial to differentiate between the influence of genes on differences in abilities across individuals and the influence of genes on differences across groups. The former has been established beyond any reasonable doubt by decades of research in a number of fields, including psychology, biology, and behavioral genetics. There is now an overwhelming scientific consensus that genes contribute to individual differences in abilities. The latter has never been established, and any claim to the contrary is simply false."

"Wouldn’t it be better to just act as if we are equal, evidence to the contrary notwithstanding? That way, no people will be discouraged from chasing their dreams—competing in the Olympics or performing at Carnegie Hall or winning a Nobel Prize. The answer is no, for two reasons. The first is that failure is costly, both to society and to individuals. Pretending that all people are equal in their abilities will not change the fact that a person with an average IQ is unlikely to become a theoretical physicist, or the fact that a person with a low level of music ability is unlikely to become a concert pianist.

The second reason we should not pretend we are endowed with the same abilities is that doing so perpetuates the myth that is at the root of much inaction in society—the myth that people can help themselves to the same degree if they just try hard enough. You’re not a heart surgeon? That’s your fault for not working hard enough in school! You didn’t make it as a concert pianist? You must not have wanted it that badly. "

Wowowowow.

While deliberate practice seems to account for 20% of skills, genes seem be account for 38% as per this article.

Quote from this study "Elementary school teachers were then asked to rate their favorite and least favorite students based on these characteristics, There was a significant difference between the teachers' judgments of their favorite and least favorite students on these measures. Judgments for the favorite student were negatively correlated with creativity; judgments for the least favorite student were positively correlated with creativity."

Quote from here: 

Gifted children have three atypical characteristics: they are precocious, they learn differently from typical children (marching to their own drummer), and they are intensively motivated to learn (showing a rage to master). High IQ giftedness is sometimes global (with children showing equivalent abilities in both verbal and mathematical areas) but is also often very uneven. Children gifted in the arts are often labeled talented rather than gifted, but whether children are gifted academically or in the arts, they show the same three characteristics. Signs of giftedness emerge very early, in the first two or three years of life, and signs are domain-specific. Despite attempts to account for giftedness in terms of nurture, no evidence allows us to rule out the necessity of an innate component. Families of gifted children have a set of characteristics (e.g., child-centered, provide enriched environments, have high expectations, grant independence) but we cannot conclude that these characteristics cause giftedness to develop. The more extreme the gift, the more difficulty the child has finding others like him/herself, and thus the more likely the child will have social and emotional difficulties. The link between childhood giftedness and adult genius is weak: while many gifted children become excellent in their respective fields, most do not qualify as adult geniuses. The many possible reasons for this are discussed, including the fact that the skill of being a gifted child involves mastery of a domain, while the skill involved in being a genius involves transformation of a domain.

Quote from here: 

"The overriding trait, indeed, the definition-of intellectually gifted students is that they are developmentally advanced in language and thought."

"For example, a 5-year-old blind child visiting Rimm's clinic did long division and word problems with fractions in his head, had perfect pitch, and played Beethoven on the piano. Whereas his verbal skills were above average, they weren't yet precocious, perhaps related to his blindness or only a reflection of uneven abilities. Time would tell. "

As a general trend, gifted students are more sensitive to values and moral issues, and they intuitively understand why certain behavior is "good" and other behavior is "bad." Gifted children and youth are likely to develop, refine, and internalize a system of values and a keen sense of fair play and justice at a relatively early age. Not only is the child likely to be more fair, empathic,and honest, but he or she will evaluate others according to the same standards. It follows that gifted students are less likely to show antisocial or other behavior problems in school. 

Here I pause and wonder. What has gidted nature got to do with being fair? I am not able to relate the two (astrologically also). Fairness is a Saturnine trait and Saturn has nothing to do with being gifted. I would have said Rahu had to do with being gifted. Hmm.

The resolution of this apparent inconsistency-whether creativity is oris not related to intelligence-lies in the threshold concept: A base level of intelligence usually is essential for creative productivity; above that threshold (about IQ 120) there is virtually no relationship between measured intelligence and creativity.

Creative persons must be independent and confident; must be motivated and energetic; and must dare to make changes, challenge traditions, make waves, bend rules, and get out of the box-and they sometimes fail in the process.  

An important implication of distinguishing between intellectual and creative giftedness is that if students are selected for a gifted program upon the basis of scores in th e top 1 % to 5% in intelligence, the majori ty of creative students will be missed. Anoth er implication is that when asked to identify "gifted" students, as we noted earlier in this chapter, many teachers will quickly nominate the well-behaved, conforming, neat, and dutiful "teacher pleasers," rather than less conforming students who are highly creative and more unconventional. Also, in many classes (for example, math or science in the middle school) the special talents of the creatively gifted may not be required. Creative students, therefore, will be less visible and less likely to be nominated as "gifted" than highly intelligent students. Ultimately, the achievements and contributions to society of many highly creative students will surpass those of brighter, conforming grade-getters. 

Additional reading:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/imagine/201003/einstein-creative-thinking-music-and-the-intuitive-art-scientific-imagination

Pratyusha Banerjee

I was looking at Pratyusha's horoscope (to be used with Jagannath Hora software).

The poor girl committed suicide - she was only 24. I am only interested in her (vedic) astrologically.

I do not know her time of birth. So the positions of Moon, Lagna and Amsa positions will not be correct - especially those of Lagna and Amsa.

Pratyusha had Moon in own house in Cancer along with exalted Jupiter and Sun also in the same house with retrograde Saturn in own house in Capricorn aspecting the three planets.

From the moon there is a powerful Gajakesari yoga with ayushkaraka Saturn with digbala in the 7th in own house. Why should this combination result in early death?

MNP (Mobile Number Porting) - India

I am now trying to find out what recourse one has when a mobile number porting request is denied by the donor operator (existing operator). The porting is:

• Is within same circle
• All payments have been made till last bill
• Payment additionally has been made of Rs 150 in excess of unbilled amount at the time of initiating porting request.
• There  is no other porting request initiated on the same number
• And the number has been with the donor (existing) operator for more than 90 days.

In the current case the donor operator is Reliance Telecom.

What should one do? What options does one have. I am shocked to find the horror stories across most operators here. Is this how desperate operators are to hold on to existing customers? 

Additional reading:

1. http://telecomtalk.info/trivial-problems-faced-by-users-on-mnp-in-india/132747/
2. http://www.vodafone.in/discover/get-started/switch-to-vodafone-mumbai: This link identifies the reasons why a porting request may be denied.

Teri Berukhi Pakistani Serial On Zindagi Channel

Some of the characters:

http://www.tv.com.pk/celebrity/Sumbul-Iqbal/50/biography

http://www.tv.com.pk/celebrity/Savera-Nadeem/6/biography

Watch an episode: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x124lra_teri-berukhi-episode-3_news: my heart weeps for the man especially when he comes outside his house and expresses anguish non verbally... I just cant feel anything nice for the 1st wife - Saveera Nadeem.

I have tried to look at life from the first wife's point of view. Unfortunately I am unable to justify her nature. In a separate vein, her dress design leaves a lot to be desired. She is a woman who lives life largely based on her desires - her irresponsibility camouflaged as being open mindedness (just as a parochial nature is often hidden under the guise of being disciplined).

She seems to be a P (as in MBTI) while the husband is J - what an awful combination. 

The 2nd wife seems to resemble Preity Zinta, while the daughter reminds me of Tanuja.

Saveera Sadeem seems to be a wonderful actress, the script and direction is wowow. I can only compare it with a Tamil serial Deivam Thandha Veedu which I watch secondarily (meaning while someone else watches, I catch the side effects of watching it). The Tamil serial seems unreal to me. The storyline is something that I (a person with zero creativity) I wrote when I was in a bad mood. The character Seetha, Banumathy, Sudha Chandran - each one of them helps immensely if you want to give up being a couch potato. This serial is a must watch for those who want to lead a less sedentary life.

I don't, of course, mean to imply that the two serials mentioned above are typical examples of Pakistani and Tamil serials. 

When I compare some Tamil serials I am forced to watch (on Vijay TV) with the Pakistani serials that I was forced to watch, I see some differences. 

• Tamil serials seem to create an intense emotional drama with relatively normal day to day events - for example a child that cut her fingers or a wife that fainted. Pak serials seem to choose slightly out of the ordinary story line and take the characters through that.
• The background score decibel in Tamil increases to indicate the enormity of the emotions. To me it seems too jarring. I wish the background music or noise is low. Let the audience figure out how to react to the scene. Subtlety is severely lacking in Tamil.
• The lack in depth in the Tamil story line perhaps forces the characters to be defined in extreme ways to generate interesting scenes. I am left feeling yucky and bristling in anger while watching some of the characters. While watching Pak serials I have far less negative feelings. May be if the Tamil serials had less noise and if people spoke in softer tones I wouldn't mind so much.

This leads to the question: What is the average person, watching the serial, like? What is he looking for? I guess he likes more heart than thought provoking stuff.

Have a Urdu dictionary handy while watching Pak serials in Zindagi channel.