Avinash Meetoo: Blog

22 August 2008 Update II: Bruno Julie has earned a Bronze medal for all of us!

Bruno Julie lost on points against the Cuban. Even though I am completely ignorant of boxing techniques, I felt that Bruno Julie was tired at the end. The TV commentator suggested that the referee made a mistake but, frankly, I don’t have a clue…

The most important thing is that Bruno Julie is officially now the first ever Mauritian to earn a Bronze medal at the Olympics. It will be years (at least 4 more) before another Mauritian tries to equal this so this is a fantastic achievement. Congratulations to you, once more, Mr Bruno Julie!

My wife, my two kids and myself will be at the SSR International Airport to welcome Mr Bruno Julie to Mauritius! Who is coming?
 
22 August 2008 Update I: Bruno Julie’s fight at 15:31 today!

Today, at 15:31, a lot of Mauritians will stop whatever they are doing and watch Bruno Julie’s fight against Yankiel Leon Alarcon of Cuba during the first semi-final of the 54Kg boxing competition at the 2008 Beijing Olypics.

Bruno Julie is already sure of winning a Bronze medal at least. And this is a first for our tiny country, Mauritius. I sincerely hope that Bruno Julie’s performance will make Mauritians realize the importance of preserving our unity and working towards the same goals and objectives. Allé Bruno! Allé Maurice!

18 August 2008 Update: The first ever Olympic medal for Mauritius!

Bruno Julie has won convincingly. Therefore, he is the first ever Mauritian to obtain an Olympic medal. He now is in the semi-final. Who knows what may happen next.

Thank you for giving us, fellow Mauritians, so much joy. And May The Force Be With You for the next fight!

18 August 2008: May The Force Be With You, Mr Bruno Julie!

Today is an historic day for our tiny country, Mauritius, as Bruno Julie, will fight in the men’s 54kg boxing quarterfinal in the Beijing 2008 Olympics at exactly 15:16. If he wins against Hector Manzanilla Rangel of Venezuela, he will be the first Mauritian ever to win an Olympic medal and he’ll be one of the few real heroes of our country.

Good luck, Mr Bruno Julie! May The Force Be With You!

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written by avinash

The Rajiv Gandhi Science Centre which is at Bell Village is one of the most well-kept secrets in Mauritius!

We went there two weeks ago with average expectations… We payed (I believe) Rs. 30 for a ticket. The first nice surprise was that there were a lot of things to experiment with in the yard. Things like using parabolas to transmit sound very efficiently (3rd picture) and lots of optical illusion experiments (4th and 5th pictures above.) As you can expect, the kids were having a lot of fun. And Christina and I were happy to answer all their questions.

Inside we got our second surprise: there were so many things to see (the story of the universe, the geological story of Mauritius, lots of background info on great scientists, etc.) and also so many things to experiment with (see the photos.) Anya, Kyan and their cousin, Chloé, were running everywhere trying out things and having a lot of fun! As a scientific, I was ecstatic. I couldn’t prevent myself wondering why some science classes (at primary and secondary levels) were not done there. I’m sure students would have understood a lot more.

I have to admit that there are some problems. Some of the experiments have stopped working and should be repaired. Applying fresh paint would not be a bad idea at all especially outside. But apart from those “details” which are so easy to remedy, the Rajiv Gandhi Science Centre is a great place to go to spend some hours and learn a lot at the same time.

Go there one day and I’m sure you’ll like it. We did.

(Click on the picture above or here for additional photos.)

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written by avinash

Randy Pausch, Professor at Carnegie-Mellon university, died yesterday of complications from pancreatic cancer at the age of 47.

A few weeks ago, Gavin and I watched his last lecture, Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams, and it was a nice experience. This guy knew he was going to die, yet he was happy to give a last lecture in front of a packed audience and talk about how he felt he had managed to achieve most of his dreams (like being in zero-gravity, working at Walt Disney Imagineering and creating Alice, a 3D environment to learn programming.) The video is available on YouTube.

What struck me during Randy Pausch’s last lecture was the fact that he had managed to do great things (Alice for example.) Like a lot of my heroes in fact. People like Linus Torvalds (of Linux fame of course), Paul Graham (of Viaweb and Y Combinator fame), Steve Jobs (Apple and NeXT), Richard Branson (Virgin) and countless other creators (like artists and programmers.)

Our world is what it is thanks to inventors and creators. And I’ve realized that most creative people are not working in a university doing research anymore. In his very interesting Why I am Not a Professor or The Decline and Fall of the British University, Mike Tarver writes:

The mandarins in charge of education decreed that research was to be assessed, and that meant counting things. Quite what things and how wasn’t too clear, but the general answer was that the more you wrote, the better you were. So lecturers began scribbling with the frenetic intensity of battery hens on overtime, producing paper after paper [...]

[But is] the paper important?  Is it something people will look back on and say ‘That was a landmark’.  Applying this last test requires historical hindsight - not an easy thing.  But when it is applied, very often the list of one hundred papers disappears altogether. Placed under the heat of forensic investigation the list finally evaporates and what you are left with is the empty set.

Mencius Moldbug is more direct in his What’s wrong with [Computer Science] research blog entry:

The reason why [Computer Science] research produces so little that can be called creative programming these days is that the modern process of grant-funded research is fundamentally incompatible with the task of writing interesting, cool and relevant software. Rather, its goal is to produce publications and careers, and it’s very good at that.

Bureaucrats build academic empires which churn out meaningless solutions to irrelevant problems.

And this is what made me realize that I was on the wrong track. I do not want to churn out meaningless solutions to irrelevant problems. I am not (and never will be) a bureaucrat. As from now, I’ll do things.

Thanks Mike and Mencius. Rest in peace, Randy.

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written by avinash