Reads: A Model Village, Sex Workers & More
[A wrap up of some of the interesting reads from across the Web.]
A village that plants 111 trees for every girl born in Rajasthan - The Hindu
In a time when news channels and newspapers drone on and on about rapes, sexual violence, corruption and other depressing stories, this one comes as a breath of fresh air. That a remote village in the state of Rajasthan plants 111 trees for every girl child born oozes positivity and hope that one day we may be able to achieve gender equality, at the same time put a kibosh on shameful practices like female infanticide.
Over the last six years, people here have managed to plant over a quarter million trees on the village's grazing commons... On an average 60 girls are born here every year, according to the village's former sarpanch Shyam Sundar Paliwal, who was instrumental in starting this initiative in the memory of his daughter Kiran, who died a few years ago. In about half these cases, parents are reluctant to accept the girl children, he says.
Rs. 21,000 is collected from the village residents and Rs.10,000 from the girl's father and this sum of Rs. 31,000 is made into a fixed deposit for the girl, with a maturity period of 20 years. But here's the best part. “We make these parents sign an affidavit promising that they would not marry her off before the legal age, send her to school regularly and take care of the trees planted in her name,” says Mr. Paliwal. >>
The sex workers giving disabled people a chance to live out their dreams - The Guardian
Disabled people too have their dreams and fantasies don't they? Tuppy Owens's thoughtful write up on how sex workers can be an effective channel to their sexual gratification:
One told me she recently saw a 38-year-old whose father had called after both parents had sought her out. It was their son's birthday and he was a virgin. The father brought him down. She bought a birthday cake and a present.
Another of her clients was a virgin too, and wasn't going to live much longer. His mother contacted her. Now she sees him once every six weeks. It's been a year. The mother drives the sex worker back to the train station, and says her son is much happier all round since having her visit. >>
Why Margaret Thatcher was both icon and outcast - CNN
Reaction to Margaret Thatcher's death in the UK has been polarizing to say the least. While there is no doubt that the nations's first woman prime minister revolutionized the economy, a few sections of the society have taken it upon themselves to rejoice and celebrate the occasion. Robin Oakley touches on the aspects that made Thatcher both an icon and outcast.
Aided and abetted by sections of the media, it seemed Thatcher came to believe in the myth of her own invincibility. That was what led her into mistakes including the poll tax -- a charge that saw dukes and domestic cleaners paying the same local dues -- and increasingly shrill anti-Europeanism, which alarmed even her own party and eventually led them to discard a leader who had won them three consecutive elections. >>
When Brain Damage Unlocks The Genius Within - Popular Science
We all have our own sets of abilities, something which we can be proud of. But what if a head trauma or a brain damage can unlock your unknown potential? Sounds great eh? Take the case of Derek Amato who discovered his ability to play the piano after a head concussion, or Jason Padgett, the only known living man who can draw those complicated geometrical patterns otherwise called fractals.
[Allan] Snyder thinks Amato’s musical prodigy adds to mounting evidence that untapped human potential lies in everyone, accessible with the right tools. When the non-musician hears music, he perceives the big picture, melodies. Amato, Snyder says, has a “literal” experience of music—he hears individual notes. Miller’s dementia patients have technical artistic skill because they are drawing what they see: details.
“Our hypothesis is that we have abilities that we cannot access,” [Berit] Brogaard says. “Because they are not conscious to us, we cannot manipulate them. Some reorganization takes place that makes it possible to consciously access information that was there, lying dormant.” >>
The PC inside your phone: A guide to the system-on-a-chip - Ars Technica
Most of us use a smartphone to drive our daily activities, but what is it that drives a smartphone to work like it's supposed to? Of course, the hardware that comprises of the CPU, GPU, memory, bridges and other stuff. But with rapid technological advances, it's now possible to cram more and more of these previously separate components into a single chip, which is called System on Chip (SoC). Here's Andrew Cunnigham's informative overview on the subject:
To help you keep things straight, we've assembled this handy guide that will walk you through the basics of how an SoC is put together. It will also serve as a guide to most of the current (and future, where applicable) chips available from the big players making SoCs today: Apple, Qualcomm, Samsung, Nvidia, Texas Instruments, Intel, and AMD. There's simply too much to talk about to fit everything into one article of reasonable length, but if you've been wondering what makes a Snapdragon different from a Tegra, here's a start. >>
A village that plants 111 trees for every girl born in Rajasthan - The Hindu
In a time when news channels and newspapers drone on and on about rapes, sexual violence, corruption and other depressing stories, this one comes as a breath of fresh air. That a remote village in the state of Rajasthan plants 111 trees for every girl child born oozes positivity and hope that one day we may be able to achieve gender equality, at the same time put a kibosh on shameful practices like female infanticide.
Over the last six years, people here have managed to plant over a quarter million trees on the village's grazing commons... On an average 60 girls are born here every year, according to the village's former sarpanch Shyam Sundar Paliwal, who was instrumental in starting this initiative in the memory of his daughter Kiran, who died a few years ago. In about half these cases, parents are reluctant to accept the girl children, he says.
Rs. 21,000 is collected from the village residents and Rs.10,000 from the girl's father and this sum of Rs. 31,000 is made into a fixed deposit for the girl, with a maturity period of 20 years. But here's the best part. “We make these parents sign an affidavit promising that they would not marry her off before the legal age, send her to school regularly and take care of the trees planted in her name,” says Mr. Paliwal. >>
The sex workers giving disabled people a chance to live out their dreams - The Guardian
Disabled people too have their dreams and fantasies don't they? Tuppy Owens's thoughtful write up on how sex workers can be an effective channel to their sexual gratification:
One told me she recently saw a 38-year-old whose father had called after both parents had sought her out. It was their son's birthday and he was a virgin. The father brought him down. She bought a birthday cake and a present.
Another of her clients was a virgin too, and wasn't going to live much longer. His mother contacted her. Now she sees him once every six weeks. It's been a year. The mother drives the sex worker back to the train station, and says her son is much happier all round since having her visit. >>
Why Margaret Thatcher was both icon and outcast - CNN
Reaction to Margaret Thatcher's death in the UK has been polarizing to say the least. While there is no doubt that the nations's first woman prime minister revolutionized the economy, a few sections of the society have taken it upon themselves to rejoice and celebrate the occasion. Robin Oakley touches on the aspects that made Thatcher both an icon and outcast.
Aided and abetted by sections of the media, it seemed Thatcher came to believe in the myth of her own invincibility. That was what led her into mistakes including the poll tax -- a charge that saw dukes and domestic cleaners paying the same local dues -- and increasingly shrill anti-Europeanism, which alarmed even her own party and eventually led them to discard a leader who had won them three consecutive elections. >>
When Brain Damage Unlocks The Genius Within - Popular Science
We all have our own sets of abilities, something which we can be proud of. But what if a head trauma or a brain damage can unlock your unknown potential? Sounds great eh? Take the case of Derek Amato who discovered his ability to play the piano after a head concussion, or Jason Padgett, the only known living man who can draw those complicated geometrical patterns otherwise called fractals.
[Allan] Snyder thinks Amato’s musical prodigy adds to mounting evidence that untapped human potential lies in everyone, accessible with the right tools. When the non-musician hears music, he perceives the big picture, melodies. Amato, Snyder says, has a “literal” experience of music—he hears individual notes. Miller’s dementia patients have technical artistic skill because they are drawing what they see: details.
“Our hypothesis is that we have abilities that we cannot access,” [Berit] Brogaard says. “Because they are not conscious to us, we cannot manipulate them. Some reorganization takes place that makes it possible to consciously access information that was there, lying dormant.” >>
The PC inside your phone: A guide to the system-on-a-chip - Ars Technica
Most of us use a smartphone to drive our daily activities, but what is it that drives a smartphone to work like it's supposed to? Of course, the hardware that comprises of the CPU, GPU, memory, bridges and other stuff. But with rapid technological advances, it's now possible to cram more and more of these previously separate components into a single chip, which is called System on Chip (SoC). Here's Andrew Cunnigham's informative overview on the subject:
To help you keep things straight, we've assembled this handy guide that will walk you through the basics of how an SoC is put together. It will also serve as a guide to most of the current (and future, where applicable) chips available from the big players making SoCs today: Apple, Qualcomm, Samsung, Nvidia, Texas Instruments, Intel, and AMD. There's simply too much to talk about to fit everything into one article of reasonable length, but if you've been wondering what makes a Snapdragon different from a Tegra, here's a start. >>
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