Tutorial Series
This multi-part tutorial series is an attempt to capture Linear Algebra concepts succinctly and intuitively while not leaving out the difficult concepts. The first part covers the basic definitions which are essential to foray into this area.
The objective of this article, a first of a multi-part tutorial, is to understand the basic definitions in Linear Algebra and start thinking in terms of matrices and vectors. It is also an initiation into understanding and verifying the concepts programmatically.
If any part or concept is unclear, kindly do comment below.
Basics
Let us start with a matrix, named H (for happy!?!). A matrix, by the way, is just a rectangular array of numbers arranged in rows and columns.
Sports Analytics
A Brief Tutorial on the PageRank Algorithm
The overall objective of this work is to explore network science algorithms towards cricket analytics. This article covers a part of this goal. The IPL data is used for this purpose with a particular focus on the PageRank algorithm. A few ways to build the graph networks are presented, followed by methods to extract some interesting insights. More importantly, a brief tutorial on the PageRank algorithm is also included. CSK and MI, the two most prominent teams in IPL are compared with each other using PageRank.
Indian Premier League is one of the most popular sporting leagues in the world…
Commentary
A commentary on the continuing series of events after the death of the young actor.
Many years back, when in school, I read a story which went as follows. A tourist travels to a new country and gets tattooed on his back by a famous artist. The tattoo artist suddenly dies, with this tattoo being his last completed art.
A journalist takes a photograph of the tattoo and makes it the news on the front page, making the tourist instantly famous.
Next day, a prominent minister declares the tattoo as a national treasure. Taking notice, the rival country, to which the tourist actually belonged, also makes strong claims to the artwork. …
Run then, for victory.
The right posture is crucial to avoiding injuries.
The objective of this article is to explain the complex science behind the gait analysis of a runner in layman’s terms. It starts by describing the biomechanics of running and what defines gait analysis. Then it explores the relationship between injuries and bad posture. Thereafter, it lists out a number of strategies to develop the right posture while running.
Most of the injuries which occur during a run are essentially due to incorrect posture. When I started to run, I used to slouch so much that at the end of a long run I used to get a sore neck…
Technology
A roundworm has 300 neurons and 7000 connections between them. We still do not understand how its brain works. Our brain has 86,000,000,000 neurons and 100,000,000,000,000 connections. Neuralink’s device has 1024 electrodes. That sums up as to where we stand.
Neuralink is a neurotechnology company founded by Elon Musk trying to build a sewing machine which can thread-in thin electrodes into the brain. It showed its first demonstration, a couple of days back creating hardly any buzz (check the plot below) around it. And rightly so.
Movie Review
After 21 years, Mahesh Bhatt returns with a dud of a film.
½ ☆☆☆☆
I watched this movie as soon as it was released on Disney+, but it took many hours for the lingering after-effects to subside, for me to be able to write this review. It is highly unlikely that 2020 will witness a more substandard mainstream movie from Bollywood.
This is the sequel to the movie Sadak, released in 1991 which is claimed to be the highest grosser of that year. Well, that was a different era. A fact which Mahesh Bhatt seems to have not realized, he…
Movie review
Bland, boring and burdensome to watch. A disappointing movie which is based in 83, looks in 83 and feels like it is made in 83.
★½ ☆☆☆
Class of 83 is a story of cops who start as rogue trainees and become encounter specialists under the tutelage of Vijay Singh donned by Bobby Deol. It is based on the book by Hussain Zaidi. Hussain Zaidi is a prolific and brave crime writer and a former investigative journalist. Though I have not read his book, I am quite sure that SRK’s Red Chillies has failed to do justice to the source material.
In a typical crime drama, the audience could be entertained in many ways. Either through the Dabangg styled brainless entertainment filled with cheeky dialogues…
Movie Review
A decent watch, considering the inspiring real-life story on which it is based, but what accompanies throughout is similar lalaland vibe, of the trademark Karan Johar movie. Apparent shades of GI Jane in the screenplay and a clear case of plagiarism of the beats from Top Gun.
★★★☆☆
Before getting into the review of the movie, let us look at the pulse of the nation. Which major cities are watching the movie? This would say a lot about what kind of audience the movie connects with. The distribution of viewership is highly non-uniform indicating that this movie is not resonating with the masses. The skyscrapers from Mumbai, Kolkata and Delhi in this plot affirm that is a movie for the metropolitans. Quite unlike the recently released Pareeksha which had a wider reach.
Torrent Science
Analysing the viewership of the environment and climate-related documentaries towards quantifying the concern for climate change among countries of the world.
Australia, currently, is highly concerned about climate change.
Between the Australian wildfire and the razing of the Amazon forest of 2019, the continued melting of the polar ice, the increasingly raging global weather, the forgotten Europe-sized ozone hole over the south pole and the current centennial pandemic; the key question is — How concerned are the countries of our world about climate change?
In this article, I present my experiments towards finding an answer to this important question, by applying data science to the mining of BitTorrent networks. If you are impatient, like me, the key insights are presented at the bottom for your instant perusal. …
Movie Review ★★ ½ ☆☆
Avrodh fails to do justice to the 2016 events and falls terribly short in any comparison with the movie. (★★ ½ ☆☆)
Avrodh is a Hindi word meaning bottleneck. It is a nine-part series which shows the Uri terrorist attack and the following surgical strikes from the Indian army. Decent performances from the actors all over and an honest attempt at retelling the events. But fails to have a lasting impact on the audience, unlike the movie. It is always a challenge to retell the story while competing with a precedent.
There are two fundamental pivots to this event. One is the emotion of losing soldiers to a terrorist attack and second is depicting the valor of the army in avenging the…
Deepak Karunakaran
computer scientist — cinephile — writer — runner
