Quotes: Shower Thoughts

I really enjoy some of the observational/insight tweets that "ShowerThoughts" echoes from /r/showerthoughts. Here are some relatively recent ones:

Your DNA contains millions of years worth of software updates. 

At home it’s weird for two people to eat two different things for dinner but at a restaurant it’s weird to order the same thing. 

When people talk about traveling to the past, they worry about radically changing the present by doing something small, but barely anyone in the present really thinks that they can radically change the future by doing something small. 

Shrek is a movie about loving yourself despite your physical appearance, all the while making fun of Lord Farquaad for being short. 

It’s weird that “you’re shit” and “you ain’t shit” are both insults, but “you’re the shit” is a complement. 

Cassettes had side A and side B, therefore it was kind of logical its succesor would be the CD. 

The stock market basically rewards people for liking something before it was cool. 

Our urge to sing along to songs we hear is basically the same thing as wolves howling when they hear a howl. 

I watched my dog chase his tail for 10 minutes and thought “Wow, dogs are so easily entertained”. Then I realized I just watched my dog chase his tail for 10 minutes.

Effective Oral Presentations

Recently, we talked about how to make effective oral presentations in a first year seminar class.

The focus was on technical talks - the ones that are typically accompanied by a slide deck.

I found the following resources quite useful in structuring a discussion:

• How to Give a Great Research Talk by Simon Peyton Jones
• 10 tips for academic talks by Matt Might
• Giving an academic talk by Jonathan Shewchuk

Check them out.

Where are you Dear Alphonso?

It is mango season!

I learnt several new things from an excellent piece "We Were Promised the World's Most Delicious Mangoes. They Never Came." at Vice.com.

The story resonated with me, because it connects two geographies (western Maharashtra and south Florida) which I have called home for extended periods, and a fruit I love.

Here are some of the highlights:

• India grows over 40% of the worlds mangoes (over 1000 varieties). The scientific name of a mango is mangifera indica.
• 90% of US's mangoes come from Mexico, Peru and Brazil. The 2-3 week ship voyage is the primary barrier for Indian mangoes. Air transport is too expensive.
• Tommy Atkins and the Kent are the most popular mangoes in the US. These "shitty" mangoes trace their origin to India in the late 1800s, when 12 saplings of a bunch of different varieties were shipped to the USDA.
• Only one of them the "Mulgoba" survived, and spread through south Florida. The varieties of mango popular in the US were descendants of the Mulgoba that grew on the properties of Thomas Atkins of Broward County and Leith Kent of Coconut Grove.