2010-02-22T06:21:04+00:00 http://pramode.net/ Pramode C.E pramode@radiantbytes.com 2010-02-22T00:00:00+00:00 http://pramode.net/2010/02/22/latex-in-html <h2>Test post - embedding LaTeX in HTML using jslatex</h2> <p>2010-2-22</p> <p> Do you see a properly rendered math equation here? <p> <div class="latex"> \int_{0}^{\pi}\frac{x^{4}\left(1-x\right)^{4}}{1+x^{2}}dx =\frac{22}{7}-\pi </div> <p> Check out <a href="http://blog.dreasgrech.com/2009/12/jslatex-jquery-plugin-to-directly-embed.html">this page</a> to learn how to embed LaTeX equations in HTML pages. I am using "jekyll", a static site generation tool and writing my posts in plain HTML - so this has been very easy to implement for me! <p> Thanks to <a href="http://measuringmeasures.com/blog/2010/2/19/embedding-latex-in-html.html">MeasuringMeasures</a> for this trick! 2010-02-04T00:00:00+00:00 http://pramode.net/2010/02/04/python-latex-workshop-guruvayurappan-college <h2>Python/LaTeX workshop at Guruvayurappan College, Calicut</h2> <p>2010-2-4</p> <p> I was at the <a href="http://www.zgcollege.org">Zamorin's Guruvayurappan College, Calicut</a> on Feb 1st and 2nd to conduct a Python/LaTeX workshop. A few interesting facts about the college - it was founded in 1877 - it has a 100 acre campus on top of a hill from where you can view the sea! <p> This is one college where the new syllabus is going to be implemented very well, reason being the fact that it has one or two very motivated math teachers who are learning things with great enthusiasm. One of these teachers had collected a lot of tutorial stuff regarding LaTeX from the web; she also had access to the material prepared by the <a href="http://fossee.in">FOSSEE</a> team. It was the first time that a teacher asked me to give the students some project ideas so that they can do something creative with the things that they learn! <p> Regarding the workshop itself - most of the student's were already writing Python code, so I didn't have much work to do. I tried introducing classes/objects - not sure whether the students got the hang of it. This was the first time I was doing LaTeX - I believe the students didn't find it very hard. <p> Though the workshop was on Feb 1st and 2nd, I reached calicut on the 30th itself to participate in a wedding (on the 31st). After the function, <a href="http://kishoreathrasseri.wordpress.com/">Kishore</a> and myself went to see "Avatar" at the Crown theatre (3D). I had heard somebody joke on twitter that "my dear kuttichaathan" was a better 3d film; there is also an amusing avatar-as-vietnam-colony gossip doing the rounds! Well, I am sure that the way you experience films is very subjective - but I feel this is one film which is getting a lot of undeserved praise (Kishore told me that he went to sleep for some time during the show). 2010-01-21T00:00:00+00:00 http://pramode.net/2010/01/21/python-workshop-mes-kodungallur <h2>Python workshop at MES Asmabi College, Kodungallur</h2> <p>2010-1-21</p> <p> I was at <a href="http://www.mesasmabi.com/Home.html">MES Asmabi College</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kodungallur">Kodungallur</a> today to conduct a Python workshop for math students. Happy to say that due to the initiative of an enthusiastic lady computer teacher, this college which is situated at a supposedly "backward" coastal region of Thrissur district had one of the best lab set-ups I had ever seen during my recent workshop series; I did not have to use the Phoenix Live CD on any of the machines as all of them were full fledged Ubuntu systems with all the necessary packages installed! The students already had one or two classes on elementary Python - I started off not knowing this and had to fast-forward a bit! <p> Out of a total of about 40 students for the BSc maths course, there were only three or four boys; it seems as if boys preferred more "job oriented" courses like Commerce. It's equally likely that the boys just like to wander around aimlessly and are not interested in anything even remotely intellectual like Calicut University Physics or Maths! Broadband was available in the college and there were a lot of "orkut" users among the students! Some of the girl students were very smart - going by my experience teaching engineering students for more than ten years, I have a theory that you will find most of the people who *really* deserve to study engineering in "ordinary" degree colleges - majority of the guys who are doing "engineering" (at least in the private engineering colleges) get there on the strength of their parent's bank balance and not due to any kind of intrinsic merit. <p> The youngest GNU/Linux user in the audience was the 4 year old kid of the computer teacher who dropped in towards the end; he likes to play the games bundled with the Ubuntu DVD. He ran around banging on the keyboards, trying to switch off the machines and generally pulling and pushing whatever he could lay his hands on! This little kid, and the enthusiasm of the teachers and students made my day!