Svbtle used to be free for anybody to join, but it isn’t anymore. Those who joined earlier are lucky because they get basic features for free, forever. But things that used to be available before, like subscribing by email and custom domains, is now restricted to paid members.

For any new people who want to join Svbtle, the first thirty days are free, but subsequently, a recurring fee of $6 has to be paid per month to continue to use Svbtle.

Sure, this can make money for the person who made Svbtle, and supporting something for free for a long time is clearly not possible. But at least subscribing by email and custom domains, which were free features before, should’ve remained available indefinitely for early users.

So I’m going to stop writing on Svbtle now (but you can access previous posts as you wish).

Bye bye, Svbtle, and thank you for your time, but I now realise that it wasn’t...

It’s a good book, though some of the language is pretty American, so I have to check that up in the dictionary, and there are a few words I don’t understand. Also, I lose track of the scene in the middle of reading it sometimes, and then I can’t imagine the person in the book doing things and have to reread that part again and again in order to understand how the scene plays out.

But other than that, the book is – so far – good. And I especially like that the chapters alternate between the character’s past and present, so it’s like we’re following two distinct but related (in that some characters in the “past” also appear in the present) threads that slowly explain the peculiarity of certain characters in the present.

So read the book.

This root mean square thing has come in useful multiple times. In Physics, for example, alternating current circuits have root mean square current, which is very useful because the root mean square current, when treated like direct current, delivers the same power as AC.

Root mean square in Physics pops out of our calculations when we wish to compare one kind of thing with another in energy terms. In another example, this time, in the kinetic theory of gases, the root mean square velocity of the atoms in a gas, when used to calculate the kinetic energy, give the average kinetic energy of any such gas. On the other hand, if we use the average velocity of the atom in the gas and calculate the kinetic energy of a particle having the average velocity, we do not get the average kinetic energy possessed by the gas.

So averages in energy come across as “root mean square” things. Power is...

It’s an awesome thing that I just found out about.

It’s a kind of mathematical analysis that explores the possibility of taking real or complex number powers or complex numbers powers of the differentiation operator (D = d/dx) and integration operator (J).

Powers refers to the iterative application of the function – also called function composition. It’s like if you want to write f(f(x)), you can write f²x.

In other words, fractional calculus is concerned with meaningfully interpreting fractional iterations of the differentiation and integration operators. In other words, one looks at defining D^a, for real-number values of a so that when a takes up an positive integer value ‘n’, the usual n-fold differentiation is recovered, and for negative integer values ‘n’ of of a, n-fold integration is recovered.

A major application of this is generalising differential equations by applying the...

It’s always been difficult thing to do for me, but some people do it with ease, almost naturally, and they’re completely unaware that this thing that they do – balancing work and play – doesn’t come to everybody like it comes to them.

An naturally smart person will always assume that the average person is as smart as they are. It’s a very natural thing to assume that if I’m like so and so, everybody else must also be like that.

The only way to really balance work and play is to set a schedule. I can’t emphasise enough on this.

Set a schedule.

Set a schedule.

Set a schedule.

(And follow it.)

That last part is important. You need to follow your schedule, but don’t get too religious about it. The point is that you need to get work done when it’s work time, and get play done when it’s play time.

It doesn’t matter how to schedule it, as long as you’re getting enough sleep (in one...

This is to do with inheritance in the C++ programming language.

I’ve read in quite a few places on the internet, that inheritance in C++ is class-based, not object-based. Now I couldn’t understand what that meant, until I actually started reading about classes on the internet.

It turns out the textbook didn’t cover important details like these.

It is perfectly legal for objects of the same class to access each other’s private data. You might think, “Wha… is he talking abou…?” and I must admit I thought the same.

But what I mean to say is that if you declare multiple objects of the same class, then the member functions of those objects can access each other’s members, apart from their own members, including those under the private access specifier.

It gets weirder when inheritance doesn’t use the public visibility mode. In protected inheritance, the derived class’s members cannot...

There’s a purely Physics explanation for the whole being greater (in Physics, it can also be lesser) than the sum of its parts. But I’m not talking about that meaning, which involves the equation E = mc^2, one of the most popular equations known to any common person (by which I mean 60%-50% of the human population).

I’m talking about having an all-rounder type personality and skill set, rather than only being really good at one thing. The job market for most jobs that require very specific disciplines is already saturated, and for quite some time, a simple reason being that very few people with such technical expertise are needed in society. In addition, few people opt for degrees in such specific subjects, so the supply-demand thing works out fine and is fairly stable.

On the other hand, there is an outpour of teachers in India. More teachers, out of desperation, are willing to work...

Being funny and smart is something a girl would tell you if she likes you. It’s by far the two most popular personality traits that are attractive to either sex.

Admit it: nobody likes a dumb bore. That does mean a person who isn’t funny and not smart isn’t good. In fact, such people might be the most loyal, dedicated and hard working kind of people you meet, precisely because they aren’t funny or smart.

But I’m not talking about being funny (or smart), I’m talking about writing funny and smart stuff. When I read something that strikes me as smartly humorous, I laugh out loud (no, not saying the word LOL, but actually laughing audibly) and instantly look to subscribe to the author’s other writings.

Unfortunately, not many people’s writings make me laugh, but those that do receive my highest regards, respect and appreciation. Because writing that’s funny in a clever way just seems like...

Not another post on limits…

Too late.

The sandwich theorem, known as the squeeze theorem in certain curriculums, is a fairly important theorem on limits.

In simple terms, it states that if ƒ₁ ≤ ƒ₂ ≤ ƒ₃ are three functions and the limit as ƒ₁ and ƒ₃ tends to a number is the same, then the limit as ƒ₂ tends to that number will also be the same.

The following graph illustrates this quite clearly. It also makes clear why this theorem is described using words like sandwich and squeeze.

So, now that you’ve got a hang of this thing, let’s take an example and analyse it non-mathematically. All you have to do is find two functions the given function is in between. Then find the limit you need to find, but of those two functions, and if they’re the same thing at the given point, then any function in between them will have the same limit at that point.

Go on, have fun with this, because...