[Goanet] Vivek Costa Pereira: Take That!
Vivek Costa Pereira: Take That! PEDRO would always shout late evenings, after coming home, "Take that, and that... and that." All the neighbours despised him and felt pity for his wife, Marie. Yet, every morning, the couple went about doing their work, almost normally. Pedro would work as a manual labourer, whenever called. Marie would go from house to house, selling vegetables. It was quite common for the neighbours to be overheard offering advice to Pedro to reduce his consumption of liquor, if not give up drinking altogether. They would ask Marie: "Is he getting too physical?" As usual, I was sitting at one of the corner tables at John's Bar, sipping my beer. Diagonally opposite me, the next table was occupied by Pedro, nursing his palm feny with coke and water. On the vacant chair by his side, he had kept a bottle wrapped in a plastic bag. Now, this had become a sort of a routine -- me sipping beer from my corner, and Pedro nursing feny from the opposite end of the room. He always came in with that bottle in a plastic bag. I never saw him ordering more than half a pint of palm feny. How could just half a pint of feny have such an effect on him? This was the million dollar question that bothered my curious mind for years together. "Today and now is the right time," I once said to myself. It was raining cats and dogs outside. The lights had failed; it was a pitch-dark night. I gathered courage, picked the glass with one hand and the beer bottle with the other. I moved as cautiously as a commando would to Pedro's table. I ordered another pint of palm feny for the man. Pedro, who was otherwise very reserved when it came to interacting with anyone, began to confide in me more and more with every extra sip that he was having just then. Finally, Pedro broke down and admitted that he was a hen-pecked husband. Sobbing, he said that Marie was very bossy at home with him, but timid with the neighbours. She would beat him with a stick every evening. The harder she thrashed him, the louder he would shout, "Take that!" When I asked about the bottle he brought with him, he said it was filled with plain water. When going home, he would put the plastic bag in his pocket and proudly exhibits the bottle in his hands. I reached him home that night and kept my bedroom window open. What a silent night it was, after years! Retiring to bed, I began to introspect on the masks I wear, and contemplated on the masks my acquaintances wear. The next morning, when Pedro was passing by, he appeared to have lost his usual self-confidence. When Marie came to sell vegetables, I noticed she had a black eye. -- Vivek Costa Pereira is originally from Raia, Goa, and now lives at Duler in Mapusa. He recently retired from Lourdes Convent, Saligão, where he was a popular teacher. He is an active participant of a Salcete Konkani group, SUGF on WhatsApp, where this story was first shared, and much appreciated. This is an excerpt from All Those Tales (Nellie Velho Pereira & FN, Eds). Goa,1556 ISBN 978-93-95795-65-4. 2024. Pp242. Rs500 (in Goa). See cover here: https://groups.google.com/g/goa-book-club/c/wkYAQ4D2VA0 or http://t.ly/kan08 If you'd like to join the Tell Your Story group that offers mentoring in writing, click on the WhatsApp link below https://chat.whatsapp.com/C5ge87N4WeJAW54oUXqnBO
[Goanet-News] Vivek Costa Pereira: Take That!
Vivek Costa Pereira: Take That! PEDRO would always shout late evenings, after coming home, "Take that, and that... and that." All the neighbours despised him and felt pity for his wife, Marie. Yet, every morning, the couple went about doing their work, almost normally. Pedro would work as a manual labourer, whenever called. Marie would go from house to house, selling vegetables. It was quite common for the neighbours to be overheard offering advice to Pedro to reduce his consumption of liquor, if not give up drinking altogether. They would ask Marie: "Is he getting too physical?" As usual, I was sitting at one of the corner tables at John's Bar, sipping my beer. Diagonally opposite me, the next table was occupied by Pedro, nursing his palm feny with coke and water. On the vacant chair by his side, he had kept a bottle wrapped in a plastic bag. Now, this had become a sort of a routine -- me sipping beer from my corner, and Pedro nursing feny from the opposite end of the room. He always came in with that bottle in a plastic bag. I never saw him ordering more than half a pint of palm feny. How could just half a pint of feny have such an effect on him? This was the million dollar question that bothered my curious mind for years together. "Today and now is the right time," I once said to myself. It was raining cats and dogs outside. The lights had failed; it was a pitch-dark night. I gathered courage, picked the glass with one hand and the beer bottle with the other. I moved as cautiously as a commando would to Pedro's table. I ordered another pint of palm feny for the man. Pedro, who was otherwise very reserved when it came to interacting with anyone, began to confide in me more and more with every extra sip that he was having just then. Finally, Pedro broke down and admitted that he was a hen-pecked husband. Sobbing, he said that Marie was very bossy at home with him, but timid with the neighbours. She would beat him with a stick every evening. The harder she thrashed him, the louder he would shout, "Take that!" When I asked about the bottle he brought with him, he said it was filled with plain water. When going home, he would put the plastic bag in his pocket and proudly exhibits the bottle in his hands. I reached him home that night and kept my bedroom window open. What a silent night it was, after years! Retiring to bed, I began to introspect on the masks I wear, and contemplated on the masks my acquaintances wear. The next morning, when Pedro was passing by, he appeared to have lost his usual self-confidence. When Marie came to sell vegetables, I noticed she had a black eye. -- Vivek Costa Pereira is originally from Raia, Goa, and now lives at Duler in Mapusa. He recently retired from Lourdes Convent, Saligão, where he was a popular teacher. He is an active participant of a Salcete Konkani group, SUGF on WhatsApp, where this story was first shared, and much appreciated. This is an excerpt from All Those Tales (Nellie Velho Pereira & FN, Eds). Goa,1556 ISBN 978-93-95795-65-4. 2024. Pp242. Rs500 (in Goa). See cover here: https://groups.google.com/g/goa-book-club/c/wkYAQ4D2VA0 or http://t.ly/kan08 If you'd like to join the Tell Your Story group that offers mentoring in writing, click on the WhatsApp link below https://chat.whatsapp.com/C5ge87N4WeJAW54oUXqnBO *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*- Join a discussion on Goa-related issues by posting your comments on this or other issues via email to goa...@goanet.org See archives at http://lists.goanet.org/pipermail/goanet-goanet.org/ *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-
[Goanet-News] Tanzania-born Sigmund De Souza, sings a Konkani tribute to the Burma-born Dr Jack Sequeira (in our daizpora-built Goa)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_aZAfV8Cqo https://youtu.be/A_aZAfV8Cqo?si=lZKy0OZtyEoMUAN- Sigmund writes: "On 16th January 1967 Goans voted for Goa to remain a separate state and not to be merged into neighbouring Maharashtra in the historic Opinion Poll, the first of its kind and the only held in independent India. Dr. Jack de Sequeira was the face of the movement, which included several stalwarts like Dr. Manohar Rai Sardesai, Ulhas Buyão, Shabu Desai, and Teotonio Pereira, among others. This is a song that commemorates the life, work and sacrifice of this tall leader, who is today called the Father of the Opinion Poll. I wrote it for and sung it at the inauguration of his statue at the NIO Circle, Dona Paula, on 20 April 2013." *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*- Join a discussion on Goa-related issues by posting your comments on this or other issues via email to goa...@goanet.org See archives at http://lists.goanet.org/pipermail/goanet-goanet.org/ *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-
[Goanet] Tanzania-born Sigmund De Souza, sings a Konkani tribute to the Burma-born Dr Jack Sequeira (in our daizpora-built Goa)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_aZAfV8Cqo https://youtu.be/A_aZAfV8Cqo?si=lZKy0OZtyEoMUAN- Sigmund writes: "On 16th January 1967 Goans voted for Goa to remain a separate state and not to be merged into neighbouring Maharashtra in the historic Opinion Poll, the first of its kind and the only held in independent India. Dr. Jack de Sequeira was the face of the movement, which included several stalwarts like Dr. Manohar Rai Sardesai, Ulhas Buyão, Shabu Desai, and Teotonio Pereira, among others. This is a song that commemorates the life, work and sacrifice of this tall leader, who is today called the Father of the Opinion Poll. I wrote it for and sung it at the inauguration of his statue at the NIO Circle, Dona Paula, on 20 April 2013."
[Goanet] {Dilip's essays} How magicians control flip of a coin
Jan 16 2024
Maybe I should have realized it, but I didn't. There are magicians who can
essentially control how a coin they flip lands. It needs practice, like all
good things, but it can be done.
Though if you're not motivated to start practicing that, there's something
else to intrigue you. Flipped coins show a slight, but definite, tendency
to land the way they were before the flip. There's physics that will
explain this, but there's also a team of 48 researchers that flipped coins
a total of 350,757 times and confirmed this tendency.
Take a moment to comprehend that. Over 350K times!
Done? Now read my article (Mint, December 29) and let me know what you
think.
How magicians control flip of a coin,
https://www.livemint.com/opinion/columns/how-magicians-control-flip-of-a-coin-11703779854563.html
cheers,
dilip
---
How magicians control flip of a coin
Before writing this, I divided 350,757 by 48. The result? Just over 7307.
Which means 48 people each tossed a coin 7307 times. Give that some
meaning: If you sat down and tossed a coin once every second without pause,
it would take you a little over two hours to toss it 7307 times.
Question is, would you want to do this? Probably not. But what if I tell
you it's in the pursuit of science? Then you might change your mind. Maybe
not once every second for two hours without pause, but you might agree to
perform 7000+ tosses. And that's more or less what each of these 48 people
did.
Question is, why did they do it? To answer that, we go back in time a
decade-and-a-half.
In a 2007 paper, the mathematician Persi Diaconis - famed in mathematical
circles for his skills in magic - and two colleagues reported a rather
remarkable finding. "Vigorously flipped coins," they wrote, "tend to come
up the same way they started. ... For natural flips, the chance of coming
up as started is about 0.51." ("Dynamical Bias in the Coin Toss", Persi
Diaconis et al, SIAM Review, 2007,
https://statweb.stanford.edu/~cgates/PERSI/papers/dyn_coin_07.pdf)
That is, if a coin is tails-up when flipped, it has a slightly higher
chance of landing tails, rather than heads - 0.51 to 0.49. Now this is so
slightly higher that it makes no real difference on a single coin toss,
like the one that starts off a tennis or cricket match. But instead, let's
say you have a bet with a friend that depends not on one, but a thousand
tosses. Let's say the bet is simply that when done, you will have called
correctly more often than him. Let's say you can peer closely to see which
face is up before the tosser tosses, and you call that face, every time. In
such an experiment, you're likely to win your bet, because you can expect
to call correctly about 510 times out of 1000.
This is what Diaconis and colleagues concluded. And why this slight
preference for the starting position? They start by referring to a study
that "showed that ... a vigorous flip, caught in the hand without bouncing,
lands heads up half the time." But your garden variety coin toss is not
usually so neat. "Naturally tossed coins obey the laws of mechanics," they
explain, "and their flight is determined by their initial conditions." The
coins also "precess": the coin's rotation itself changes the nature of that
rotation, as the coin flies through the air. This is just normal. Tops
precess as they rotate. So does our planet Earth. This is why the North
Pole points at the star Polaris today, but pointed at Alpha Draconis about
5000 years ago, and will point at Vega in another 13,000 years.
In the case of the flipped coin, Diaconis and colleagues took into account
its "angular momentum vector" - never mind what that means - and the angle
the vector makes with the surface of the coin itself. I'm simplifying this
somewhat here, but in short, they explain that if that angle is zero,
there's no precession. But a coin is almost never tossed that way. If the
angle is greater than 45°, the coin "wobbles around" but never turns over -
when it is caught in the hand, it shows the face it started with. In fact,
staying true to Diaconis' roots as a magician, the paper notes that
"magicians and gamblers can carry out such controlled flips which appear
visually indistinguishable from normal flips." Meaning that they can
control which way the coin lands. But less accomplished coin tossers, like
me, cannot control that angle and thus the precession. So the coin lands
unpredictably.
>From there, the paper dives into plenty more exotic mathematics. But the
researchers find that in coins flipped naturally, there's enough precession
"to force a bias of at least 0.01."
Going even further from there, Diaconis et al consider another way of using
a coin for random decisions - spinning it rather than tossing it. This can
result in "huge variations" from any expected 50-50 result, attributable to
the shape of the coin's edge and all that's embossed on the coin. In an
experiment at the University of California, Berkeley, students spun the US
1-cent coin,
[Goanet] Schedule for Wednesday 17th January 2024
CCR TV GOA Channel of God's love You can also watch CCR TV live on your smartphone via the CCR TV App Available on Google PlayStore for Android Platform. Click the link below. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ccr.tv4 Email ID: ccrgoame...@gmail.com Schedule for Wednesday 17th January 2024 12:00 AM Rosary - Glorious Mysteries 12:27 AM Do you fear? - Homily by Fr Patrick Viegas on Pentecost 12:39 AM Mando - Mogachem Channel -Cleta Sousa Fernandes and troupe -3rd Anniv 12:53 AM Psalm 91 - Read by Alfwold Silveira 1:00 AM Mass in Konkani 1:45 AM Daily Fash/ Jivitacho Prokas 1:48 AM Saibinnichi Ruzai - Orkache Mister 2:14 AM Devachem Utor -Izaias Avesor 11 -Vachpi Orlando D'Souza 2:21 AM Environment - Protecting our Oceans - Nandini Velho interviews Aaron Savio Lobo 2:49 AM Dealing with Anger - Fr Dr Joaquim Fernandes SVD 3:19 AM Post-mortem and its procedure - Dr Silvano Sapeco interviewed by Jovito Lopes 4:06 AM With the Father's Heart - A talk by Fr Aleixo Menezes 4:30 AM Ximpientlim Motiam - Bhag 307 Ratan Tata - Fr Pratap Naik sj 4:41 AM The Holy Bible - Talk by Dr Sarita Nazareth 5:09 AM Sonia Shirsat - 6th Anniversary of CCRTV 5:22 AM What's Cooking - Episode 10 - Goan Stew 5:52 AM Falling in Love - Game Plan for Love - Hosted by Judie D'Cunha 6:23 AM Konkani Bhas - Bhag 8 - Fr Pratap Naik sj 6:43 AM Ximpientlim Motiam - Bhag 45 - Rego Konknni - Fr. Pratap Naik sj 6:54 AM Documentary - Road Safety 7:00 AM Praise and Worship - Winston Colaco 7:24 AM Blessed words of the Holy Ones -St Augustine of Hippo - 7:25 AM Prayer over Expectant Mothers - St Joseph Vaz 7:27 AM In Conversation With -Dr Savio Sardinha- Childhood Development Disorders 7:57 AM Prayer of Grandparents - English 7:59 AM Bhurgeanlem Angonn - Bhag 15 8:02 AM Music - Nimanne Jevonn - George Coelho 8:06 AM Hymn : Rochnar Atmea - Winston Colaco 8:11 AM Poem : Voch ani Tum-vui Tuxench Kor - Vincy Quadros 8:15 AM St Ignatius and the Ignatian Spirituality - Fr Varun Rodrigues sj 8:50 AM Magnificat (Konkani) 8:52 AM Couples Prayer - English 8:57 AM Hymn -Keep up the Faith - Cassini Suiam 9:01 AM Dev Amkam Kiteak Pekhoita - Dominic Rodrigues 9:32 AM Prayer - Litany of the Saints 9:40 AM Bhagevont Zuze Vazachem Novena Magnnem 9:43 AM What is the differrence between Ascension and Assumption? - Rev. Clive Diniz 9:47 AM Jivit Bodol - Talk by Fr Jeronimo D'Silva 10:15 AM Ximpientlim Motiam - Bhag 47 - Bhokti - Priti - Fr Pratap Naik sj 10:23 AM Talk for Youth - Fr Roland Coelho SJ 11:07 AM Senior Shepherds - Fr Hector Almeida sj intererviewed by Colin Pereira 11.30 AM Mass in English 12:15 PM Daily Fash/ Jivitacho Prokas 12:18 PM A Dialogoe of Differences - Radharao Gracias and Subhash Velingkar 1:28 PM Ask Dr Sweezel - Preferable sitting position at desk jobs 1:34 PM Choir - Our Lady of Succour Church, Socorro 1:44 PM Pidda - A talk by Mathew Fernandes 1:59 PM Prophetic Role of Religious - Talk by Sr Saral 2:10 PM Pride - Talk by Dr Silvia Noronha 2:43 PM Ximpientlim Motiam - Bhag 307 Ratan Tata - Fr Pratap Naik sj 2:54 PM Ximpientlim Motiam - Bhag 47 - Bhokti - Priti - Fr Pratap Naik sj 3:00 PM Divine Mercy Chaplet 3:10 PM CCR TV visits Xavier Centre of Historical Research 3:41 PM Hymn - Deva Mhojea Deva - Fr Ronaldo Fernandes 3:47 PM Intercession - Talk by Bertha Rocha 3:55 PM My Music Videos - I wish - Ernest Flanagan 4:00 PM Rosary - Glorious Mysteries 4:27 PM Senior Citizens Exercises - 7 4:30 PM Senior Shepherds - Fr Hector Almeida sj intererviewed by Colin Pereira 4:54 PM Pope's Intercessions 4:57 PM Skit by YU4C 5:22 PM Abundant Life - Can we pray with Whatsapp? - Prof Nicholas D'Souza 5:46 PM Bhagiancher Niyall VI - Br Malvino Alfonso ocd 5:54 PM Hymn - St Francis Xavier H.S. - Bhatpal 6:00 PM Mass in Konkani 6:45 PM Activists of Goa - Amit Palyekar interviewed by Daniel F. de Souza 7:30 PM Saibinnichi Ruzai - Orkache Mister 7:56 PM Ratchem Magnem 8:00 PM Aimorechen Magnnem 8:05 PM Buddling Talent of Goa - Shanaya Rebelo interviewed by Jessica 8:33 PM Broadening the horizons of your minds - God's Not Dead- Fr Fio Mascarenhas sj 9:09 PM Literally Goa - Michelle Mendonca Bambawala interviewed by Frederick Noronha 9:42 PM Devachem Utor -Izaias Avesor 10 -Vachpi Orlando D'Souza 9:55 PM Juanv Bautistachea Bhagivont Jivitak Man Dium-ya - talk by Fr. Xavier Braganza 10:10 PM Walking in the power of the Holy Spirit - Alfwold Silveira 10:36 PM Music Uncovered : Tony Dias talks to Alfwold Silveira 11:09 PM Wisdom Reflections -12 - Rachol Professors 11:36 PM Creative Strokes - Wilfred Goes Donations may be made to: Beneficiary name : CCR GOA MEDIA. Name of Bank : ICICI Bank Branch Name: Panaji Branch RTGS/NEFT Code : ICIC015 Savings Bank Account No : 262401000183
