India’s Hidden Baolis Captured in photos

Posted on October 10, 2019 by Rashid Faridi

A new photobook has been published that unveils the history behind one of India’s best kept architectural secrets – a series of idiosyncratic subterranean stepwells scattered all over the country.

Called The Vanishing Stepwells of India, the project was completed by Chicago-based journalist Victoria Lautman over the course of seven years, and saw her exploring different parts of India to discover more about the background of the unique ancient structures. Also known as baolis, vavs and kunds in various parts of the country, stepwells are manufactured storage systems that were created to allow people to access a water source by descending a series of steps. Not only did they provide communities with water all year long, but also served as civic centres, refuges, remote oases and, in many cases, active places of worship. Besides their functions, they were also marvels of engineering, architecture and art, with some being lavish and ornate while others were minimal and utilitarian. They could be enormous, plunging nine stories into the earth, or could be intimately scaled for private use.

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Some useful ways, Students and Academics can organize their time management

Posted on October 10, 2019 by Rashid Faridi

Guest Post by Jason Cohen

Teachers are entrusted with the huge responsibility of nurturing the minds and characters of the coming generations. However, before they embark upon this process of building nations. They have to develop honesty, integrity, moral values and work ethics in their own lives to present themselves as role models for others. One of the primary work ethic is punctuality, regularity and time management. There are certain ways in which time can be managed by teachers in an efficient manner.

  • Be organized

You must know your priorities. Keep the most important task at your foremost priority. And by making setting priorities and being organized, it doesn’t mean you have to abide by that only in a classroom environment or workspace. You should know that mismanagement in your personal life can affect your teaching schedules. For instance, if you kept watching a movie or your favorite show till late at night, you might reach late. Now, this getting late is a bit pardonable in other professions but what if your reaching late made you miss your lecture. Or you reached when half of its designated time was already wasted.

  • Avoid procrastination at all costs

Being a teacher you are in the least favorable position to procrastinate. If you are assigned a class at, let’s say 10 am, you can’t postpone it like people of other professions. They may delay tasks for a later time when it suits them but yours is fixated one that you have to take at the time anyways.

The best way to save yourself from this trouble is to have a disciplined lifestyle habit. Eat healthy but not junk, sleep well, drink plenty of fluids and regularly work out. When you are physically fit, its less likely that you will feel lackluster in the morning to go up and get ready for work. Also, keep your mental health intact too.

Avoid stress at all means. It can eat away productivity in the worst form. Especially as a teacher you need to apply your mental faculties more than anyone else. So feeling mental pressures can curb your ability to teach well. When your physical and emotional well being is taken care of, chances to procrastinate are diminished too.

  • Make realistic commitments

Never tell your administration fellows that you can teach six classes when you can teach three. It’s not mere lectures that will come your way. Checking assignments, grading them, drafting exam papers and marking the piles of them will become an everyday routine. So don’t create nightmares for yourselves by accumulating an unrealistic workload. Do the quality work, and don’t rely on quantity.

  • Strategically design your lesson plans

Don’t try to cramp things together and shove them down the throats of your students. Take things lightly and don’t try to force them to do more in less time. This way you yourself will start rushing against the time that will affect the productivity of you and your students eventually. And your feedback shall be affected too! Since students never admire such teachers. Keep repetitive tasks for homework and spend more time in class inculcating clarity of ideas and the topic at hand.

Keep them loaded less so your own workload remains in limits. If you bombard them with projects and assignments that will return at you to create a miserable situation. Reviewing and grading them will devour your time reserved for your personal matters as well.

  • Time tracking for teachers and academics

Academic institutions are responsible for laying the foundations of the discipline and work ethics for the impressionable minds they are training as future leaders. However, first, they need to discipline their own routine by streamlining processes like scheduling, payrolling, attendance and other management tasks. Time tracking software with seamless features can provide a solution for these tasks.

Teachers or faculty members need to adhere to their class/lecture schedules but there is none who can monitor the responsible delivery. Likewise, attendance is not properly tracked at most of the places. A time tracking app can solve many of these issues. For instance, they will have to update the task before every class or lecture and change it after it’s over. Attendance is not an issue as when they start a timer, an institution will know they have arrived. The Stafftimer app is an ideal solution for these challenges as it offers an optional screenshot feature. Since a screenshot can’t be captured from a lecture so an optional screenshot feature is a perfect fit for it.

                                                       Conclusion

Just like technology has created ease for many other professions, it has potential benefits for teaching as well. It was a long-standing issue for academic institutions to solve their time management issues, which can be now handled in an automated manner.

Author Name: Jason Cohen

Bio: I am precisely described as a tech junkie working in content development and marketing for a thriving start-up: staff time monitoring software. Literature lover by default. My interests range from politics to social issues, books to tech trends, gadgets and so on.

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Conical Projections

Posted on October 8, 2019 by Rashid Faridi

Four well-known normal conical projections are the Lambert conformal conic projection, the simple conic projection, the Albers equal-area projection and the Polyconic projection. They give useful maps of mid-latitudes for countries which have no great extent in latitude.

1.Lambert conformal conic projection:

The Lambert conformal conic projection is confomal. The parallels and meridians intersect at right angles (as in any conformal projection). Areas are, of course, inaccurate in conformal projections. Like with other conformal projections, Lambert’s conical is also widely used for topographic maps. It is adapted in France and recommended to the European Commission for conformal pan-European mapping at scales smaller or equal to 1:500,000.

Lambert Conformal Conic projection (standard parallels 10 and 30 degrees North).

2.Simple conic projection:

The simple conic projection (figure below) is a normal conical projection with one standard parallel. All circular parallels are spaced evenly along the meridians, which creates a true scale along all meridians (i.e. no distortion in north-south direction). The map is therefore equidistant along the meridians. Both shape and area are reasonably well preserved. Whereas small countries are possibly shown on this projection, larger areas, such as Russia or Europe are better portrayed on the conic projection with two standard parallels.

Simple conic (or equidistant conic) projection (standard parallel 15 degrees North). The meridians are true to scale.

3.Albers equal-area projection:

The Albers equal-area projection uses two standard parallels. It represents areas correctly and has reasonable shape distortions in the region between the standard parallels as compared with the noticeable distortions of the Lambert’s equal-area conic projection with one standard parallel. This projection is best suited for regions predominantly east-west in extent and located in the middle latitudes. Used for small regions or countries but not for continents. It is adapted for maps of the United States, for thematic maps and for world atlases.

Albers equal-area conic projection (standard parallels 10 and 30 degrees North).

5.Polyconic projection:

The polyconic projection is neither conformal nor equal-area. The projection is a derivation from the simple conic projection, but with every parallel true to scale (similar to the Bonne’s equal-area projection). The polyconic projection is projected onto cones tangent to each parallel, so the meridians are curved, not straight (figure below). The scale is true along the central meridian and along each parallel. The distortion increase rapidly away from the central meridian. This disadvantage makes the projection unsuitable for large areas on a single sheet. It is adaptable for topographic maps, and is earlier used for the International Map of the World, a map series at 1:1,000,000 scale published by a number of countries to common internationally agreed specifications, and also for large-scale mapping of the United States until the 1950’s and coastal charts by the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey.

Polyconic projection, with true scale along each parallel.

6.Pseudo-conical projections:

Pseudo-conical projections are projections in which the meridians are represented by curves, and the parallels are equally spaced concentric circular arcs (unlike the pseudo-cylindrical projections in which the parallels are represented by straight lines). The central meridian is the only meridian that is straight. Examples are the Bonne and Werner projection.

Bonne’s projection (figure below) is a pseudo-conical equal-area projection, with every parallel true to scale (similar to the polyconic projection). The projection was once popular for large-scale topographic maps and to map the different continents. The Werner projection is a variant of Bonne’s projection with the standard parallel at the North or South pole.

Bonne’s projection (standard parallel 60 degrees North), with true scale along each parallel.

Source: 

Kartoweb

Posted in Class Notes, earth, Geography Practicals/Lab and Statistical Techniques | 2 Comments

Why UK have Weird Place Names?

Posted on October 6, 2019 by Rashid Faridi

Bishop’s Itchington, Westley Waterless: there is plenty to smile or snigger at on a map of the UK. But in fact, these names reveal a hidden – and fascinating – history.

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