thescian
Posts by this author
June 14, 2008
Works by Austrian painter Gustav Klimt are at Tate Liverpool. Klimt is one of Vienna's famous sons (another is Freud). He was obsessed with Sex and Death and his distillation of these quintessential human experiences is extraordinarily powerful. Consider The Kiss. It is intoxicating. One could…
June 14, 2008
Sunil promises to send Orson Scott Card's How to write science fiction to a story with the most creative scientific content (and does not break any laws of science).
Go for it!
June 11, 2008
Hear! Hear! TheScian Science Fiction Story Contest for this year has been announced! Follow this link for rules and dates and more. If all goes well, you may find your story in print next year. But first, you must compete to win. Tell your ambitious, head-in-the-galaxy friends whose speculations…
June 6, 2008
Which is easy: To maintain your balance when cycling uphill, or when cycling downhill? Assume you maintain a constant speed of 6 km/hr and the inclination is constant. If you like to challenge your proficiency in physics, assume further that you are negotiating a bend.
I don't know the answer so I…
June 2, 2008
Goethe ... is a wonderful instance of the fact that the purest naïveté and the most mighty understanding can go hand in hand. -Thomas Mann on Goethe.
When I read this, it struck me as extraordinarily insightful. Perhaps, I am taking Mann out of content, but I shall talk anyway. Aren't those who…
May 30, 2008
I have been wondering. Do all religious explanations of Creation of the world necessarily involve narcissism and incest? If everything comes from god, Creation is an act of incest beginning with god's own self. Is that why Thomas Aquinas and St Augustine invoke god's dignity in disallowing sexual…
May 29, 2008
Latest TWiT episode has Brewster Kahle speaking of archive.org and more. He is extremely persuasive. Must listen.
Zattoo, a new IPTV service that serves free TV on the computer (low resolution, like youtube, but uses p2p like BBC's iPlayer) in Europe and hopes to make money by sticking ads while…
May 29, 2008
I recently read John Irving's Trying to save Piggy Sneed, a collection of essays and a few short stories. It's a good book to pick up if you haven't read Irving yet. Briefly, Irving's The World according to Garp is one of the craziest and astonishing book (my current read). You may know one of the…
May 28, 2008
[Image Credit: David C. Blackburn] Who would have thought! However, the frogs have to really kick hard to unclaw - the claw comes out by piercing the frog's skin. A half-baked defense mechanism is what I think this is. Maybe in another hundred years - and if we keep pushing their habitats to the…
May 23, 2008
Announcement at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation: SEATTLE -- In recognition of its groundbreaking work to prevent debilitating blindness and provide affordable, world-class eye care to the poor, the Aravind Eye Care System, based in Tamil Nadu, India, has won the 2008 Gates Award for Global…
May 19, 2008
They that have power to hurt and will do none,
That do not do the thing they most do show,
Who, moving others, are themselves as stone,
Unmoved, cold, and to temptation slow,
They rightly do inherit heaven's graces
And husband nature's riches from expense;
They are the lords and owners of their…
May 15, 2008
So, it's gonna get MickeySoft (that's a Wolf in Mickey make-up, run children, run). As, one Slashdot commenter put it, "This is like McDonalds bullying and lobbying to make the BigMac the preferred choice for UN's world food programme, and succeeding."
Give a read to Ivan KrstiÄ's remarkably…
May 15, 2008
I've used music from ccMixter for TheScian audio and it was always a pleasure to listen to remixes of Calendar Girl. Here's the news from ccMixter:In October 2006, singer song-writer Tamara Barnett-Herrin from London in the UK published a one sentence challenge to herself and to remixers around the…
May 14, 2008
G1.9+0.3, remnant of the most recent supernova in our galaxy that happened a mere 140 years ago.
Wired post covering the announcement.
May 13, 2008
A BBC report:According to Unicef's latest State of the World's Children's report, India has the worst indicators of child malnutrition in South Asia: 48% of under fives in India are stunted, compared to 43% in Bangladesh and 37% in Pakistan.
Meanwhile 30% of babies in India are born underweight,…
May 12, 2008
The intoxicated brain knows no fear. Apparently, that's why people loosen-up when drunk and will happily talk to fearsome strangers. That's funny, 'coz someone I know will go completely quiet when drunk and will simply stare at you like you are a wall of abstract painting if you talk to him. I am…
May 12, 2008
I've received a couple of emails from folks who wanted to know when this year's contest would be announced. Shortly, folks. Meanwhile, get going with your story. If I may, I'd suggest mulling over the story idea, setting, characters, tone, etc obsessively and making notes before you actually begin…
May 12, 2008
The divine architect of runny noses,
The wizard of ooze, of two stinky hoses,
You made every man woman a misfit
With appendages and stomach full of shit.
Sexy theater in a messy sewer,
Shame on you unintelligent designer!
Harris, Hitchens, PZ, Dennett and Dawkins:
May their godless fists land where…
May 8, 2008
Donate what you can. Save the Children. Red Cross. The death toll may have crossed 100000.
April 30, 2008
is a good dose of the idealism that started it. And, it has now got it in full measure! As most of the readers know, I am enthusiastic about the OLPC (and have obtained one via G1G1). Slapping Windows on it may make it more useful in the short term (every business quarter), in the long run though (…
April 23, 2008
Two book podcasts I listen to regularly.
CBC Writers & Company
Eleanor Wachtel is probably the finest interviewer of writers out there. Give a listen to her recent interviews. In one of the episodes, Orhan Pamuk is interviewed and what he said about V S Naipaul is still on my mind. Naipaul,…