thescian
Posts by this author
January 9, 2008
If you aren't a Tamil, you probably didn't get the title. i09's got a post about a Indian sci-fi movie along with a ravishing image of Thaleevuru (a.k.a Rajnikanth, a extremely popular tamil movie star. Thaleevuru is a Tamil slang for Da Man, which is a slang for...never mind). The movie to be…
January 9, 2008
Tangled Bank 96 - Toadally at Aardvarchaeology where you'll learn that clams have herpes (wha..WHA!!??).
January 9, 2008
NENThe National Entrepreneurship Network (NEN), founded in 2002, is a not-for-profit initiative of the Wadhwani Foundation, working to inspire, educate and support the next generation of high-growth entrepreneurs in India.
NEN was co-founded by five of India's premier academic institutions: IIT…
January 9, 2008
John Pollock writes at TR:In 1798, the English economist Thomas Malthus argued that population increases geometrically, outstripping the arithmetic growth of the food supply. He promised "famine ... the last, the most dreadful resource of nature." It took another 125 years for world population to…
January 8, 2008
The wife asked, what if we jump and there's no gravity? You are the science dude. Extrapolate.
Well, that's a great question (and you are very pretty, of course). A small correction to the question. There is no place where there's zero gravity. If there is such a place it is infinitely far away and…
January 8, 2008
So Intel has pulled out. Well, fuck them. If you own Intel stocks and have no idea of what I am talking about, then screw your apathetic greedy self too.
Here's what got me all riled up: businessweek article where the author has got it totally backwards.Not only is this [OLPC] profoundly anti-…
January 7, 2008
Found a Buddhist statue that's got style. (Style: also know as cool, aesthetics, taste and w00t!)
I sent this picture (well, tried to) to all those unfortunate folks on my friends list in Facebook using some weird app that kept crashing on me (or my instance of Firefox 3 Beta). In the end, I…
January 7, 2008
Before anyone says anything, I'll question the metaphor myself: giant computer? That's just a stupid metaphor, as though we can compare a giant and the Universe. But then, we can't speak from a out-of-this-universe perspective, so, I suppose giant computer would have to do.
So now, if the Universe…
January 7, 2008
Forward the article Naps May Boost Memory to your colleagues and your employer, then start boosting your memory.
January 7, 2008
at NYT. [via /.] My own personal favorite WriteRoom is reviewed. w00t!
January 6, 2008
Yours truly has come out the rock he has been hiding under and has signed-up onto Facebook.
When I signed-up, Facebook offered a chance to surprise all those on my gmail addressbook ( selvakumar @ gmail , look me up, yo). And, I did. It also offered to send me a million dollars which I politely…
January 3, 2008
Boots is a big healthcare/beauty store here in the UK. I buy a lot of shit-gear for my daughter there. Like all other stores out making a quick buck Boots too harps on the vitamin supplements theme and sell things that would make you levitate, help your mother, and transport you to paradise. But,…
January 3, 2008
A summary of a forecasting (sort of) report at RealClimate:The group imagined three potential scenarios, labeled expected, severe, and catastrophic. These are not forecasts exactly, since forecasting society is even harder than forecasting climate, which is itself pretty dicey on a regional spatial…
January 3, 2008
Simple truths, simply written; one on unceasing Life and the other on what we make of that Life - the precarious gait that some call experience. How moving! Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman: two of the America's greatest poets.
A noiseless patient spiderWalt Whitman
A noiseless patient spider,
I…
January 2, 2008
Learn the basics from the shiny new sci-fi blog from gawker media i09.
January 2, 2008
A recent Science Friday podcast at NPR, hosted by the ever ebullient Ira Flatow. Absolutely fascinating.
January 1, 2008
John Hockenberry on the big Media Networks and what he learnt by working for them, at TR. A passionately written account of why they are so fucked up.The most memorable reporting I've encountered on the conflict in Iraq was delivered in the form of confetti exploding out of a cardboard tube. I had…
January 1, 2008
Read the novels "One Hundred Years of Solitude" (see a note) and "Measuring the world". Read a few of Borges's stories, but I am yet to read him more thoroughly. 2008 would be that year, I hope. Is magic realism the voice of the so-called third world?
Rediscovered Shakespeare through a rereading…
December 31, 2007
No, no, it wasn't caused by any of the modern marvels to counter erectile dysfunction, it was biological evolution ensuring good sex and the consequences thereof, says Dr Bowman. A report at Press Esc:"As the diameter of the bony pelvis increased over time to permit passage of an infant with a…
December 30, 2007
Great post at Neil Gaiman's journal on getting an agent (via reddit). Covers much more ground than just agents. Read up. I liked these best:There is no substitute for writing a book that people want to buy and read. If you can do that, you can get published. If you can't, no clever workaround will…
December 30, 2007
Astonishing story at Beebs.They share an easy intimacy that belies the fact that identical twins Elyse Schein and Paula Bernstein spent their first 35 years in total ignorance of the other's existence. They were given up for adoption to separate families as part of an experiment in the US to…
December 27, 2007
Measuring the world is a novel by the young Austrian writer Daniel Kehlmann who has been hailed as one of the most promising new generation of writers. This novel is the first to be translated into english (by Carol Brown Janeway) and has become a international sensation.
The novel examines the…
December 26, 2007
From The Independent:Three Florida fruit-pickers, held captive and brutalised by their employer for more than a year, finally broke free of their bonds by punching their way through the ventilator hatch of the van in which they were imprisoned. Once outside, they dashed for freedom.
When they found…
December 23, 2007
Coincidentally, I read two contrasting poems on the same day: Shakespeare's sonnet in the Oxford book and Philip Larkin in The Nation's Favourite Twentieth Century Poems.
Shakespeare's famous 12th sonnet that urges us to procreate
When I do count the clock that tells the time,
And see the brave…
December 18, 2007
We needed a secular name. Some day, I hope considerations like secular names would be irrelevant. But, this is not that day. As a parent, I did not wish my child to bear a name that leans on blind faith.
What's in a name, we wondered at times, as we ruled out name after name which were biased in…
December 10, 2007
Nidhi Nova was born on 7th Dec early morning after a marathon labor (24 hrs) when she and her mother tried to negotiate the rites of passage. In the end, Nidhi had to be operated out as her head was turned improperly disallowing natural birth. Mother and daughter are fine.
You can expect a series…
December 2, 2007
Hooray! After days of anticipation, they are finally out!
First Prize - A Story in Blue by J RamanandJoint Second Prize - Call of the Running Tide by Anita MurthyJoint Second Prize - The Going Got Tough by Dr Shantala
Congratulations to the winners!
A few words on the stories. Ramanand's story is…
November 30, 2007
Murphy's Body Snatchers Law states that if a body can be snatched, it will be. Watch a wasp turn a cockroach into a zombie by blocking a neurotransmitter and then leading it by its antenna to the dining table to be eaten [via Slashdot]
Reminds me of a recent short story I read. Greg Egan's Steve…